R-Hope: Development Approach to Extreme Non-Volatile Memory Reuse Onboard the Curiosity Rover

The MSL Curiosity rover landed on Mars on Au-gust 5, 2012. Over time, one of its two redundant computers experienced critical hardware memory failure. This NAND flash non-volatile memory (NVM) held file system and tunable parameter partitions needed for running rover flight software. The project assembled a design and development team to re-purpose a NOR flash memory hardware chip, only 1.5% of the size of the NAND, to hold the file systems and parameters. The usable NOR memory required major software changes to accommodate the new limitations of slower access speeds, vastly different physical layout, and smaller size. This presentation discusses the approach, challenges, and outcomes of restoring function to the computer so it can act as a "lifeboat" in event of problems with the primary computer.