Files 'Overloaded' Mars Probe

BBC News ^ | January 26, 2004 | Unattributed

[quidnunc]

Nasa scientists say hundreds of computer files that have accumulated on the Mars rover Spirit may be the cause of problems that have crippled it.

These "cruise files" will now be deleted from the second Mars rover Opportunity before it rolls on to Mars to begin its science mission.

The Spirit rover suffered a major malfunction on Thursday 22 January causing a loss of contact with Earth.

Opportunity landed on Sunday and is apparently in excellent health.

Surface development manager for Spirit, Jennifer Trosper, said the problem involved two types of memory used by Spirit: Ram and flash.

Contact re-established

The space required in the rover's Ram memory to manage the data files stored in its flash memory was more than anticipated due to the build-up of files, Ms Trosper told a news conference.

-snip-

[js1138]

Damn poor OS that requires manual garbage collection.

[So Cal Rocket]

Hmmm... I think I'll go clear my Cache right now.

[Johnny_Cipher]

Just like I tell my non-computer-literate wife, YOU CAN'T JUST KEEP DOWNLOADING FILES WITHOUT DEFRAGGING AND/OR WIPING OLD ONES OUT EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE.

[VaBthang4]

Yep...

[Monty22]

It seems kinda weird that they didn't think of this, since everything else is going so well. But anyway, glad it sounds fixable and they can fix it for Opporunity.

And frankly, Opportunity looks like the vastly more interesting landing site at this point.

[Charles Martel]

Damned popups...

[Trueblackman]

Hit the delete button damn it!!! Delete Delete Delete.

[TXnMA]

Damn poor OS that requires manual garbage collection.

Apparently a Microsoft product...

[_Jim]

1st step:

    dir c:\

2nd step:

    del *.jpg

    del *.gif

...

[Professional Engineer]

bump

[Diogenesis]

If we had continued R&D of the 680x0 chip, Amiga OS, germanium semiconductor
and had a translunar shuttle, we'd be mining asteroids now.

[pctech]

you stole my line!

[adam_az]

Apparently an application error, not an OS flaw.

Unless you are suggesting that OS should read minds and determine which user files to delete.

[alnitak]

Sod it, just go the whole hog:

del *.*

or better yet

format c:

[longtermmemmory]

So what we have is a little rover that forgot to go to the bathroom 35million miles ago.

[Dog]

Fyi..

[Axenolith]

Somebody hacked the return path... All the files are really emails that start off "GROW AN ENOURMOUS AND THICK PROBE NOW!"

[Bush Cheney]

Ahhh yes.....computer users know well....when your drive/memory/resources get low....you're screwed!

[geedee]

So THAT's where my damned old Gateway went.