Mars Express Interplanetary Station gets Windows 98 upgrade
While Russians can't install the Windows operating system from the official Microsoft website, the Mars Express interplanetary station received a software update.
What we know
Mars Express was launched into space on June 2, 2003 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It is a project of the European Space Agency. The MARSIS radar is searching for water on Mars.
The Windows 98 software update improved the signal strength, which in turn will increase the station's data processing speed. Specialists from the space agency are confident that they will be able to study the area around the liquid pole of the Red Planet, where there may be large reserves of water.
How do you update Windows 98 on a spaceship orbiting Mars? @esa is doing it for Mars Express, after 19 years. https://t.co/DRWtuaqo22 pic.twitter.com/xxkDz5GrL1
— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) June 22, 2022
It is assumed that the station uses a single-core Apple Mac G3 PowerPC processor with a frequency of 233 MHz. This chipset is used in the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers. The choice is due to the fact that the chip is resistant to radiation. True, there is no confirmation that it supports the Windows 98 operating system.
It is possible that an even older 80486 processor with a maximum clock frequency of 25 MHz is responsible for the calculations. Such processor is used in the Hubble Space Telescope.
Source: Tom's Hardware
