Aardvark Daily

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The little engines that could

29 August 2008

How's that flash new iPhone working for you?

What's that? You're having issues with reception?

Oh, and now you find that it's not as secure as you thought so hackers might be able to steal your emails and other data?

What about those cheap "Made in China" appliances you've bought from The Warehouse this year?

How many of those have been returned, thrown out or just developed niggly little faults?

Yes, it's sad but true that nothing's perfect.

No matter how much time, effort and money we invest in trying to make something, there's always the chance it will have some small flaw that crops up and causes problems later on.

All the more reason to praise the guys at NASA therefore.

Do you remember the little robotic rovers that were unceremoniously dumped on the surface of Mars way back in 2004?

They had a designed service-life of just a few short months but had their missions extended after they were found to be still working at the end of that period.

It was then expected that an accumulation of dust on the rovers' solar panels would eventually kill the vehicles by making it impossible to extract enough energy during the daytime to keep its batteries charged and warm overnight.

But that didn't happen either.

As if by magic, the panels appear to be regularly cleaned by passing whirlwinds that suck the dust right off them and bring power levels back up to safe levels.

However, things have not gone perfectly...

One of the rovers (Opportunity) has a wonky wheel, forcing mission controllers to rely on the other three "steerable" wheels to change course but virtually all other systems are still functioning. Despite this handicap, Opportunity has travelled more than 11Kms since it first rolled off the landing platform some four years ago.

Now admittedly that's a pretty slow pace but when you consider the conditions, the (now dated) technology involved and the uncertain nature of the terrain, it's a massive accomplishment.

I really wish someone involved in the project would write a book about how NASA has coped with the challenges, problems and process of determining the risk/reward ratio of some decisions.

From what I gather, on a number of occasions it's been necessary to upload critical new bits of code to the rovers and "reboot" them. Imagine the devastating effect if there was a bug in the boot-loader or some of the new code.

It's no good trying to call the Nasa Rover helpdesk in Bangalore if your CPU has taken a fatal dump half-way across the solar system.

"Good evening and welcome to NASA Support... Have you tried rebooting?"

"What version of Windows are you running?"

Please turn your modem off for 30 seconds and then turn it back on"

They say that air traffic control is one of the most stressful jobs in the world but I'd wager the guys who write and test the software updates are pumping more adrenaline when they're uploading that code to a machine which could be totally scuttled by the slightest error.

So what are the rovers up to now?

Well The Mars Exploration Rover website has a wealth of info and plenty of new pictures to marvel at, with updates on an almost day-by-day basis.

NASA have had their problems in the past but "the little rovers that could" must surely be one of mankind's greatest engineering feats.

Forget big bridges, tall buildings and even sending man to the moon. Building, delivering, operating, maintaining and upgrading these little devices across the vast expanses of space produces so many challenges I wouldn't begin to count them.

Yet, the combined efforts of mechanical, software and mechanical engineers plus the work of chemists, physicists and mathematicians has produced truly stunning results in this case.

Shall we now run a sweepstake to pick just when these little machines finally succumb to the harsh environment of the planet Mars?

Or will it be human error that finally scuttles them in the final proof that nothing made by man is ever really perfect.

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