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Explore Mars with Maestro

Posted by michael on Sat Jan 03, 2004 03:31 PM
from the sim-mars dept.
The Maestro Team writes "NASA has released Maestro, a public version of the primary software tool used by scientists to operate the Mars Exploration Rovers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Anyone can download Maestro for free from mars.telascience.org and use it to follow along with the rovers' progress during the mission. You can use Maestro to view pictures from Mars in 2D and 3D and create simplified rover activity plans. During the mission, updates will be released for Maestro containing the latest images from Mars."
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  • Sounds cool (Score:1)

    by Myrmi (730278) on Saturday January 03 2004, @03:33PM (#7868586)
    I wonder how much notice they'll take of suggested plans though? Might be cool to watch though and see what Mars looks like, though.
    • Re:Sounds cool by Kenja (Score:2) Saturday January 03 2004, @04:24PM
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  • sloooow maestro (Score:5, Funny)

    I think we just /.ed Mars...
  • Miles Or Kilometers? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Silverkm (562018) * on Saturday January 03 2004, @03:36PM (#7868605)
    When creating the activity plans, is it miles or kilometers? Wouldn't want to crash into anything

    Overall Looks like an interesting idea, they should look into putting it in schools. Could be a very educational "toy" to play with.

  • Neat idea (Score:4, Insightful)

    by obey13 (731453) on Saturday January 03 2004, @03:36PM (#7868609)
    Maybe this is just the uber geek in me speaking, but am the only one that thinks this is a remarkably neat idea. Not to meantion that it might win the space agency a couple of P.R. points.
  • The site has been geekflooded (Score:1, Interesting)

    by MillionthMonkey (240664) on Saturday January 03 2004, @03:38PM (#7868615)
    (Last Journal: Wednesday January 31 2007, @02:25AM)
    Is the site's web server running on the lander, or the orbiter?

    And could someone post a torrent file?

  • by the man with the pla (710711) on Saturday January 03 2004, @03:38PM (#7868617)
    The problem is that NASA doesn't have the same backing as it did back in the 60's. We went to the moon because it was a priority, and a lot of money and effort was thrown at it. Now NASA is constantly struggling to make as much as they can out of a diminishing budget. I believe that this, more than anything else caused the accident.

    If you are an administrator at NASA and you are told that their might be a problem with the age of the fleet and you know the odds of getting funding for a new project are near zero, do you keep that fleet flying? Of course. That's hardly the safest thing to do, but it's either that or close up shop and go work the chinese space program.

    NASA puts safety as first as it can afford to. You can argue that NASA is an inefficent bureaucracy, but we seem to have no trouble financing the inefficent military bureaucracy. It's the nature of government, cope.
  • time zones (Score:3, Interesting)

    by EpsCylonB (307640) <eps@NoSPam.epscylonb.com> on Saturday January 03 2004, @03:38PM (#7868619)
    (http://www.epscylonb.com/)
    so when does it land GMT, 8:35 PST is 8 hours behind right ?
    • Re:time zones (Score:5, Informative)

      by ChrisCampbell47 (181542) on Saturday January 03 2004, @04:22PM (#7868830)
      Yeah, it lands at around 4:35 GMT. Things start happening at 4:00 GMT.

      http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/images/031 231edl.jpg

      The "L" in that graphic is the landing time.

      [ Parent ]
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    • Interesting planet you are on. by WindBourne (Score:2) Saturday January 03 2004, @08:31PM
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  • And here I thought... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Eberlin (570874) on Saturday January 03 2004, @03:39PM (#7868625)
    All I needed to do was ssh to mars.rover.org and I can see a curses version of the 3D mars landscape. Fuel packs are depicted as % symbols. The rover is depicted as an @ sign.

    No, wait, come to think of it, that's nethack. A very good program to take up if you're one of the folks working with the Beagle2.
  • Simulation (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane (209368) on Saturday January 03 2004, @03:40PM (#7868626)
    Anyone can download Maestro for free from mars.telascience.org and use it to follow along with the rovers' progress during the mission.

