Not Just Perseverance, Linux Is On Mars Too With NASA's Recent Success

NASA¡¯s Perseverance landed on the surface of Mars earlier this week amid appreciation from the whole world. The achievement was monumental after all, the small rover travelled to a distant planet that can soon be the next 'home' for humans. However, it wasn¡¯t the only man-made thing in doing so.

The now-renowned rover is accompanied by a tiny helicopter named Ingenuity, which is set to take the first ever flight on a planet other than Earth soon. Though it hasn't got a lot of coverage, but interestingly enough, the autonomous drone is powered by a Linux system.

¡°This is the first time we¡¯ll be flying Linux on Mars,¡± NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) senior engineer Tim Canham said in an interview with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), as quoted in a report by The Verge.

NASA Ingenuity (Image: NASA)

¡°The software framework that we¡¯re using is one that we developed at JPL for cubesats and instruments, and we open-sourced it a few years ago.¡± Called F¡¯ or ¡°F prime¡±, the open source nature of the software means that it can be used by anyone wanting to fly a helicopter here on Earth. So if you want to fly with Linux, you will be using the same software as JPL is using for the Ingenuity helicopter.

¡°It¡¯s kind of an open-source victory, because we¡¯re flying an open-source operating system and an open-source flight software framework and flying commercial parts that you can buy off the shelf if you wanted to do this yourself someday,¡± Canham said.

No doubt there, as it is easy to see how open source software can help engineers be at par with the technology that is enabling flight on Mars. With further adoption in the engineering community, it is bound to evolve to a whole new level, maybe powering further missions to other planets.