Curiosity Rover Being Upgraded With Autonomous Sensor Program 45
DevotedSkeptic writes "Curiosity will be getting a software upgrade called Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science (AEGIS) which will allow it to take on the go photos to save precious time while exploring our red neighbor. Another interesting feature AGEIS may be able to provide is the ability for Curiosity to call home when it sees something interesting. It won't be a quick upgrade: AEGIS, which has been used on the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity since 2009, will be installed on Curiosity in the next nine to 12 months, Estlin said in an interview with InformationWeek. The AEGIS software, developed by JPL, was named NASA's 'software of the year' in 2011. Opportunity uses the software to take a wide-angle image with a low-resolution camera, then picks out rocks in the image to see if there's something of interest. If so, it takes a high-resolution image using an on-board science camera that's capable of zooming in on the subject. The software has potential beyond picture taking. Its see-and-react code could be adapted to other instruments."
There's a paper on the software as used in the Opportunity rover.
language (Score:2, Insightful)
increased science, what does that even mean?
Re:language (Score:4, Funny)
It means more time doing actual science and less time waiting and looking at the boring stuff. Ok we did all the test we could on this rock. Ok lets find a different type of rock. Ok Lets do paper rock scissors on who gets to do analysis on the data and who will sit in front of the screen while the rover is moving to find a new type of rock.
Re:language (Score:4, Insightful)
Science is sort of like Vespene gas, found naturally on Mars but can only be gathered with certain equipment.
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The backronym is bad enough, but where can I get me one of these "science cameras"?
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increased science, what does that even mean?
It means that as of now, it can shoot down alien spacecrafts with SM-2 Standard Missiles and an on-board CIWS Phalanx system for further analysis.
Software updating on Mars... (Score:4, Funny)
Think bricking your phone was bad..
Re:Software updating on Mars... (Score:5, Funny)
It's Patch Tuesday on Mars too.
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Why not load it from the start? (Score:5, Insightful)
Curiosity launched on November 26, 2011. If Opportunity has been using AEGIS since 2009, why couldn't it have been included in Curiosity from the start instead of this 12 month download over a slow connection? It's bad enough that video game companies push stuff out the door and then rely on release-day patches but I expect better from NASA.
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The OS was used for landing the rover. It won't be doing that anymore.
Re:Why not load it from the start? (Score:5, Funny)
...If Opportunity has been using AEGIS since 2009, why couldn't it have been included in Curiosity from the start instead of this 12 month download over a slow connection? It's bad enough that video game companies push stuff out the door and then rely on release-day patches but I expect better from NASA.
Simple. To save weight. Them bits are heavy, cheaper to send them via radio than launch them with the craft.
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Re:Why not load it from the start? (Score:5, Insightful)
Off the top of my head, I can think of two reasons. First, until it landed Curiosity's computer served as the flight control computer and didn't even have it's full surface/science package installed. That's what the big software upgrade right after landing was all about - to clear out the flight control package and replace it with the surface/science routines. Second, I suspect they want some operational experience (on Opportunity) with the new system and some experience (on Curiosity) with the basic surface/science software package and some idea of how the hardware performs before committing to a new system. Odds are that Curiosity's baseline was frozen in 2010, long before sufficient information existed to write (let alone trust) the new software.
Such a slow rollout is pretty common outside of commercial (consumer) software - because the costs of getting it wrong are so high. Especially in the case of something like Curiosity, which is a huge o' dollars of irreplaceable hardware with a limited lifespan and one shot at getting the science data. This isn't Ice Jelly Gummy Doughnut Candy with the fanboi's whining and pissing and moaning because their perfectly good hardware doesn't have the latest bling and threatening to move to another computer/phone/toy. FWIW, the software for the system I worked on in the Navy typically spent six months to a year installed on a trainer, followed by another six months installed on one or two hulls before committing it to the entire Fleet.
Also, the article notes that it will be installed in, not over, the next nine to twelve months. Given that they replaced nearly the entire software package right after landing, the bandwidth available is more than sufficient to the task. Even so, they'll likely make use of most of that bandwidth on the important tasks of getting the science down rather than the secondary task of installing non essential software upgrades.