    Thanks to Slashdot, downloading Maestro also provides a vividly real simulation of the long months of space travel between Earth and Mars.
    • Re:Simulation by grozzie2 (Score:2) Saturday January 03 2004, @07:51PM
      • Re:Simulation by QuantumFTL (Score:2) Sunday January 04 2004, @06:42AM
    • Re:Simulation by whovian (Score:1) Saturday January 03 2004, @10:27PM
  • Torrent? (Score:2, Informative)

    by linux_user_31337 (737587) on Saturday January 03 2004, @03:40PM (#7868632)
    The site is sluggish already (darn subscribers), any chance of getting a torrent? I've already grabbed the files, I'll be glad to send them to anybody with a static IP willing to set up a tracker.

    This looks like a lot of fun, though. Big thanks to the folks on the Maestro Team!
    • Re:Torrent? by adpowers (Score:3) Saturday January 03 2004, @04:41PM
      • Re:Torrent? by linux_user_31337 (Score:3) Saturday January 03 2004, @05:01PM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Torrent? by JPL-Jeff (Score:3) Saturday January 03 2004, @07:51PM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Damn backseat drivers (Score:3, Funny)

    by SuperBanana (662181) on Saturday January 03 2004, @03:44PM (#7868656)

    Fantastic. It's the one in the "1 in 6" to make it, and it's just going to sit there quivering trying to figure out which of 1000 commands to follow!

    ("Back away from the reply button!" It's a joke. And yes, I've had people reply to jokes 'correcting' me and then amazingly get modded 'insightful' for it.)

  • by core plexus (599119) on Saturday January 03 2004, @03:50PM (#7868686)
    (http://alaska-freegold.com/)
    I'd have the Ultimate RC Car! Oh, wait, 5 minutes to send the command until it receives it, and wait 5 more minutes to see what happened. Talk about an unacceptable frame rate! And it moves what, 150 feet per day? I do like the 'field geologist' aspect of it. I'm downloading the Linux version of it right now.

    -cp-

    President Bush to Liberate Alaska! [alaska-freegold.com]

  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 03 2004, @03:56PM (#7868718)
    Forget about the science, just have a couple of teams racing across the Martian landscape. We can call it Marscar.
  • by bckrispi (725257) on Saturday January 03 2004, @03:59PM (#7868735)
    Where's the "Kaboom"? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering "Kaboom". My Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator?! That Earth-creature has stolen the Space Modulator!!!!
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • *downloading* (Score:3, Funny)

    by Dreadlord (671979) on Saturday January 03 2004, @04:03PM (#7868748)
    (Last Journal: Thursday December 23 2004, @12:57PM)
    hold on Beagle 2 team! I'll explore Mars, see what happened to Beagle 2, and fix it ASAP!
  • Oopsie (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 03 2004, @04:04PM (#7868755)
    Looks like we Beagle2'd(crashed) the server ^_^
  • Demo Only (Score:4, Funny)

    by Waffle Iron (339739) on Saturday January 03 2004, @04:18PM (#7868818)
    NASA's business model makes this kind of a rip off. In this space-aged version of "give away the razor, sell the blades", you don't actually get to run your own mission with this freebie software. Instead, all you get to do is watch as NASA calls all the shots for the two demo probes that are being sent to Mars this month. It's like they're handing out game consoles with no input controllers to go with them.

    What they don't tell you up front is that if you actually want to run your own mission, you're going to have to pony up at least $100 million to buy a probe of your own. NASA stands to make a pretty penny if they sucker many people to buy into this scheme.

  • Software Updates for Images?! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ClubStew (113954) on Saturday January 03 2004, @04:19PM (#7868822)

    What a poor design! They have to update the software in order to get new images? That's got to be the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time. Did they forget that the Internet exists where you can update images and indexes automatically? Sheesh.

