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I initially thought that the upgrade was needed because they released a new version as the rover was en-route to mars. That would make sense, but the article sa
by mkoryak 14y ago
I initially thought that the upgrade was needed because they released a new version as the rover was en-route to mars. That would make sense, but the article says that the upgrade was made to switch the rover from landing mode to driving mode. Why wouldn't they just send a 256mb flash drive along with that 2M pixel camera to upgrade the rover when it got there?
- spydertennis 14y agoI think the driving mode wasn't finished by the time the rover was sent.
- glhaynes 14y agoI wonder if that was according to the original plan…
- spydertennis 14y agoI doubt much of what actually happened was according to the original plan :)
- sausagefeet 14y agoMy guess is weight + money. Not sure how much a space hardened flash costs. On top of that could be complexity costs.
- ralfd 14y agoNot quite. The reason is that the specs of the mission were frozen 2004. http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/08/08/Curiosity-interview-with-Malin-Space-Science-Systems-Mike-Ravine http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/08/08/Curiosity-interview-...
- jessriedel 14y agoAccording to jgrahamc, it sounds like they driving software was finished en route and actually was uploaded to curiosity before it landed. Apparently, the past few days have been spent installing the software rather than downloading it from Earth.