Don't they use RAD 750's? The RAD 750 is a Power PC and it's about the best/fastest radiation hardened processor you can find right now. They are about $250k a piece. Rad hard processors are always going to be one to two generations behind what you can get for a home PC. Clear skies, Dale.

-----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces+dale.hooper=sdl.usu.edu@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy- bounces+dale.hooper=sdl.usu.edu@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Patrick Wiggins Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 1:31 PM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Spirit Briefing.

David Dunn wrote:

...

It looks like the Mars Rover Briefing is scheduled for 11am MT today on NASA. With my schedule, 11 was too early to get up so I taped it and am watching the tape as I enter this. Neat stuff, especially the 360 degree panorama Spirit shot from the top of Husband Hill.

One comment that caught my attention, though, was that the computers onboard the rovers are similar to home computers from about 15 years ago. I knew the shuttle's computers use old technology but was surprised to hear the rovers suffer from the same problem.

...

I haven't seen anything on the list for about it for a while... I put it in News last week and included a reminder in this morning's issue so hopefully most everyone got a heads up.

Ok, back to the briefing.

Patrick

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