Windows 98 Mars Probe Gets Software Update After Two Decades

Windows 98 Mars Probe Gets Software Update After Two Decades

Patch management for the latest versions of Windows may be on the minds of most of us here on Earth, but in the meantime, the European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft has received the first update to its system. based on Windows 98 in 19 years. .

The mission was first launched to discover signs of liquid water on Mars, including a suspected 20 x 30 km saltwater lake buried under 1,5 km of ice in the Red Planet's south polar region.

The upgrades were carried out by engineers at the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Italy, and were fully funded by the Italian Space Agency (ASI).

What does it mean?

The agency said the update will allow the spacecraft to see Mars and its moon Phobos in better detail.

The Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) instrument on Mars Express sends low-frequency radio waves toward the planet using its 40-meter-long antenna.

Most of these waves reflect off the planet's surface, but significant amounts pass through the crust and reflect off the boundaries between layers of different materials below the surface, including ice, soil, rock, and water.

By examining the reflected signals, scientists can map structure below the surface of Mars to a depth of a few kilometers and study properties such as the thickness and composition of its polar ice caps and the properties of volcanic and sedimentary rock layers.

The space agency did not go into details about the specifications of the hardware receiving the update, but Tom's Hardware speculated that it could have a Pentium 90 processor, meaning it could run classic games like Doom and Explore the Secrets of Mars.

"Previously, to study the most important features of Mars and its moon Phobos, we relied on a complex technique that stored a large amount of high-resolution data and filled the instrument's onboard memory very quickly," said Andrea Cicchetti, MARSIS deputy director. . INAF Investigator and Head of Operations.

He added: “By removing data we don't need, the new software allows us to run MARSIS five more times and explore a much larger area with each pass.