4 ms·

Also an impressive achievement on the software side of things - no room for showstopper bugs here! It's not quite as simple as taking it offline, deploying some

by aidanhs 11y ago

Also an impressive achievement on the software side of things - no room for showstopper bugs here! It's not quite as simple as taking it offline, deploying some new code and starting it up again. Is there any information on the processes used to have such a high level of confidence in the software? Lots of simulation? Relatedly, it might also be interesting to see a list of 'known bugs' and ways they've been worked around.

userbinator 11y ago
AFAIK it's similar to the processes for avionics software, but with even more attention to detail. This link came up recently on HN in reference to avionics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178B https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178B
aaggarwal 11y ago
Hmm, I am not sure if they would have very sophisticated software on the lander, in the way your thinking. I don't think any processing is done on the lander itself. It might be just primarily used as a remote sensing telemetry system. I suppose the lander would have a lot of power management circuits, some control circuits, sensor-actuator circuits, and transmitter-receiver communication circuitry. There would probably be a RTOS for real-time measurement and actuator motion. Still, I think someone with specific expertise might give a better answer.
- Osmium 11y ago
  > Hmm, I am not sure if they would have very sophisticated software on the lander, in the way your thinking. I think it's safe to say that's still an order of magnitude more sophisticated than anything I deal with on a daily basis ;)
noselasd 11y ago
http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2014/2/171689-mars-code/abstract http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2014/2/171689-mars-code/abstra... is a good watch. And you can get a fair bit of insight through many of the videos from Flight Software Workshop - http://flightsoftware.jhuapl.edu/files/_site/workshops/2014/ http://flightsoftware.jhuapl.edu/files/_site/workshops/2014/

by aidanhs 11y ago

userbinator 11y ago

AFAIK it's similar to the processes for avionics software, but with even more attention to detail. This link came up recently on HN in reference to avionics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178B https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178B

aaggarwal 11y ago

Hmm, I am not sure if they would have very sophisticated software on the lander, in the way your thinking. I don't think any processing is done on the lander itself. It might be just primarily used as a remote sensing telemetry system. I suppose the lander would have a lot of power management circuits, some control circuits, sensor-actuator circuits, and transmitter-receiver communication circuitry. There would probably be a RTOS for real-time measurement and actuator motion. Still, I think someone with specific expertise might give a better answer.

Osmium 11y ago
> Hmm, I am not sure if they would have very sophisticated software on the lander, in the way your thinking. I think it's safe to say that's still an order of magnitude more sophisticated than anything I deal with on a daily basis ;)

noselasd 11y ago

http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2014/2/171689-mars-code/abstract http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2014/2/171689-mars-code/abstra... is a good watch. And you can get a fair bit of insight through many of the videos from Flight Software Workshop - http://flightsoftware.jhuapl.edu/files/_site/workshops/2014/ http://flightsoftware.jhuapl.edu/files/_site/workshops/2014/