Mars Rover Has 'Amnesia' With Worn Out NAND Memory

[EasyLover]

Ouccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

This is something which should have been catered for during the design phase. Billions of dollars spent with NAND base solution. Anyhow, Let's really hope NASA gets lucky with remaining 6 banks.

It was in the design. It's been up there for 10 years. Original design life was 90 days.

Thanks for pointing that out I read it earlier though.

 

[SkyBill40]

I'm just not comfortable putting all of my potentially irreplaceable data on an SSD.

All drives die. That's what backups are for.

I'm aware of that and it's why I've got a portable backup drive.

 

[EasyLover]

Even backup drives will fail eventually. It is a good habit to save important data on backup media. Very unfortunate that I'm not habitual.

 

[SessouXFX]

Time for a Sandisk Extreme or a Samsung 850 EVO....

 

[synphul]

Typical government program. Explore another planet that has no bearing on our way of life other than to satisfy curiosity and at the same time, manage to litter up another planet with space junk they have no intention of reclaiming. Nice. Haven't we junked this planet up enough? Mars will end up looking like an abandoned ghetto with broke down vehicles rotting all over the place before people even manage to get there.

 

[smeezekitty]

This is why I suggest sticking with SSDs with higher write cycles.
And backing up to a mechanical drive. The write endurance really isn't
that great especially with newer SSDs with a lot of bits per cell.

(And no, 10 years isn't that good. I have mechanical hard drives that are
TWENTY years old with 0 bad blocks)

 

[USAFRet]

(And no, 10 years isn't that good. I have mechanical hard drives that are
TWENTY years old with 0 bad blocks)

Your memory hasn't been driving around on Mars for the last decade.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

....(And no, 10 years isn't that good. I have mechanical hard drives that are
TWENTY years old with 0 bad blocks)

But would they have survived launch, transit through interplanetary space, reentry, and 10 years in the Martian environment? I think not. Built for a 90 day mission, and still going after 10 years, that's excellent life.

 

[smeezekitty]

(And no, 10 years isn't that good. I have mechanical hard drives that are
TWENTY years old with 0 bad blocks)

Your memory hasn't been driving around on Mars for the last decade.

Of course not. Mechanical drives would be a terrible choice for that.
Even mechanical laptop drives can be iffy. My point being is
that those saying that 1000 --or less-- write cycles may not always be correct.

 

[SessouXFX]

Naturally, 10 years ago, SSDs weren't nearly as advanced as they are today. So anyone making the assumption that they put it out there, knowing it would be junk, with that kind of attitude, we'd never even gotten to the Moon. Anytime NASA does something of this magnitude, they know they're taking a chance. The question is, is the effort worth it in the end. Personally, I'd say yes, it's worth it, even just to know what's going on, or even what happened there.

 

[velocityg4]

It is pretty amazing the memory lasted this long. Given the development cycle of NASA tech. The rover is likely using NAND memory from the early to mid 1990's. Which doesn't come close to the write cycle endurance of modern memory.

Even though it launched in 2003, anything they send to space is painstakingly developed and programmed for years. When they choose technology they do not change it unless they absolutely have to. As a simple upgrade to us could have unforeseen problems to a multi-year and multi-million dollar mission.

The Rover uses a 20mhz IBM RAD 6000 CPU, 128 MB DRAM and 256 MB Flash memory. These would have been hardened versions of chips that already had a few years of proven reliable service. Like the RAD 6000 is basically an under clocked PowerPC 601.

 

[ithurtswhenipee]

I am guessing the NAND in this rover isn't something that you and I can buy. It is probably engineered a bit more robustly considering it is going to mars.

 

[WyomingKnott]

Typical government program. Explore another planet that has no bearing on our way of life other than to satisfy curiosity and at the same time, manage to litter up another planet with space junk they have no intention of reclaiming. Nice. Haven't we junked this planet up enough? Mars will end up looking like an abandoned ghetto with broke down vehicles rotting all over the place before people even manage to get there.

