The tech behind the Mars Curiosity rover

ebendl said:
I'm guessing it is more a UDP type spec with a lot of redundancy and error checking in each packet, obviously also with some acknowledgements every now and then.

That's most likely why the throughput is so slow.
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Probably something vaguely similar to VSAT transmissions?
 
Curiosity can communicate with Earth directly at speeds up to 32kbit/s, but the transferred data will go through the orbiters at 2Mbit/s and 256kbit/s on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Odyssey orbiter respectively.
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And yet we cry like babies if our 4Mb line run at 3mb... I wonder how long it will take curiosity to wheel out of there if it comes across a bunch of aliens :D
 
Man! Get a manned mission going already! They can just have the transport home in orbit! 16 months travel ain't nothing. Just have a female astronaught along for recreation. Preferably not a Cosmonaught from Siberia :p
 
Some good articles which explain why the computers are like this:

<http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/2012/06/aerospace-and-defense-systems-integrators-continue-their-reliance-on-radiation-hardened-electronics.html>
<http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57491281-76/slow-but-rugged-curiositys-computer-was-built-for-mars/>
<http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/08/cosmic-rays/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Top+Stories%29>

These types of computers can cost between $200,000 and $500,000 and can take between 5 and 8 years just to do the qualification tests.
 
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