Open Source on Mars

NASA’s Perseverance landed safely on Mars. It carried onboard a drone helicopter, Ingenuity. Ingenuity is the first vehicle to ever fly in another world. Given that it is 11 Light Minutes from Earth, Ingenuity needs to navigate autonomously to collect samples and perform other activities.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has open-sourced its F’ framework (pronounced F prime). Additionally, there are over 58 open source components, from Linux to simple utilities used in Ingenuity.

Some interesting observations:

1. Code with Blocker level issues in Security and Quality can fly a robotic helicopter 11 Light Minutes away. Try telling that to your CISO :)
2. It’s connecting to AWS all the way from there!
3. Learn Python before you pack your bags to Mars! 80% of the libraries are in Python.
4. You don’t need to be popular to get to Mars. 44% of libraries have less than a thousand stars, 6 have less than 100 stars.
5. fprime is the heart of the functionality. The other 58 are technology building blocks or small utilities and functions.

If you are a flying enthusiast or just curious, try this collection on kandi.

kandi Collection: Open Source on Mars

Happy Reuse!