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Posted by tourdemars to Mars Exploration Rovers at August 24, 2004 12:55 AM
A software glitch that paralyzed the Mars "Spirit" rover earlier this year was caused by an unanticipated characteristic of a DOS file system, a NASA scientist said Monday. The flaw, since fixed, was only discovered after days of agonizingly slow tests complicated by the limited "windows" of communication allowed by the rotation of Mars, said Robert Denise, a member of the Flight Software Development Team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.marsnews.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/817
Ya but it is also the reason that it was saveable in the first place. Second point was life time of the files and the data rate to which they are created was the real issue before the memory would be filled.
Posted by: Harold LaValley at August 24, 2004 08:09 AM
Copying a FAT (File Allocation Table) to RAM without proper checking if it fits is a bug. The real problem is that it wasn't detected by testing procedures. I remember that the software for driving on Mars was not ready at launch time of both rovers. It had to be up and running after landing. Simply not enough time to do it properly, I guess. The results could have been worse.
ps Great website this! I love it!
Posted by: henk at August 24, 2004 05:13 PM
That should be DOS attack which was commited by Saturn's hackers. Acctualy I can't even imagine how NASA doing their programs if they still haven't moreover reliable soft.Of course the progs are tremendous and awesome, but so pity nothing is absolutely wonderful.
Posted by: Botanika at September 8, 2004 02:02 PM