Mars Rover Milestone: Curiosity Receives Enhanced Software Upgrade After a Decade of Exploration

Photo Source- Google.com

Curiosity rover receives its first major software update, which has been exploring Mars for over a decade.

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180 changes are in the update that extend the rover’s capabilities & improve its efficiency.

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Improved driving abilities is one of the key improvements, allowing Curiosity to cover ground more quickly.

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Curiosity must stop after each segment to assess the nearby terrain & plan a safe route forward.

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Curiosity will be allowed by the software to process imagery much faster, reducing the time it needs to stop & consume less energy.

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The update will also be beneficial to Curiosity aluminum wheels, including two new mobility commands reducing wear & tear.

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Installed from November to December, 2022, the R3 update was a 21.921 megabyte image split into 51 files.

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Allowing for rollbacks in case of errors, the installation was carried out in multiple steps.

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In case the rover needs to switch to the old flight control software, R12 is still on board in a special backup memory.

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