Mars Curiosity has gone curiously dark? No new raw photos for 5 days now...

Not sure if anyone has posted about this but I was following right along with the touch down, first pics etc. But over the weekend got busy and just now noticed that there have been no new images and more interesting no new Raw images posted on

The Mars Science Laboratory Website


Anyone else find this interesting or have any information? All the twitter feeds are talking about is updated old data…

Seems we are stuck on Sol 3, and I could have sworn I saw someone post something about the rover going dark or something after 3 sols?
Raw Image Page

The curiosity rover, last I heard.. was in the middle of performing a software update that will take 4 days to complete.. which isn't yet finished.. the software is to aid in navigating the surface I do believe..

www.computerworld.com...

NASA's Mars Curiosity rover is three-quarters of the way through a major software upgrade NASA has dubbed a "brain transplant."

The four-day software upgrade started Saturday and, if all goes as planned, should wrap up by Tuesday afternoon. So far all has gone exactly as planned, said Guy Webster, a spokesman for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

I doubt it can do much during it's "brain transplant" ..

The update began Saturday so that coincides with 3 days without updates.

Edit: Beaten by above

Didn't they make a software update on Curiosity the other day, maybe it went bad

Could be they are just preparing or testing the systems after the update, well, i hope they are....

Originally posted by Mianeye
Didn't they make a software update on Curiosity the other day, maybe it went bad

Could be they are just preparing or testing the systems after the update, well, i hope they are....

The updates aren't due to be finished until sometime this evening/afternoon ..

Curiosity was so shaken up that it committed suicide. They should have sent some Paxil along with it. The software upgrade should have been completed after three days.

I didn't realize that the Opportunity rover was still in operation.. I knew Spirit was given up for dead, I assumed Opportunity had as well but they upgraded its software with artificial intelligence so that for the most part it roves on it's own looking for interesting rocks or formations to study and send back photos of ..

On July 2, 2012 Opportunity's 3000 Sols on Mars were celebrated.[90] By July 5, 2012, NASA published a new panorama showing the surroundings of Opportunity at the Greeley Haven position. [91] Also, the other end of the Endeavour crater is seen in the right half of the scene, a crater that spans 22 kilometers (about 14 miles) in diameter. On July 12, 2012 (Sol 3010), solar arrays produced 523 watt-hours and 21.49 miles (34,580.05 meters) was the total distance traveled from landing.[92] That month, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted a dust storm and water ice clouds near the rover.[92]

In preparation for the new rover landing, Opportunity sent special Ultra High Frequency radio signals to simulate Curiosity rover to a radio observatory in Australia.[90] The new rover successfully approached Mars and landed in early August 2012, while Opportunity collected data on rocks and Mars weather.[90]

Think people. Software update? How does that remotely make sense? Just downloading updates over the internet frequently results in corruptions, incomplete file transfers, and buff buff buffering problems. We are supposed to believe they have to "update software" remotely (to say the least) just days after landing?

yes, that's it.....now I remember....it has to have a software nap....that's the ticket
men....I'm not so sure about this. Did you guys know that only 1/3 of the mars missions ever landed...they had.....lets say.....visitors. Mariner had three pics com back, you don;t want to know. Mariner 3 , maybe?
say no more, mates.

Originally posted by sprtpilot
Think people. Software update? How does that remotely make sense? Just downloading updates over the internet frequently results in corruptions, incomplete file transfers, and buff buff buffering problems. We are supposed to believe they have to "update software" remotely (to say the least) just days after landing?

it makes perfect sense .. why wouldn't it? .. they were talking about the software updates well in advance of it happening.. it's basically taking the software used for the landing procedures and initial touch down for diagnostics, systems checks and all of that.. and replacing it with a system geared for navigating, exploring and completing all of the various mission tasks..

Spirit and Opportunity have gone through this.. Opportunity was given artificial intelligence in it's last update.

Keep in mind that curiosity has two identical "brains" .. there's a complete fail safe in case of corruption

Originally posted by GBP/JPY
yes, that's it.....now I remember....it has to have a software nap....that's the ticket
men....I'm not so sure about this. Did you guys know that only 1/3 of the mars missions ever landed...they had.....lets say.....visitors. Mariner had three pics com back, you don;t want to know. Mariner 3 , maybe?
say no more, mates.

all of this was talked about by nasa long before curiosity ever landed.. they had a whole series of videos discussing everything about the mission.. the systems aboard the rover, the redundancy.. the parachute system.. ways of trying to prevent failure.. and the software update was discussed before it happened as well ..

The information has been out there..

Originally posted by sprtpilot
Think people. Software update? How does that remotely make sense? Just downloading updates over the internet frequently results in corruptions, incomplete file transfers, and buff buff buffering problems. We are supposed to believe they have to "update software" remotely (to say the least) just days after landing?

