Live Coverage of the Curiosity Mars Landing

[Jobydrone]

Some more pictures came back yesterday, amazing!

[Rico]

Some cool new video footage received now too!

FAKE Mars Rover Footage From Nasa !

[Dangelus]

Hehe

[davekill]

This just in...

Oops!

[Ensign Random]

That's hilarious. I'm just doing a B5 re-watch now too.

[sheldor]

This just in...

Oops!

Yeah, that's all we need now.   Someone get me Wil Smith.

[davekill]

On Wednesday, JPL engineers will begin checking Curiosity's scientific instruments to see if they are functioning properly. The rover also will begin collecting images for its first panoramic photo.

Later this week, the rover will be reprogrammed. It currently contains flight software and needs to be switched over to ground software.

"It's like doing a brain transplant on the rover," JPL media representative Gaye Hill said.

----

NASA only "goes with what it knows" and just packs whats needed for these long trips
The Curiosity rover's on-board computer is a pretty low-power system. In fact, the iPhone 4S is four times more powerful.

Specs Curiosity -    iPhone
CPU   200 MHz   800MHz
RAM   256 MB   512 MB
SSD   2GB      64 GB

[billybob476]

Yeah, the thing with these systems is they have to be rugged and 100% reliable. You can't swap out a crashed hard drive or bad memory stick with the computer on Mars. The more complexity you add to a system, the more chance of breakdowns.

[Dangelus]

No doubt it's running a custom flavour of Linux or Unix.

[QuadShot]

On Wednesday, JPL engineers will begin checking Curiosity's scientific instruments to see if they are functioning properly. The rover also will begin collecting images for its first panoramic photo.

Later this week, the rover will be reprogrammed. It currently contains flight software and needs to be switched over to ground software.

"It's like doing a brain transplant on the rover," JPL media representative Gaye Hill said.

----

NASA only "goes with what it knows" and just packs whats needed for these long trips
The Curiosity rover's on-board computer is a pretty low-power system. In fact, the iPhone 4S is four times more powerful.

Specs Curiosity -    iPhone
CPU   200 MHz   800MHz
RAM   256 MB   512 MB
SSD   2GB      64 GB

As long as NASA doesn't have AT&T for Curiosity, they should be just fine!

[Rico]

Looks like there already is a littering problem on Mars. 

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Looks like there already is a littering problem on Mars. 

Starbucks is already there?! Where do they not exist?! 

hehe

[davekill]

Maybe not life as we know it - Kro-Bar and Lattis celebrate a successful rover landing!

I love these guys, both were featured in a previous podcast.

[billybob476]

NASA released the first color panorama of Mars. Doesn't look as...alien as I thought it would!

[Rico]

Still, very, very awesome!