    • Re:Software Updates for Images?! by sukottoX (Score:1) Saturday January 03 2004, @04:34PM
    • What a poor design! They have to update the software in order to get new images? That's got to be the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time. Did they forget that the Internet exists where you can update images and indexes automatically? Sheesh.

      Disclaimer: I'm a junior member of the Maestro Development team, however most of my work was on the mission version (SAP), not the public version.

      The original specifications for Maestro (originally called WITS) contained an automatic updating client called MECS (Multimission Encrypted Communications System). I worked heavily on this the summer of 2002, and it was really great. It was going to work a bit like CVS in that it used deltas to transfer changes between versions of files, and had intelligent merging of XML content, etc. However due to funding constraints, the plug was pulled on MECS so there are no automatic updates.

      There is a scientist version of SAP for use on personal computers that uses something called SAP-SYNC that automatically updates everything by comparing what's on client with server ahnd using LFTP, however it was theorized that the load on JPL's servers would be far to great to do that for all of our fans out there.

      It was decided because of the massive budget cuts, little funding, and of course the fact that our staff has dropped down to all of three people to keep things simple. Doing things this way makes it possible to bittorrent things (I actually told them to bittorrent this for slashdotting about a year ago, however things have been so hectic here I"m not surprised they didn't!)

      If you're interested in the design of MECS and how it was supposed to function, check out this paper [nasa.gov].

      As for the people complaining about the design, we don't really like it either! Write your congressman, get NASA outreach more funding, and we'll have things to really engage the population!

      Cheers,
      Justin Wick
      Science Activity Planner Support Staff
      Mars Exploration Rovers
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Indexes is not a word, it's indices. Who is dum by ClubStew (Score:2) Saturday January 03 2004, @11:32PM
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  • Here We are... (Score:2)

    by j0keralpha (713423) * on Saturday January 03 2004, @04:43PM (#7868924)
    Major Scientific Post regarding Mars, and half the comments are arguing as to whether a link is or is not goatse. WTF happened to slashdot???
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Help! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JPL-Jeff (737613) on Saturday January 03 2004, @04:58PM (#7868994)
    Well, we just discovered how NOT ready we were for Slashdot. Is there any hope of getting ahold of a Slashdot editor and arranging for temporary relief? If we can get an hour or so to put up some mirrors and bittorrent links, then I'll think we'll be ready for you.
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • by j0keralpha (713423) * on Saturday January 03 2004, @05:00PM (#7869002)
    NO im not kidding, got this trying to dl the software:
    Site Error
    An error was encountered while publishing this resource.

    IOError

    Sorry, a site error occurred.

    Traceback (innermost last):

    Module ZPublisher.Publish, line 163, in publish_module_standard
    Module Products.PlacelessTranslationService.PatchStringIO , line 44, in new_publish
    Module ZPublisher.Publish, line 127, in publish
    Module Zope.App.startup, line 205, in zpublisher_exception_hook
    Module ZPublisher.Publish, line 100, in publish
    Module ZPublisher.mapply, line 88, in mapply
    Module ZPublisher.Publish, line 40, in call_object
    Module Products.CMFCore.PortalContent, line 116, in __call__
    Module Shared.DC.Scripts.Bindings, line 252, in __call__
    Module Shared.DC.Scripts.Bindings, line 283, in _bindAndExec
    Module Products.CMFCore.FSPageTemplate, line 155, in _exec
    Module Products.CMFCore.FSObject, line 115, in _updateFromFS
    Module Products.CMFCore.FSPageTemplate, line 84, in _readFile
    IOError: [Errno 24] Too many open files: '/usr/local/Zope-2.7-head/lib/python/Products/CMFP lone/skins/plone_content/document_view.pt' (Also, an error occurred while attempting to render the standard error message.)
  • Back up! (Score:2, Funny)

    by David Prahl (737624) on Saturday January 03 2004, @05:44PM (#7869210)
    The NASA server is back online - guess we'll land after all!
  • Woohoo, it's Java (Score:2)

    by ChrisCampbell47 (181542) on Saturday January 03 2004, @05:53PM (#7869284)
    I'd love to report what this software does, but my hard drive has been thrashing nonstop for 20 minutes and I've seen little more than gray windows where content should be.

