Friday, August 10, 2012

Curiosity performing flawlessly: NASA

Curiosity performing flawlessly: NASA

Curiosity  performing flawlessly, NASA officials said, and the next major procedure is to send the rover new software for its transition from its landing phase into the two-year long haul on the surface of the Mars.
"We're about to upgrade our software on the rover," Mike Watkins, Curiosity mission manager Mike at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., told reporters in a news briefing Thursday (Aug. 9). "Just like we upgrade our operating system on our home computer or laptop or something, we're going to do the same thing."
The new software will help mission controllers drive the $2.5 billion Mars rover, use its science instruments and operate its robotic arm.
"We want to switch to this new flight software that's optimized for surface operations," Watkins said.
Curiosity will begin this software transition on Sol 5, which translates to Saturday (Aug. 11) on Earth. The software upgrade process is expected to last roughly four days, Watkins explained. During this time, all other activities, including science, will temporarily be put on hold.
"Those flight software transition days — [Sols] 5, 6, 7 and 8 — are pretty devoted just to that flight software activity, and not to science," Watkins said. "So, we're kind of standing down from science."The reason for this is to avoid any kind of interference, and to allow enough time for engineers to finish the transfer and verify that everything is functioning according to plan. Once that work is complete, engineers and scientists will continue checking Curiosity's instruments and gathering early science observations.

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