[X] My Assistant

[Tom O'Reilly]

How flexible is the MSL embedded software? Could it be modified "in situ" to accommodate teleoperation by humans in Mars orbit?

In my current line of work I work with underwater vehicles of various kinds. An Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) is a free-swimming robot with no physical connection to the surface. Since radio waves do not propagate through seawater and since acoustic communications are generally very slow, "real-time" human control of the AUV is not practical. Instead the AUV onboard software is designed for autonomous untended operation. MSL seems analogous to an AUV; the long Earth-Mars light-time eliminates the possibility of "fast" human response. So I presume that MSL onboard software is similar in its design to AUV software.

I also work with Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) which are connected to a surface vessel via electro-optical tether. The ROV is operated by human pilots on the surface vessel, who use joy-sticks and other UIs to "fly" the vehicle and control its instruments in real-time. The vehicle software is designed specifically to accommodate the human-in-the-loop control; these control loops operate at millisecond intervals. ROV software design is quite different from AUV software design.

Let's be wildly optimistic and suppose that there is a human expedition to Martian orbit in the next twenty years, but no human landing yet. The orbital mission could bring its own tele-operated surface robots, but I wonder if they could also use MSL if it is still operational. Would it be possible to re-program MSL in situ to accommodate real-time teleoperation by astronauts in Mars orbit?