    2 GHz laptop with lots of RAM and HD.

  • OS X Torrent?? (Score:1)

    by itistoday (602304) on Saturday January 03 2004, @06:04PM (#7869378)
    We've got Windows and Linux torrents, but could some kind soul provide the OS X torrent? Or does everyone hate us mac-heads?
  • Looks cheap (Score:1)

    by David Prahl (737624) on Saturday January 03 2004, @06:13PM (#7869439)
    I finally was able to download the winXP/2k version. Installation is quick and clean. From there on it gets downright cheesy looking - the Java command window stays open, and the interface looks like something we'd make in my High School computer science class. Oh, and it crashes when you try to view 3D images. My home-built hyperthreading P4 (half gig of DDR400, 128 MB DDR video card) crashed twice trying to manipulate the 3D images. The only times it's ever crashed! Yes, we do have to manually download data from Spirit from the NASA website. I doubt they'll be releasing THAT today or tomorrow...
  • Ok, Slashdot, we're ready for you now (Score:5, Informative)

    by JPL-Jeff (737613) on Saturday January 03 2004, @06:52PM (#7869643)
    We backed off to a REALLY simple single page site that will allow you to download the software (and that's it). The site seems to be holding up to the traffic, so if you got scared off by a dead server before, come on back! Big thanks to the people who put up BitTorrents for us - this is our first slashdotting and we clearly didn't know what were getting into. We're making arrangements for a bigger pipe and more mirrors, and we'll be back for another Slashdotting when we make the first data release. Jeff Norris Jet Propulsion Laboratory
  • by JPL-Jeff (737613) on Saturday January 03 2004, @06:56PM (#7869667)
    Come chat with the Maestro developers and other users in #maestro on irc.freenode.net. We're landing in just a few hours - come celebrate with us.

    Jeff
  • 120 bps (Score:1)

    by bobsalt (575905) on Saturday January 03 2004, @07:00PM (#7869686)
    "Right, now the spacecraft health is excellent. We have good attitude -- keeping the solar panels pointed at the Sun and the antennas pointed at Earth. We have good power through the solar panels, good communications at 120 bps."

    ok, I swear i won't bitch about 26400 bps again....

  • Hola (Score:1)

    by FiendBeast (461063) on Saturday January 03 2004, @07:46PM (#7869887)
    Buenas Noches,

    Soy estudiante Ingles (Frances e Historia a la universidad de Warwick) y quiero entender el punto de vista oficial de la republica Cuba sobre su existencia y su tratamiento por el mundo occidental, especialmente por los estados unidos. He aprehendido el Espanol por algunos anos pero no suficientes para entenderlo totalmente. Existe un sitio Internet para que los extranjeros que no hablan el espanol puedan estudiar para que exista el estado cubano actual?
  • by oaklybonn (600250) on Saturday January 03 2004, @07:52PM (#7869918)
  • by Zed2K (313037) on Saturday January 03 2004, @11:39PM (#7870773)
    They got tones back and sounds indicating that the chute has released and it is bouncing across the surface. They've currently lost contact but say thats normal.
  • by Whatsmynickname (557867) on Sunday January 04 2004, @03:02AM (#7871681)

    I know this isn't a "Maestro" help area, but I'll post anyway...

    I've loaded Maestro and tried out "Go to ISIL test facility" with success, but when I go to "Go to "Spirit's Landing Site", I get "you have not yet loaded data from Spirit, return to Maestro website to download ...". What do I do now? Where do I get the data?

    • I've loaded Maestro and tried out "Go to ISIL test facility" with success, but when I go to "Go to "Spirit's Landing Site", I get "you have not yet loaded data from Spirit, return to Maestro website to download ...". What do I do now? Where do I get the data?

      There has not been a sprit release yet. There is one coming in a few days. You can't go to Spirit's Landing Site yet.