Everything is easy to those that don't have to do the work and aren't accountable for the results.
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also : Bricking Curiosity 1 year from now would hardly be a mainstream news so they are not giving Congress a stick to beat them up with.
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good news for @SadMarsRover (Score:3)
Fire more drones!! (Score:1)
I say fire more drones!!! Let's get a Tonka set over there. Someone float me a couple of billion dollars. I will set us up some Tonka toys over there. Hell yeah, they will pay for themselves pronto. Rent time out on them to uber rich people. AND do some major exploration and set up some communications arrays. We need broadband there, right? And the moon. Moon Base Tonkas as well.
Look, we need the entire race of humans putting some funtime facetime in on drone control. Human minds are some awesome things. Ch
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Not sure if I agree or disagree with anything you said - just wanted to make the observation that NASA et al would definitely get more public funding if they used the words like Tonka more, especially if combined with standard advertising prefixes - maybe "Tonka Mega Launch System"?
No one male would object to slightly higher taxes or a one-off levy to pay for that.
It would make more sense than continually reusing names - according to the wiki [wikipedia.org], AEGIS is a military system, was the original OS on the Apollo mi
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OK I just realised I suggested hiring a marketing person for something. Please accept my sincere apologies.
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How much would it cost them to license the name iLaunchr, and use rounded corners?
(Maybe they can just outsource development to Samsung instead.)
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Just wondering (Score:3)
rocks (Score:5, Funny)
"Hi NASA, I heard you like rocks so I took this picture of a rock. Hope it's good. Tell me if you want me to take a photo if I see another alien" - Curiosity
Cartoon (Score:2)
http://www.heise.de/ct/schlagseite/2012/19/gross.jpg [heise.de]
Translation: Water! Water! Sensors detect a waterlike substance! And where there's water, there could be life, too ...
Too much information (Score:2)
A thinking, autonomous robot (Score:1, Funny)
So NASA has created an autonomous robot with nacent thinking capabilities. Did I mention the laser? Good thing this is on Mars! Robocolipses start this way.
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2013: After a Software Update to the Curiosity Rover, the Rover begins acting independently of NASA's control. All attempts to reset the rover fail.
2035: The first manned mission to Mars lands successfully.
Curiosity has been waiting...
Okay, it's sort of a rip-off of Red Planet [imdb.com]. Maybe add in a little Star Trek: The Motion Picture [imdb.com] as Curiosity dismantles the various other landers on Mars for parts or something.
Dodged a bullet (or 2)... (Score:3)
Sigh-of-relief... My first reading of this was, maybe Nasa was reusing Aegis [wikipedia.org] for some sort of swords/plowshares purpose to somehow to control the rover. I guess that isn't the case, and it's just a fancy name for Rover-software 2.0...
The reason that rang a bell with me was a bit of trivia I remembered. One of the first deployed Aegis system was the USS Yorktown [wikipedia.org]. Apparently, the Aegis software was deployed on WindowNT which of course had lots of stability problems. Also the system software itself wasn't that great. For example, when someone accidentally entered some bad data, it caused a divide-by-zero error which caused the software to crash and the ship had to be towed back into port. I think Curiosity would have a hard time being "towed" back to port...
Fortunatly, it isn't the same software, but Nasa has a propensity to tempt fate with unlucky symbols (Apollo 13, Challenger). Let's hope this isn't one of those times...
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Not only does the AEGIS system not run on PC hardware, it doesn't control the ship either.
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[...] Nasa has a propensity to tempt fate with unlucky symbols (Apollo 13, Challenger).
Apollo 13, okay. But Challenger?
I always thought Discovery [wikipedia.org] wasn't the best choice of names...
I has too many feels! (Score:1)
Why doesn't NASA just buy that motivation engine from Lucas Arts? That way, if the damned thing rolls off a cliff it will try to grab onto something. Hell, it probably won't even get near the edge in the first place, getting a funny scared feeling in its wiener.
JPL developed AEGIS on Linux .. (Score:2)