Nasa’s Curiosity rover lands on Mars using VxWorks software

Part of a $2.5billion mission, Curiosity is said to be the most complex robotic interplanetary probe ever designed and carries 10 times more scientific instruments than the previous Mars Exploration rovers. It is powered by a BAE RAD750 single board computer with a 200MHz cpu. On board memory includes 256MB of dram and 2GB of Flash memory with 2kB of EEPROM. It also runs Wind River's VxWorks real time operating system. The rover used VxWorks for the complex landing sequence called EDL (entry, descent and landing), which has been described as 'seven minutes of terror' due to the precision required for the spacecraft to survive the landing. "Wind River's VxWorks helped manage the terror in the seven minutes of EDL, making this incredible feat possible," commented Mike Deliman, senior technical staff at Wind River. "The role VxWorks plays during the landing process is similar to the role it plays in the autonomous devices we use every day without knowing it's there."