Mars Landing...

[Tex]

Really cool....

 

[crgildart]

Science FTW!

 

[scott43]

Science FTW!

 

[slowrider]

 

[crgildart]

 

[Tex]

When I was a kid late 60's early 70's, those cartoons got me out of bed every morning.

 

[SkiNurse]

 

[slowrider]

 

[DanoT]

 

[Tex]

Legendary....

 

[dbostedo]

Some new pics out there from Perseverance... I think this is the coolest one. They got pics during the landing this time... this one from the sky crane as it lowered the rover down.

 

[Bad Bob]

Nope! No intelligent life on Mars.

 

[Tex]

This is really cool....

 

[Bad Bob]

Have they flown the copter yet? That will be astounding with the images it should be able to offer.

 

[dbostedo]

This is really cool....

I was one of the designers on the processor that controls the landing and rover.... we were all pretty nervous watching it on a big zoom call at work. I can't imagine how nervous the NASA folks are when they do things like this. (If you're curious, the processor is a BAE Systems RAD750, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAD750)

 

[scott43]

That is one hardy processor...

 

[Tex]

I was one of the designers on the processor that controls the landing and rover.... we were all pretty nervous watching it on a big zoom call at work.

That's awesome! I bet you were nervous to hear "Houston, we got a problem, the processor is froze up!!"

 

[dbostedo]

That's awesome! I bet you were nervous to hear "Houston, we got a problem, the processor is froze up!!"

Well... that's a worry, but I'm not sure you'd ever know exactly what happened. But it's a proven, very reliable processor - there have been quite a lot of them flown, including on the prior Curiosity rover. But that landing, with the retro rockets and sky crane, is insane... to me, there isn't anything humans have done that seems more straight out of a sci-fi movie.

 

[Tex]

Nope! No intelligent life on Mars.

That looks just like west texas, but you see this instead...

 

[scott43]

Well... that's a worry, but I'm not sure you'd ever know exactly what happened. But it's a proven, very reliable processor - there have been quite a lot of them flown, including on the prior Curiosity rover. But that landing, with the retro rockets and sky crane, is insane... to me, there isn't anything humans have done that seems more straight out of a sci-fi movie.

And really, when you're writing your own OS and have complete control over all ops, reliability trumps CPU speed.