Sorry, this makes perfect sense.

Originally posted by flexy123

Originally posted by sprtpilot
Think people. Software update? How does that remotely make sense? Just downloading updates over the internet frequently results in corruptions, incomplete file transfers, and buff buff buffering problems. We are supposed to believe they have to "update software" remotely (to say the least) just days after landing?

Sorry, this makes perfect sense.

It truly does.. and this is hardly the internet.. and update like this is going to go to a temporary memory location and be crc checked before getting loaded into the main system .. and even if loading it into the main system fails, they have a fully redundant system that can take over.. comparing it to an incomplete download on a website is not realistic..

reply to post by abeverage


Did you see the hi res image off of your link showing where curiosity landed? That's crazy details on the image. Right down to 24 in per pixel.

Thanks for the link!

reply to post by sprtpilot


You know, they wouldn't even need to make up a story like this.

They could very well just keep uploading images, and we wouldn't even know if shenanigans were afoot.

I'm gonna go with software update on this one.

Originally posted by sprtpilot
Think people. Software update? How does that remotely make sense? Just downloading updates over the internet frequently results in corruptions, incomplete file transfers, and buff buff buffering problems. We are supposed to believe they have to "update software" remotely (to say the least) just days after landing?

I can't remember the last time I had a corrupted download, but I am an IT professional so we use methods which are not vulnerable to this sort of corruption. One method is called a hash. We perform some simple mathematical equations on the file on the originating server, and then the same operation on the destination. If the resultant output is the same we know the files are identical and there have been no transmission errors.

For example:

echo "hello" > test.file
sha256sum test.file
5891b5b522d5df086d0ff0b110fbd9d21bb4fc7163af34d08286a2e846f6be03 test.file
scp test.file remote-server:.
ssh remote-server sha256sum test.file
5891b5b522d5df086d0ff0b110fbd9d21bb4fc7163af34d08286a2e846f6be03 test.file
ssh remote-server cat test.file
hello

As you can see, because the hashes of the files are identical we know that the transfer did not have any corruption.

The reason they have to do this is because they only have limited internal storage + power, and the tasks of navigating through space and performing science on the ground are very different. It also means they can certify and finish the flight software package and have longer to work on the ground software. It was transmitted to the rover while it was still in-flight and they are now unpacking and activating it.

They are going to be extremely careful, and that is why it takes many days. One wrong step and you could set the mission back by months in some cases.

Originally posted by sprtpilot
Think people. Software update? How does that remotely make sense? Just downloading updates over the internet frequently results in corruptions, incomplete file transfers, and buff buff buffering problems. We are supposed to believe they have to "update software" remotely (to say the least) just days after landing?

How many rovers have you sent to Mars lately? You did it all without doing a software update? I believe in that case you should look for a high paid position at NASA.

Unless of course the "strangeness" of the software update is just an uneducated opinion about space vehicles on other worlds. In which case I forgive you.

I also am unfamiliar with the specifics of the mission. However, hearing about a software update does not make me immediately jump to the conclusion that something is up.

I might go looking for old articles detailing the Rover's mission as planned, lo and behold:

All the hardware necessary for the make-or-break landing went up Saturday, but software engineers are still writing and testing programming for Curiosity's arrival at Mars and its two-year mission on the surface.

Dated 2011 shortly after launch...

spaceflightnow.com...

reply to post by miniatus

and even if loading it into the main system fails, they have a fully redundant system that can take over.. comparing it to an incomplete download on a website is not realistic..

So what you are saying is that Curiosity is not using iTunes or the App Store?



This really thwarts my plans of a martian vacation listening to Jimmy Hendrix while playing Angry Birds....

of course we wont see anything right now. there are dust storms over the landing area.

ireport.cnn.com...

Phoenix is hit with yet another dust storm. This time-lapse was taken looking east towards Camelback mountain.

im just kidding.

I cant wait any longer for curiosity to get rolling!

Originally posted by sprtpilot
Think people. Software update? How does that remotely make sense? Just downloading updates over the internet frequently results in corruptions, incomplete file transfers, and buff buff buffering problems. We are supposed to believe they have to "update software" remotely (to say the least) just days after landing?

So somehow you think it makes more sense to be running the spaceflight and landing software, even though the spaceflight and landing is done?

Considering Curiosity is now a rover, and is no longer a spacecraft, its computers are being optimized for roving procedures, rather than being optimized for spaceflight and landing procedures. This roving-optimized software was sent to Curiosity a while back (while it was still cruising through space), and was sitting in memory, waiting for its planned installation after landing procedures were done.

It makes perfect sense.

reply to post by miniatus


Aw crap I do remember hearing it was getting a software upgrade, well hopefully it works! I am...Curious...to see what this rover finds. Sorry I had to!