Sol 22 anomaly, File system problem Options

[PaulM]

AFAIK, MSL isn't using the DOS filesystem. For the cameras, I wrote my own filesystem (the cameras don't use an OS, the software runs on the bare metal.)

I think that it is very sensible to replace the complex DOS compatible flash filesystem used in MER and Phoenix with multiple simpler flash file systems in MSL because this means that in MSL a single flash problem will not result in the loss of all data stored in flash. Presumably in MSL if 45,000 engineering data files were created by mistake then there would be no risk of loosing photos because they will be stored in a separate flash chip on a different processor board.

I presume that MSL has more flash memory than MER which overcomes the need to use a single flash file store which would use flash as efficiently as possible? Am I correct in thinking that MER only uses one microprocessor but MSL uses many? I would be interested in finding out what processor is used by the MSL camera system?

I understand that each MER rover go into safe mode around once each year because two VxWorks tasks write to a rover orientation record at the same time. I can understand that this bug has not been fixed in MER because it only occurs very infrequently. What I would be interested in finding out is whether this bug has been fixed in the MSL software build which I understand is derived from the software build loaded into MER about two years ago?

[mcaplinger]

Presumably people who are interested in flight software read slashdot, but if not, this article was featured today: http://news.oreilly.com/2008/07/the-softwa...the-mars-p.html

[nprev]

Interesting article; thanks for posting it, Mike!

Good question about the processors as well, oDoug. I'm always curious to see how qualification testing for improved hardware is progressing because it takes a REALLY long time. Most C-17 avionics boxes use 80386 processors to this day just because of that fact; space qualification must be an order of magnitude harder to achieve.