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Mars Linux

Linux Is Now on Mars, Thanks to NASA's Perseverance Rover (pcmag.com) 68

Posted by EditorDavid from the worlds-domination dept.
"When NASA's Perseverance rover landed on Mars this week, it also brought the Linux operating system to the Red Planet," reports PC Magazine: The tidbit was mentioned in an interview NASA software engineer Tim Canham gave to IEEE Spectrum. The helicopter-like drone on board the Perseverance rover uses a Linux-powered software framework the space agency open-sourced a few years ago. "This the first time we'll be flying Linux on Mars. We're actually running on a Linux operating system," Canham said.

It also might be the first time NASA has brought a Linux-based device to Mars. "There isn't a previous use of Linux that I'm aware of, definitely on the previous rovers," Canham told PCMag in an email.

Past Mars rovers have used proprietary OSes, largely from the software company Wind River Systems. The same is true for the Perseverance rover itself; the machine has been installed with Wind River's VxWorks, which was used on past Mars missions.
The article also notes that the helicopter-like drone Ingenuity "was built using off-the-shelf parts, including Qualcomm's Snapdragon 801 processor, a smartphone chip."

"Ingenuity is purely a technology demonstration," notes ZDNet. "It's not designed to support the Perseverance mission, which is searching for signs of ancient life and collecting rock and dirt samples for later missions to return to Earth. Its mission is to show that it's possible to fly on Mars using commercial off-the-shelf hardware and open-source software."
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Linux Is Now on Mars, Thanks to NASA's Perseverance Rover More

Linux Is Now on Mars, Thanks to NASA's Perseverance Rover

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  • Uh oh (Score:5, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Saturday February 20, 2021 @03:42PM (#61083912)

    Are certain people going to demand we refer to it as Gnu/Perseverance now?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      No, Ingnuity is the one running GNU/Linux....

    • Nope. It's Red Hat Perseverance. Red Hat is the only appropriate thing on the Red Planet. What would it look like if it was a Big Blue. Wait.
    • Look at the comments on the pcmag.com site. RMS is there in person demanding it be called "GNU plus Linux". By his logic we need to also make sure Qualcomm is listed, and Kilby (ICs), and Shockley (transistors), and who knows what else.

      • Look at the comments on the pcmag.com site. RMS is there in person demanding it be called "GNU plus Linux".

        Good grief - I thought you were kidding! But nope, there he is.

    • Probably GNU/Preservative and you have to "give back what you contribute" ...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hawk ( 1151 )

      nah, that would be silly.

      Rather, the planet must now be referred to as GNU/Mars . . .

  • Finally! (Score:5, Funny)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Saturday February 20, 2021 @03:44PM (#61083918)

    This is the year of linux on the, uh, planet Mars.

  • RT (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jmccue ( 834797 ) on Saturday February 20, 2021 @03:45PM (#61083924) Homepage

    I think Wind River is more often used because their OS is a Real Time OS. I remember reading something about why they use an RT OS, something like to know exactly how long a task will take and how much resources it will use.

    But a "Penguins on Mars", sounds like a 50s horror movie

    • Wind River VxWorks has run all sorts of real time systems for .mil and industry for decades.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by jythie ( 914043 )
        Yeah. VxWorks is not new or sexy, but it is really well understood and rock solid. Though Linux as a RTOS has really matured over the decades, so always nice seeing it get usage and visibility in high profile projects like this.

        • Is this Mars copter using the RT patchset?

          If so, maybe another nudge to mainline it.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by deKernel ( 65640 )

            It really would be interesting to see just how far off the mainline they had to go for their requirements to be met. I would get at a minimum, the RT patches, but did they have to beyond those.

        • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

          by TheGavster ( 774657 )

          VxWorks is not new or sexy, but it is really well understood and rock solid.

          Clearly someone who has never had the misfortune of working in a VxWorks shop.

      • Those industries are really conservative. I used to work with VxWorks. I changed to a company using Linux. Now the company I came from also uses Linux - for a hard real-time control system, where failure can cost a lot of money.

    • something like to know exactly how long a task will take and how much resources it will use.
      That is not the definition of a real time OS.

      The most important points about Real Time OSes is predictive scheduling, latency to handle interrupts, predictable time spent in kernel space etc.

      In other words, if a sensor gives some input and that is written into a pipe for some piece of software to handle that event, the OS gives you the guarantee about a certain timeframe till your software is actually scheduled to r

    • and you can use intra-task semaphores to say when a task has completed so you don't get deadlocks, and all of the other RTOS stuff VxWorks has. Used it it the 2000's for a VOIP platform and still got the T-Shirt :-)

  • Technology demonstrator (Score:5, Informative)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Saturday February 20, 2021 @03:56PM (#61083948)

    I case you are wondering about this little "Ingenuity" helicopter, [nasa.gov] it's a technology demonstrator device that has little purpose besides just proving it can fly around. It's composed of mostly COTS parts with the exception of the rotors and linkages. [nasa.gov]

    While this makes the small robot much cheaper (hardly a concern when getting it there costs so much more), the electronics do not appear to be designed for highly reliability which seems like something that would be changed on future flying robots. It's merely demonstrating that a flying drone in the mars atmosphere is a feasible pathway. I wouldn't put much money on Linux being used in a future scientific drone just yet.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by g01d4 ( 888748 )

      It's merely demonstrating that a flying drone in the mars atmosphere is a feasible pathway.

