The First Helicopter to Fly on Mars is Running Linux

[heyted]

The autonomous helicopter that will attempt this flight is running a Linux OS, and the open-source F' software is partially Python.

"This is the first time we’ll be flying Linux on Mars. We’re actually running on a Linux operating system. The software framework that we’re using is one that we developed at JPL for cubesats and instruments, and we open-sourced it a few years ago."

The next model should have a 4K camera, and the video recording software should be _______?

https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/aer ... ously-mars
https://github.com/nasa/fprime

[lyleortega]

Weird that they used Linux, its pretty unusual to run Linux on such systems. Even the best Open Source Drones here on earth don't run Linux (they run FreeRTOS or NuttX).

And because the Rover uses VxWorks id would assumed that they use that too for the Helicopter.

[barbarashipley]

Weird that they used Linux, its pretty unusual to run Linux on such systems. Even the best Open Source Drones here on earth don't run Linux (they run FreeRTOS or NuttX).

And because the Rover uses VxWorks id would assumed that they use that too for the Helicopter.

This depends on what the required architecture on that system is. FREERTOS and VXworks dont have support for some SoCs. Running linux is prob more common than you think depending on the hardware

[matthewclatter]

Weird that they used Linux, its pretty unusual to run Linux on such systems. Even the best Open Source Drones here on earth don't run Linux (they run FreeRTOS or NuttX).

And because the Rover uses VxWorks id would assumed that they use that too for the Helicopter.

This depends on what the required architecture on that system is. FREERTOS and VXworks dont have support for some SoCs. Running linux is prob more common than you think depending on the hardware

Yeah, it's probably not that much more expensive to run a more powerful SOC on something as far away as Mars, especially if you're going to be doing other stuff as well. Once the SOC is big enough, the overhead of a full OS isn't a big deal. I'm guessing they're running some sophisticated sensors and analytics on the drone because of the high latency to Earth.