Mars spacecraft upgraded after 20 years of using Windows 98

The software upgrade will help the Mars Express onboard MARSIS tool get better signals, process data more efficiently, and last longer.

Engineers at the European Space Agency (ESA) are upgrading Mars Express, a spacecraft orbiting Mars, after about 20 years of using Windows 98, Interesting Engineering reported on June 27.

Mars Express spaceship simulator. (Photo: ESA/ATG medialab/DLR/FU Berlin)

Mars Express launched into space in 2003, still flying around the red planet to this day. During this time, Mars Express's Advanced Ionosphere and Subsurface Exploration Radar (MARSIS) instrument used software developed for Windows 98.

"We faced many challenges to improve the performance of MARSIS. Especially because the software was designed more than 20 years ago, using Microsoft's Windows 98-based development environment," said Carlo Nenna, MARSIS software engineer, who is responsible for the upgrade, explains. ESA has not disclosed the name of the software it is upgrading to MARSIS as well as the operating system used for the new system.

A software upgrade for the MARSIS instrument means Mars Express can look beneath the surface of Mars and the moon Phobos in greater detail than ever before, according to the ESA announcement. This will be very desirable because MARSIS was the key part that helped the spacecraft detect a huge aquifer underground in 2018.

The Mars Express spacecraft sends low-frequency radio waves down to the surface of Mars with a 40-meter antenna to search for water and study the red planet's atmosphere. Radio waves allow the instrument on the probe to be about 5km below the surface of Mars. According to the ESA, upgrading the software will increase the quality of the data.

The upgrade improves signal reception for the MARSIS antenna and increases data processing efficiency, allowing longer observation times. "By eliminating unnecessary data, the new software helps us run MARSIS 5 times longer and explore a much larger area," said Andrea Cicchetti, MARSIS operations manager at the Institute of Physics The Italian National Astronomy (INAF), explained.

"The new software will help us study regions of Mars more quickly and deeply with high resolution, thereby confirming if they are water sources. This is really like having a water source. brand new instrument on board Mars Express after nearly 20 years," added Cicchetti.