      I don't know. They didn't send a drill just to prove that it's feasible. You'd think with all the opportunity (launch/trip_frequency) costs behind it that they'd put more into it than demonstration only.

    • It's merely demonstrating that a flying drone in the mars atmosphere is a feasible pathway. I wouldn't put much money on Linux being used in a future scientific drone just yet.

      They were going to use Windows, but the test copters on earth kept crashing after mandatory updates.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Teun ( 17872 )

        It's merely demonstrating that a flying drone in the mars atmosphere is a feasible pathway. I wouldn't put much money on Linux being used in a future scientific drone just yet.

        They were going to use Windows, but the test copters on earth kept crashing after mandatory updates.

        More precisely, they saturated the network which also crashed some other probes.

      • So.. blue screen of death?
  • In their rockets and Dragon. I understand why NASA sticks to VxWorks on the rovers: it is proven to work.

  • This could be the year (Score:5, Funny)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Saturday February 20, 2021 @05:48PM (#61084226)

    Linux has made it to everywhere in the universe, except the desktop.

    • Good.

      The desktop is where good operating systems go to die.

      It is like trying to appeal to the AOL crowd in the late 90s.

      I hope Linux kills the desktop, and then some.

      • So, I'm really confused...

        Good.

        The desktop is where good operating systems go to die.

        So, you're calling Windows a "good" OS?

        It is like trying to appeal to the AOL crowd in the late 90s.

        Not entirely sure how that's relevant...

        I hope Linux kills the desktop, and then some.

        and what are you suggesting? Everything on bootloader-locked, modification-resistant phones and tablets? Dumb terminals and clouds? "Raspberry Pi should be enough for anybody"? If the desktop is gone, where is general purpose computing done?

        • So, I'm really confused...

          Good.

          The desktop is where good operating systems go to die.

          So, you're calling Windows a "good" OS?

          The kernel of today's Microsoft Windows OS is the Windows NT kernel, which was developed by Dave Cutler after he left DEC. It is a re-implementation of DEC's VAX/VMS, which was a server operating system. VAX/VMS was a re-implementation of DEC's RSX-11M, also written by Dave Cutler and his team. RSX-11M was a real-time operating systems kernel.

          Thus the kernel went from real-time to server to desktop, where it went to die.

    • I don't know what that is about still. Me, a Windows guy, switched over to Linux (the noob Mint distro) around 2 years ago and since then use it full-time for work and at home. I'd say Linux now is a very viable option on the desktop.

    • "Where no man just can't friggen go"

  • What distro?
    What kernel version?
    What init?

    General bugs they ran into?
    What could Linux/FOSS do better to be used for more space missions?

    • well, the last thing Tux needs in his spacesuit, is bugs crawling around in it and biting him on his behind. Hmm.. maybe a pre-flight de-bug of his spacesuit?

  • Which kernel version? Does it use PREEMPT_RT? Did they modify it to make it a true real-time version? How did they fix the godawful latency in SPI communications?

  • It ROVES Linux.

    *cue rimshot*

  • Mars, the 2nd planet in the solar system to have more computers running Linux than Windows.

  • I doubt their issue will be linux on the drone. Assuming everything works fine in the martian atmosphere the most likely problem is the rotors. Even carbon fiber rotors have to be routinely replaced on these drones on earth. The first time it drifts and clips a rock it will be game over.

  • Still running Wind River (Score:4, Informative)

    by Tough Love ( 215404 ) on Sunday February 21, 2021 @06:22AM (#61085714)

    As a Linux guy of course I'm pleased to see Linux running on mars, but also as a Linux guy I know that Linux is not a hard realtime operating system, which is absolutely required for control of propulsion systems, motors and probably a number of other critical systems. So I was just going to comment that I think Wind River is actually still running on the rover, then I thought I'd swing by Wind River's site to see what they had to say about it, and yup. [windriver.com]

    I also did a quick read through the "framework" code on Github and saw no evidence of any realtime capability. All totally unsurprising, and yes it's immensely satisfying to see Linux up there on Mars, but let's be clear that it's not running the whole show. And given Linus's lack of interest in realtime in general, I doubt it ever will get there. Plus, the kind of processors that make great general purpose computers usually have crappy real time response. So I wouldn't even advocate a clever hack like building the realtime OS into a hypervisor that runs Linux as a guest. I mean, you could do it and get hard latencies down to a few microseconds but not better than that. And in many control applications, microseconds might as well be years. So what we will continue to see space systems comprising high level parts, and multiple realtime parts running on simple processors specialized to the task. And yes, those will most probably be running Wind River for the foreseeable future.

  • Great, this is a prove linux platform is an amazing and reliable system
  • Linux is truly out of this world.

    Someone had to say it... ;)

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