NASA has spent $1.8 billion to build Mars Rover “Curiosity“. I’m sure, considering the expenditure every people will think that Curiosity has super fast brainpower. But ironically Curiosity has less brainpower than an Apple iPhone 5.
$1.8 billion costly Mars Rover Curiosity has two computers in its belly – a primary and a backup. These computers are the brain of the Rover. A total of 5 million lines of code have been input inside this two computers through which Curiosity can operate itself perfectly. On the other side, unlocked iPhone 5 whose price starts from $649, should have been merely nothing to Curiosity’s brain.
But chief flight software engineer Ben Cichy mentioned audiences at this year’s MacWorldIn, “You’re carrying more processing power in your pocket than Curiosity.” While people couldn’t understand what he was trying to say, then Cichy explained that iPhone 5 has more processing power than Curiosity. And the he brought the following facts to the audiences:
- Processors: Curiosity’s is 132MHz; the iPhone 5’s is 1.3 GHz.
- Memory: Curiosity’s has 128 MB; the iPhone 5 has 1 GB.
- Storage: Curiosity holds 4 GB; iPhone 5 holds 64 GB.
- OS: Curiosity runs Wind River VxWorks 6.7 Real-time OS; the iPhone runs iOS 6.
Cichy also said that as NASA uses a Linux workstation to run Curiosity, it can compile the software using a MacBook Air. And the notebook can easily port over applications because of the Unix infrastructure at its core.
Source: Slashdot
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