The tech behind the Mars Curiosity rover

Stunning images from Mars. Thanks for a really interesting article
 
BANG_Mutha said:
Ok, so why is the technology inside the Curiosity so outdated? I can understand the slow transfer rate but why the outdated hardware? My phone has more advanced hardware and my phone is also almost 2 years old now.
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Curiousity had a development phase of +-10 years. They couldn't replace certain tech due to initial design parameters.
 
Interesting, these are the first actual pictures of Curiosity in build that I've seen - at last I can at least partially believe that it actually exists!
 
Curiosity features two identical on-board computers called Rover Compute Element (RCE).

The computers are radiation-hardened, allowing them to survive the extreme radiation from space.

Each computer’s memory includes 256kB of EEPROM, 256MB of DRAM, and 2GB of flash memory.
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So that's where my 2 Rassberry Pi's on backorder went.
 
MexicanStandoff said:
all that money on a donkey

I think NASA can extract more data from a turd


seriously there's nothing on mars.
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double-facepalm.jpg
 
Remember, the flash memory and CMOS chips isn't your run of the mill Sandisk SD Micro cards. These things have to handle huge amount of radiation and frikken space travel.

Rather go with less and make sure it is usable than arrive with 2 TB of flash yet you can't access anything.
 
ebendl said:
Remember, the flash memory and CMOS chips isn't your run of the mill Sandisk SD Micro cards. These things have to handle huge amount of radiation and frikken space travel.

Rather go with less and make sure it is usable than arrive with 2 TB of flash yet you can't access anything.
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Quality not quantity :D
 
MexicanStandoff said:
all that money on a donkey

I think NASA can extract more data from a turd


seriously there's nothing on mars.
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this..

DrJohnZoidberg said:
double-facepalm.jpg
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What kinda hurts is the slowest speed via the orbiters is the same speed the DoC calls true broadband here in SA. Seriously, if they can get 256Kbps as the SLOWEST option between 3 and 5 light minutes away surely we can aim for something better for a standard in SA?!?!?
 
Bern said:
this..



What kinda hurts is the slowest speed via the orbiters is the same speed the DoC calls true broadband here in SA. Seriously, if they can get 256Kbps as the SLOWEST option between 3 and 5 light minutes away surely we can aim for something better for a standard in SA?!?!?
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At least our latency is still better... :)
 
Somebody watch the video and give us an update? Can't watch youtube at work... :)
 
ebendl said:
At least our latency is still better... :)
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I was actually thinking about that when I read the article.

The concept of TCP/IP would work but the the data packets would have to be huge and/or numerous in order to get any sort of throughput. You can't constantly wait for handshaking or error correction packets so the rover would have to start transmitting for several minutes before it started receiving retransmit packets back from Earth.
Would be interesting to see the protocol spec.
 
Paul_S said:
I was actually thinking about that when I read the article.

The concept of TCP/IP would work but the the data packets would have to be huge and/or numerous in order to get any sort of throughput. You can't constantly wait for handshaking or error correction packets so the rover would have to start transmitting for several minutes before it started receiving retransmit packets back from Earth.
Would be interesting to see the protocol spec.
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Huge transmit and receive windows ;)
 
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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