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Space Software Science Linux

Linux Goes to Mars 44

Posted by michael from the sort-of dept.
Erik Rauch writes "The European Beagle 2 Mars Lander, set to touch down on Mars on Christmas Day, will be controlled by a single Linux-based workstation. I wonder if the Spacecraft Control Operating System is free software?"
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Linux Goes to Mars More

Linux Goes to Mars

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  • SCOS (Score:5, Funny)

    by ghostis ( 165022 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @01:49PM (#7702799) Homepage
    [groaner]

    > Space Control Operating System is free

    No, it is SCO'S.

    [/groaner]

    -ghostis

  • Beagle 2 is landing on Mars... (Score:5, Funny)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @01:50PM (#7702808) Homepage Journal
    ... but the important news is that back home there's a computer running Linux! Wooo go Linux!

  • Article ./ed (Score:3, Informative)

    by coloclone ( 552113 ) <clifford_ireland ... m ['oo.' in gap]> on Friday December 12, 2003 @02:00PM (#7702961)
    Article seems to be slashdotted:

    Text from similar article [sys-con.com]

    On 26 December, if all goes well and if a single workstation running Linux proves itself up to the task of running a space probe, the world will learn that "the Beagle has landed."

    The workstation in question is installed at the Lander Operations Control Centre, part of Britain's new National Space Center in Leicester, England. It uses something called SCOS (Spacecraft Control Operating System) which sits on top of Linux, and there are two more Linux-based systems as back-up.

    The "Beagle 2 Mars Lander," according to a report this morning at whatpc.co.uk, is scheduled to separate from the European Space Agency's Mars Express rocket on Friday, December 19, and is reckoned to have only a 50:50 chance of success. No fault of Linux - the actual landing site is one imponderable factor that could affect comms detrimentally if the Beagle 2 is unlucky. If all goes well, the landfall will take place at 08:51 EST on Christmas Day, December 25.

  • Incorrectly titled article (Score:5, Informative)

    by somneo ( 108745 ) <lee@colleton.net> on Friday December 12, 2003 @02:04PM (#7703022) Homepage
    The Beagle 2 is going to Mars. Linux is merely being used to run the SCOS program. If Linux were being used aboard the Beagle 2, then the title would be accurate. I think it's an important "mission critical" application though.

  • Give Tux a Hat (Score:3, Funny)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @02:20PM (#7703240) Homepage Journal

    ...something along the lines of a helmet with pushbroom decoration.

  • The article says:

    In total there are about 10 high-specification PCs on an Ethernet network within the LOCC, most running supporting applications such as image processing.

    What are 'high specification' pc's (in their eyes) I wonder...?

    Maybe dual processor 3200+ ? Athlons or Pentiums? Built by whom? Big monitors? Any neat case mods here (yah- this is a government entity - no overclocking or neon case mods likely) ?

    It might be neat if someone from that program office could answer this question. Whom do

  • Insightful quote from beagle2.com (Score:3, Funny)

    by somneo ( 108745 ) <lee@colleton.net> on Friday December 12, 2003 @02:33PM (#7703403) Homepage
    Extensive use of a 32-bit processor is made as obviously software is lighter than logic circuits and more flexible.

    That may not be obvious to the segment of the population who believe that computers are powered by gnomes.

    BTW I love this picture of Prof. Colin Pillinger. Can you say Mad Professor?

    http://speakeasy.org/~lcolleton/beagle2_fiend.jp g
  • I guess if they use GCJ it would be all free.

    Fortunately, a million people have already written Java Lander programs [frontiernet.net], so it was probably very little new programming involved.
  • 'cause I've been itching to send a probe to Mars, but I don't want to spend any money to do so.

    Mars Landers for the Masses!
  • They couldn't put it on the beatle because of GPL. This is because they don't have the space on it to store the source code, and by sending it to mars they'd be 'distributing' it, and must provide a way to get the source code for anyone there to get the source code for only the cost of duplication and delivery.

    -Adam
    • ...by sending it to mars they'd be 'distributing' it, and must provide a way ... for anyone there to get the source code for only the cost of duplication and delivery

      Not a problem -- anyone receiving the distributed binary is welcome to the source code; they need but to ask and we'll happily provide it for the cost of duplication (trivial) and delivery (a few hundred million USD). NASA might even be willing to accept the request itself as payment, depending on what form the request was in...

