Perseverance is the best of existing devices for studying the Red Planet. It is equipped with a variety of cameras and sensors, thanks to which he ever may well detect traces of life. At the same time, the computer installed inside it is much weaker than the cheapest smartphone. Its power can be compared with the performance of the 1990s computers. It is weaker even even clock Apple Watch, which has a more powerful processor and a large amount of memory. And the cost of his extended - recently it turned out that the mercier is equipped with a processor for 200 thousand dollars. At the current rate, it is almost 15 million rubles! But why is he so expensive? Let's take a look at his characteristics and try to find out the answer to this question.
Characteristics of the Perseverance Marshode
The price of the processor, which is installed inside the Perseverance Marshode, said the GURU3D portal. The on-board computer is called Rover Compute Element (RCE) and the RAD750 processor is installed inside it. It was developed by Bae Systems in 2001 and is able to work with a clock frequency of up to 200 MHz. In addition to this chip, 256 megabytes of RAM and 2 gigabytes for storing information are installed inside the on-board computer. According to modern standards, the Marshode's computer is very weak - smartphones are more powerful ten times. At the same time it costs 200 thousand dollars.
The Perseverance Marshode Power can be compared unless with the computer IMAC 1998, and then with the stretch. The first generation of IMAC monoblocks was published in May 1998 and even they had processors with a frequency of up to 700 MHz, RAM to 512 megabytes and a rigid disk of up to 128 gigabytes. The Perseverance market is weaker even even hours of Apple Watch, which cost about 1,000 dollars and at the same time operate on a 520 MHz frequency processor, and also have 512 megabytes operational and 8 gigabytes of the main memory.
Interesting fact: even the most expensive gaming computers today are not more than 2 million rubles. And the Perseverance Marshod's computer, as we have already found out above, in terms of our money costs about 15 million rubles.
How much is the Perseverance squirrel?
But why is the computer inside the marshode cost 200 thousand dollars, while comparable to the power of smartphones can be bought for 25 dollars? The reason is most likely lies in its reliability. It can work without any problems with 55-degree frosts and at a 125-degree heat. It can withstand up to 10,000 grade radiation radiation, while for people a mortal is a study of 6 Gray. The Aerospace Agency NASA does not want to use other processors, because even the existing power is enough for the operation of merins. In addition, this computer is tested by time and researchers know perfectly well how to fix it in case of breakdowns.
The RAD750 computer is also used in many other spacecraft. For example, it is he who is installed inside the Marsian satellite Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, who entered the orbit of the planet in 2006. The device still works perfectly well and recently even photographed the moment of the descent of the Perseverance Marschode to the surface of Mars. The same computer is installed in the Kepler telescope, an artificial satellite of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Moon, an interplanetary station Junon and in 2022 will be used in the Europa Clipper apparatus to explore the sixth satellite of Jupiter - Europe.
Here is another interesting fact: the Ingenuity helicopter flew to Mars is also not very smart. It is equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, which was used in the old Samsung Galaxy S5 and HTC One M8 smartphones.
The devices with the RAD750 computer are really a lot. According to 2010, more than 150 devices with such a filling were launched into space. And in each case, its cost was 200 thousand dollars. So spacecraft are very expensive devices. The total cost of the Perseverance Marshode was about $ 2.7 billion dollars. This is the heaviest and trusted laboratory ever sent to the surface of Mars.
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In spacecraft, powerful computers are almost not used. In 1969, as part of the "Apollo-11" mission, American Astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person on the moon. Before the first step, the astronauts had to land on the ground satellite a huge spacecraft. It was controlled by the Apollo Guidance Computer computer (AGC), which was 25 million (!) Once weaker than modern iPhone. The computer of one of the most important space missions in the history of mankind performed 40,000 operations per second, while the smartphone for the same time performs 5 trillion operations. You can read more about this in this article.