      Cheers,
      Justin Wick
      Science Activity Planner / Maestro Support Staff
      Mars Exploration Rovers
      [ Parent ]
  • Re:Warning : Contains Virus. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Lispy (136512) on Saturday January 03 2004, @03:57PM (#7868722)
    (http://www.blissx.co.uk/)
    Well, the root password part is nasty but what kind of porn image exactly is it? ;-)

    [ Parent ]
  • That's not gas, tha's water!!!!! LIFE !!! We've introduced life !!!! We infected Mars.. oh well, might as well start the 'management' of the Martian landscape now, why wait? Should an obviously viral lifeform be allowed to escape the gravity well?
    [ Parent ]
  • they have links available now 4 of them!!!! not too bad for a buncha geeks... :))))) tx to whoever answered their call for help
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:Installers (Score:2, Informative)

    by IgnoramusMaximus (692000) on Saturday January 03 2004, @05:59PM (#7869334)
    Before the Slashdot crowd came and crashed the site, I posted on the forums there the problems with the installer and how to get around them. This has nothing to do with Linux being somehow inferior and everything to do with whomever created the file not knowing/caring enough about making Linux installation work. Its no different if some Linux programmer wrote this and made a faulty Windows setup.exe that crashed with a blue screen of death.

    For those interested, the installer script is called 'install-Maestro' and has a few bugs in it. For one it wants 'rsync' but it does not properly check for its presence. Then if not found it will try to use 'rsync' that it thinks is included in the tarball. Alas whomever packaged it did not include rsync. Then it tries to use 'pwd' and combine its output with the $install variable which produces things like '/home/user/./R2004_01-Public-Linux/SAP/bim' path names. The '.' in the middle kills the process. When you edit the script to make it call rsync properly (you have to get your own rsync installed) it will install. Then you have to make sure that /usr/lib/libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so.2 is on your system because the included Java VM wants one. I just symlinked my /usr/lib/libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3 to it.

    Beware though, this is a Java application and performance is predictably terrible even with OpenGL accelleration.

    [ Parent ]
    • Re:Installers by Curtman (Score:1) Sunday January 04 2004, @10:03AM
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  • Re:Installers (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AstroDrabb (534369) on Saturday January 03 2004, @06:01PM (#7869351)
    Ok, bone head, I'll bite. The downloads are so big because they INCLUDE a JRE. Mac users need to download Java3D, not Java. The Linux install is actaully EASIER then the Mac install since there are no extra downloads.

    Here are the steps for MS Windows.
    Download file which includes a JRE.
    Double click file and install
    (the easiest of all systems, but only by one step)
    Done

    Here are the steps for Linux.
    Download file which includes a JRE.
    Doubl click it in Nautilus to open it (It is a tar file and will open in FileRoller which is no different then opening a zip file in WinZip.)
    Extract the contents to where ever you please
    In Nautilus just double click the install-Maestro file to install.
    Done.

    Only ONE more step the under MS Windows. You CAN make a self extracting and installing archive for Linux just as you can for MS Windows (this is one of the ways that Sun distributes Java for Linux. The people who made these installs chose not to. Maybe LEARN how to do something BEFORE you shoot your mouth off. Most Linux users won't use the simple point-n-click method I outlined above. Why? Because many love the command line and find it easier and faster. So the steps a command line lover might have followed would have been

    tar -zxf Maestro-Linux.tar.gz
    cd R2004*
    sh install-Maestro
    done
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:Installers (Score:2)

    by WindBourne (631190) on Saturday January 03 2004, @08:28PM (#7870086)
    (Last Journal: Friday December 01 2006, @10:51AM)
    Of course, the fact that the ease of installing software on MS, the many openings, and the lack of security does not escape the attention of others.
    [ Parent ]
  • by kruelio (318544) on Sunday January 04 2004, @10:05AM (#7873049)
    same error here. any word on a fix?
    [ Parent ]
  • 16 replies beneath your current threshold.