Leads to my favorite practical joke.

1) Build exact copy of a failed Mars rover.
2) Attach a note asking people to take out their trash when they are done with it.
3) Leave it in front of NASA chief's office over the weekend.

Unfortunately, step 1 is beyond my resources. Maybe some kids at MIT could give this a try.

 

[Draven35]

When you talk about how a new rover would be 'so much better', check into what components are actually space-rated, and you will discover:

1: Ten year old NASA equipment is more like a 15 year old computer
2: A brand new rover full of space-rated gear would upgrade it to about the same spec as a 7 year old computer.

(Many, MANY modern components depend on certain specs for radiation and heat dissipation that won't occur on Mars, much less in space.)

 

[smeezekitty]

When you talk about how a new rover would be 'so much better', check into what components are actually space-rated, and you will discover:

1: Ten year old NASA equipment is more like a 15 year old computer
2: A brand new rover full of space-rated gear would upgrade it to about the same spec as a 7 year old computer.

(Many, MANY modern components depend on certain specs for radiation and heat dissipation that won't occur on Mars, much less in space.)

There IS a new rover. Curiosity was launched in 2011

 

[USAFRet]

When you talk about how a new rover would be 'so much better', check into what components are actually space-rated, and you will discover:

1: Ten year old NASA equipment is more like a 15 year old computer
2: A brand new rover full of space-rated gear would upgrade it to about the same spec as a 7 year old computer.

(Many, MANY modern components depend on certain specs for radiation and heat dissipation that won't occur on Mars, much less in space.)

There IS a new rover. Curiosity was launched in 2011

And the design for that was pretty locked down by 2006 or so. And it is a much better, larger, craft. About the size of a Mini Cooper.

 

[Draven35]

When you talk about how a new rover would be 'so much better', check into what components are actually space-rated, and you will discover:

1: Ten year old NASA equipment is more like a 15 year old computer
2: A brand new rover full of space-rated gear would upgrade it to about the same spec as a 7 year old computer.

(Many, MANY modern components depend on certain specs for radiation and heat dissipation that won't occur on Mars, much less in space.)

There IS a new rover. Curiosity was launched in 2011

Yes, and the computer(s- two identiocal units) on it are...a RAD 750 (PPC 750 series) CPUs with 256 MB of RAM and 2 GB of flash storage.... so like i said, a 15 year old computer.

 

[smeezekitty]

Single propose computers can easily be much less powerful. Allot of people take an old CPU and 256mb ram for granted but it can be wrote capable with efficient software

 

[Draven35]

Single propose computers can easily be much less powerful. Allot of people take an old CPU and 256mb ram for granted but it can be wrote capable with efficient software

But its not a single-purpose computer, it is a general purpose computer that handles a lot of different jobs.

132Mhz CPUs, btw, running VXWorks.

 

[jsimpson66]

It took the Curiosity rover just over eight months between launch/landing on Mars, arriving there on August 6, 2012.
Even with the phenomenal success and longevity of Opportunity at that time, Curiosity's mission was only slated for two years.
Keeping in mind, however, Curiosity's development began in 2004, the start of Opportunity's mission. As such, that was the starting point for the technology going into Curiosity.
In 2004, all hardware features and instrumentation had been chosen and testing and integration of the individual components began. While the freeze on hardware features meant that no new or additional significant hardware components were going to be added to the rover, it did not mean that newer technologies could not be implemented as part of the existing features.
It is a fairly simple process in the lab to upgrade/alter an existing piece of hardware or software and often is a requirement during the integration and testing phase of the various components. As far as the computer itself is concerned, ir stays pretty much the same throughout the development cycle as the programming has been written specifically for that computer with all of the limitations of that computer taken into account. Individual chips within the computer, however, may be replaced/upgraded to correct issues which are found during testing as long as the new component is functionally identical to the part being replaced.
That being said, while it is accurate to state that the rover is 'based upon' 10 year old technology, many of the components themselves in the computer are actually much newer than that.