[meteorite-list] Cruising to Mars, Curiosity Awaits Final Software Load

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 08:26:41 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201111291626.pATGQfMS022229_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av028/111128cruise/

Cruising to Mars, Curiosity awaits final software load
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
November 28, 2011

Saturday's launch of the Curiosity rover was just the prologue of the
$2.5 billion mission, and officials will spend the next eight months
readying for the craft's untried descent to the surface of Mars.

The rover soared into space at 10:02 a.m. EST (1502 GMT) Saturday on top
of an Atlas 5 rocket. Its mission at Mars will be to detect organic
molecules, the building blocks of life, and determine if the planet
could have ever harbored life, past or present.

Forty-four minutes later, the probe separated from the Atlas rocket's
Centaur upper stage on a trajectory to escape Earth. Officials reported
the craft was in good health.

"We all recognize this is the prologue for the mission, necessary but
not sufficient," said Peter Theisinger, project manager for the Mars
Science Laboratory. "We all have our work cut out for us over the next
eight-and-a-half months to prepare for the surface mission and do the
final 'I-dotting' and 'T-crossing' for [entry, descent and landing]."

All the hardware necessary for the make-or-break landing went up
Saturday, but software engineers are still writing and testing
programming for Curiosity's arrival at Mars and its two-year mission on
the surface.

After entering the Martian atmosphere shielded by an ablative
carbon-based thermal protection system, Curiosity will deploy a
parachute, jettison its heat shield and will be lowered to the surface
hanging on nylong tethers underneath a rocket pack.

Six course correction thruster firings are planned through Aug. 6, 2012,
when Curiosity will reach Mars.

Controllers will uplink the final version of Curiosity's landing
software in May, followed in June by the transmission of software for
the rover's surface operations, according to Theisinger.

"The rover already has software to do individual tasks," Theisinger
said. "What we're adding is a level of efficiency so we can tell it to
do something and then it can execute a whole block of activities in one
go."

The in-flight delivery of software is not unusual for NASA's Mars
missions. Theisinger, who led development of the Spirit and Opportunity
rovers, said controllers uplinked operations software to those vehicles
as they cruised to the Red Planet.

Opportunity has received subsequent software upgrades since its 2004
landing, allowing the robot more autonomy and independence on drives and
scientific investigations.

NASA ordered the Curiosity team to concentrate its efforts on preparing
the spacecraft for launch this year. The rover had three weeks to blast
off to reach Mars in 2012, or else wait another two years.

With the rover safely on its way to Mars, engineers have little time to
breathe easy.

"As soon as we launch, we will start what call robustness testing, where
we actually try to break the software," said Doug McCuistion, head of
NASA's Mars exploration program. "We've tested the hardware enough where
we know the hardware works. The software ties it all together. We're
going to try to break it. We're going to, at a minimum, test the corners
of the envelope of where its performance limits are."

A series of week-long simulations are also planned to prepare the
Curiosity operations team for what's to come.

Linking a mock-up of the rover with the science team and control room,
officials will test command sequences, check software and verify other
procedures.

"In these simulations, the science team gets to practice, for example,
how you would do triage the amount of data that's available, the amount
of power that's available and the mount of time that's available,
basically the three fundamental resources that allow us to do the
science experiments," said John Grotzinger, MSL's project scientist.

Scientists plan 10 of the simulations, called operational readiness
tests, on the voyage to Mars.
Received on Tue 29 Nov 2011 11:26:41 AM PST