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Certainly one of the coolest things about being on the inside in the FPGA business is seeing what cool products our customers create with FPGAs. Some products we can talk about publicly (typically after a bit of negotiation with the customer), but many customers are reluctant to release any public information about the innards of their products.
One of the products we do have permission to talk about and one in which every person at Xilinx takes great pride in is the MER: the Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) and landers (the FPGA specifics of which were captured in issue 50 of Xcell Journal).
When NASA planned the mission, they expected the rovers would only last 3 months on Mars' harsh terrain. In February, of this year, these very cool robotic geologists celebrated their 5th straight year of operation on the red planet, far exceeding all expectations. They're still operational!
The MER mission is a truly remarkable feat of engineering. If you haven't already seen it, you have to check out the NASA animation of the complicated and extremely inventive landing sequence JPL and NASA devised to land and deploy the MER. Essentially, the landing involved an intricate deployment of a supersonic parachute and reverse thrusters to slow the lander's decent through Mar's atmosphere. This was followed by the in-air release of the lander, which during its deceleration sequence, deployed a circle of airbags that essentially made the lander bounce and then roll to its predetermined destination on the surface of Mars. It's like JPL and NASA executed the perfect giant Bocce ball toss (petanque if you're French or lawn bowling if you're English) only this one was from 35 million miles away. What's more impressive is they did it twice.
Landing the rovers successfully is pretty remarkable but then to have each of the landers deploy properly and operate as planned--working as mini geologists to help verify the existence of water on Mars--is even more remarkable. Over the last five years, each of the Rovers have run into setbacks mostly caused by the silty surface of Mars. The rovers and their operators at NASA have had to deal with dust storms covering the solar panels that power the rovers and stuck tires. But with a bit of luck, dedication and ingenuity, the team at NASA has kept them running so the MER could continue to relay to earth remarkable data and photos of the surface of Mars. Spirit recently dug a wheel in some soft soil on Mars' surface the NASA guys are working on getting it unstuck. You can track the MER mission progress at http://marsrover.nasa.gov/home/.
It will be interesting to see if the MER will still be operational when NASA lands its third-generation of Rover, the Mars Science Laboratory, on the red planet. JPL and NASA have turned it up a notch for the MSL mission, which is expected to launch in 2012. This rover is essentially the size of a Mini Cooper and because of the lander's size, JPL and NASA are not going to use the airbag landing method. Instead, this one will essentially use a craft that will hover above the surface of Mars. The hovering craft will then lower MSL down to the surface, release it and fly off. The MSL will then deploy its solar panels, arms and camera equipment and start performing advanced experiments. The mission operators have given the MSL a fun mix of instruments they can use to conduct a seemingly broad range of experiments, so if it just happens the MSL, like the MER outlasts its expected lifetime, the operators can seemingly use a broader mix of equipment to conduct a broader range of experiments on the red planet. Here's the animation for what the NASA folks have planned for the landing. Maybe a Martian will send back a video? I'd settle for a write-up in Xcell Journal.
Mike Santarini is the publisher of Xcell Journal, the publication produced by Xilinx Inc.
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