Mars Rover Remains In 'Critical' Condition...

Spaceflight Now.com ^ | 01/23/2004 | William Harwood

[Robert_Paulson2]

not linux, but definitely a unix tree...

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

What!!

No compassion?

Poor little fella is just lonesome

[Hiwayman]

OS = VxWorks
Processor = Rad6000 (Late 80's Chip)

See this link for more specifics: http://www.gcn.com/22_24/news/23246-1.html

[PFKEY]

The distinction is lost on me beyound the most basic of definitions.

[roadcat]

The telemetry, collected earlier and subjected to complex analysis, also shows how the rover bounced across the floor of Gusev Crater before finally rolling to a stop.

The thing was bouncing all over the ground, and worked flawlessly after landing. So how could the failure have been from simple motion rolling over rocks and pebbles? It's got to be an electrical short from static discharge, or a stupid software error. Did they waterproof the sucker? Maybe it got stuck in mud. ;>

[baclava]

Well hell, when's the next one due to land?

[Merdoug]

Hey, remember that Outer Limits episode about astronauts disappearing on a sandy planet? Turned out to be SANDSHARKS! :)

[Steve Eisenberg]

Interesting link.

Each of the two rovers has only one CPU and one set of software for the entire mission. Asked about redundancy—there is no way to hot-swap components in deep space—Klemm said, “That’s why we’re sending two rovers.” . . . NASA officials hope that Spirit and Opportunity will avoid the problems that doomed the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander spacecraft. The lander had a retrorocket landing system. The software that sequenced the landing events evidently mistook vibrations from the landing gear for actual landing and shut down the engine prematurely, Klemm said.

The statement in the link that the software wasn't done until after the liftoff, when it was sent to the spacecraft, sounds bad. Shouldn't they have been testing things out by dropping the whole package from aircraft here on earth, maybe in Antartica so it would be cold?

[Bush Cheney]

My guess is that something malfunctioned in the highly complicated robitic drilling arm (RAT).

[Robert_Paulson2]

I am probably misinterpreting the directory tree, but the primary distribution appears to be for solaris,
then unixes, like linux,
then with the use of win32s, and an installation of "tornado" it appears it can run on a windows architecture...
They make public their binary installation tree.


base Root directory of the base distribution
base/configure Operating system independent build config files
base/configure/os Operating system dependent build config files
base/configure/tools Perl and shell scripts used in the build
base/config R3.13 compatibility build configuration files
base/src All epics base source code in subdirectories
base/src/as Access security
base/src/bpt Break point table
base/src/ca Channel access
base/src/cas Channel access server
base/src/db Database access
base/src/dbStatic Static database access
base/src/dbtools Database dbLoadTemplate tools
base/src/dev Device support
base/src/gdd General data descriptor
base/src/iocsh Ioc shell command interpreter
base/src/libCom General purpose library code in subdirectories
base/src/libCom/bucketLib Hash bucket
base/src/libCom/calc Algebraic expression interpreter
base/src/libCom/cvtFast Fast number to string conversion
base/src/libCom/cxxTemplates C++ templates
base/src/libCom/dbmf Memory management for frequent alloc/free
base/src/libCom/ellLib EPICS double linked list
base/src/libCom/env Default EPICS environment settings
base/src/libCom/error Error handling definitions and routines
base/src/libCom/fdmgr File descriptor manager
base/src/libCom/freeList Memory management using free lists
base/src/libCom/gpHash General purpose hash table
base/src/libCom/logClient Logging client
base/src/libCom/macLib Macro substitution handler
base/src/libCom/misc Miscellaneous utilities
base/src/libCom/osi Operating system independent code
base/src/libCom/osi/os Operating system dependant code in subdirectories
base/src/libCom/test Test tools (timer, semBinary, semMutex,fdmgr, ?)
base/src/libCom/timer Timer
base/src/libCom/taskwd Task watchdog
base/src/libCompat EPICS base R3.13 compatibility code
base/src/makeBaseApp Perl tool+templates to create app dvl tree
base/src/makeBaseExt Perl tool+templates to create extension dvl tree
base/src/misc Miscellaneous (coreRelease, iocInit, asSub*)
base/src/rec Record support
base/src/registry EPICS support function registry
base/src/rsrv Channel access ioc resource server library
base/src/toolsComm Code for the build tools antelope and e_flex
base/src/util Utilities (ca_test, iocLogServer, startCArepeater)
base/src/vxWorks R3.13 compatibility code specific to vxWorks
base/startup Scripts for setting up path and environment

Install directories created by the build
base/bin Installed scripts and executables in subdirs
base/lib Installed libraries in arch subdirectories
base/dbd Installed data base definitions
base/include Installed header files
base/include/os Installed os specific header files
base/templates Installed templates

[VRWC For Truth]

ummm,Sean ... Howard Dean's post Iowa caucii speech blew out the transmitter.

[Bars4Bill]

I can't let you do that, 11B3.

[bonesmccoy]

was thinking of my windows 95 memory leak...

I wonder if something happened with the RAT?

[upchuck]

I suspect one of the Delta Force Martians zapped Spirit with his ray gun. Now they're all sitting around just out of camera range, drinking beer, eating chips and laughing their asses off at us.

[John H K]

This would not have happened if we had sent people up there instead! Just proves that nasa [read as; never a stright answer] can waste more money than we can provide!

For some unfathomable reason this sentiment pops up on every thread on the Rover. Are people really that incapable of thinking through a logical thought?

It probably would have cost SEVERAL HUNDRED TIMES what this Rover cost to "send people up there."

And, of course, for that money we could send SEVERAL HUNDRED ROVERS, such that we'd care less of one malfunctioned.

And I'm not sure where people got the idea that having a human around is the magical solution to all technical problems.

On a manned Mars mission, there will likely be several thousand different ways the crew can either be killed instantly, or stranded on Mars to die, by technical failures they can't forsee or repair.

What's worse, a dead Rover or dead people?

[oceanview]

NASA is too busy hiring program managers and do-nothing consultants to actually hire programmers and engineers who know how to do this stuff and make it solid. The Apollo teams did amazing stuff with, by today's standards, primitive equipment. And these guys? Tear the entire agency apart before giving them 1 more dollar to any of these new space initiatives, they will just piss it away.

[George from New England]

Did you mean: excessive roboting?

[baclava]

Maybe they should go back to smoking cigars after a successful landing.

We can barely come up with something cool enough to manage a landing, move more than ten feet per week, and last for longer than a month. Are we ever going to get off this damn rock? Uh, Noooo....

With our horrendously stagnant technology these days, we are not going anywhere for hundreds of years. It'll take the assistance of a space traveling alien race to offer a hand to us morons if we ever want to accomplish some fantastic feat anytime soon.

[lepton]

This would not have happened if we had sent people up there instead! Just proves that nasa [read as; never a stright answer] can waste more money than we can provide!

Yeah, they certainly would not have continually rebooted.

[lepton]

What's worse, a dead Rover or dead people?

Ask PETA. :P