    • Re:They couldn't put it on the beatle because of G (Score:5, Funny)

      by shaitand ( 626655 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @07:37PM (#7706996) Journal
      That's quite incorrect. They would only be distributing it if after they got to mars they gave it to the local residents. And they wouldn't have to ship the sourcecode with the beagle, they just have to plaster a notice on the side explaining how to request it. Now if the locals request the code they could charge the martians the expense of delivering the code back to Mars and in this way fund further Mars missions.

      I really think the Brits were shortsighted on this one, it really could make for a great way of funding a large portion of their space program.
    • Presumably the beatle remains the property of the space agency/nation or whatever. It does not matter where it goes, it's still not 'distributing' anything.

  • I can see it now. (Score:4, Funny)

    by jameskojiro ( 705701 ) on Friday December 12, 2003 @05:27PM (#7705619) Journal
    In other news Lawyers from SCO have become the first humans on mars after they discovered Linux running on the Mars Rover. The accomplished this more easily than NASA because SCO Lawyers do not require Oxygen or any form of "conventional" life support, just pure evil. Explaining the 10 suitcases of MS-Windows XP CD's that accompanied the Lawyers on their mission to Mars. How the Lawyers left Earth remains a mystery but there was some hint that The Chinese Space Agency was involved.

    When the Lawyers arrived on Mars they found out that the Lander doesn not run Linux, but it's control station on Earth does. When asked a SCO representative said, "This is a set back in our mission to destroy open source software. I am sure many people a slashdot are having a good time with this and that many soviet russia jokes are being made.".

    The Lawyers are now stranded on Mars, but in a suprise twist discovered intellegent alien life. SCO has announced that they use a form of open source software and they will be going after their use of the binay number 0. The aliens being peaceful and naive are now welcoming their new SCO lawyer overlords.

    Our thoughts and prayers go out to those poor Martians.
  • The guys are in the control room, looking through the eyes of their robot as they send it commands. It's going over the martian landscape just fine, collecting rock samples to perpetuate the ongoing debate of finding fossil bacteria, when all of a sudden it stops and the screen goes blank. The NASA people get angry and wonder why it refuses to take any more commands. In a few seconds it showed them this following message:

    This program has performed an illegal operation and will shut down. If the problem persists, contact your vendor.

    They reboot the program, which takes about ten minutes for the commands to reach between the robot and the command center.

    Afterwards, it goes on, collecting rock samples and surveying the landscape. It drives towards a rock, but the guys didn't worry because it's programmed to avoid large objects. But instead of turning, the program goes FASTER and hits the rock! "What the bloody f-" one of 'em says as the other one says, "It must have confused the commands, DAMN IT! We just did a Windows Update not twelve hours before sending it to space!"

    When they tried to send another command, every computer screen in the room turned blue. The following message appeared:

    Windows

    A fatal exception 0E has occurred at 0028:C00068F8 in VxD VMM(01) +
    000059F8. The current application will be terminated.

    * Press any key to terminate the application.
    * Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart your computer. You will
    lose any unsaved information in all applications.
    Press any key to continue

    Everyone in the room start screaming and yelling swearwords. Then, on the main screen, some short, wide-eyed, grey-skinned humanoids appear. ALIENS!! THEY'VE FOUND ALIEN LIFE!!! HUMANITY IS NOT ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE!!!!

    But then, one of the little grey-skinned things put a floppy disk in the robot, then everything goes blank. The entire command HQ goes out. In several days, they say they've found a mighty virus that attached to windows's OS through a security hole in IE, which the NASA people could not remove because of it's integration into the OS. The aliens wiped all info about finding them so the scientists couldn't prove finding them.

    The morale of the story? Don't ever use Microsoft's products to do anything important.

  • Notice that it's on a workstation... it's not the embedded system, thank god.

    Linux is not made for mission critical applications (not yet). Sure you can reboot your workstation when something goes wrong, but it's a little tricky to hold down the power key for 5 seconds on a little bot millions of miles away.

    I'm not dissin linux, I'm just not saying it's ready for that kind of dependibilty.
  • I'm sure Microsoft wishes it would stay there...
  • "In true British low-budget fashion..."

    Oh I do *love* the American media :)

  • Any idea of the distribution they are using ?
    • > Any idea of the distribution they are using ?

      They must be using SCOS-2000 if it runs on Linux: in that case it is designed to run on SUSE with one or two mods (sorry, I can not remember which version and what mods). The missions I have worked on use either SCOS-1 (VAX/Fortran!) or run SCOS-2000 on Solaris.

      Oh - and SCOS is definitly NOT free - it is owned by ESA.

      Regards, Simon

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