The Mars Express mission was launched way back on June 2, 2003—that’s 19 years ago. It means that the Mars Express and its MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar.
WTF?! There aren’t many reasons why an in-use system would still run an OS developed in Windows 98, but here’s a good one: it’s been traveling through space for the last 19 years. Thankfully, the European Space Agency’s Mars Express probe is receiving a major software upgrade that will allow it to see beneath the surfaces of Mars and its moon Phobos in greater detail than was previously possible. The Mars Express mission was launched way back on June 2, 2003—that’s 19 years ago. It means that the Mars Express and its MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding) water probe run software that was developed using Windows 98. The new software, designed by Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) and Carlo Nenna, MARSIS on-board software engineer at Enginium, includes upgrades intended to improve signal reception and on-board data processing, which should increase the amount and quality of data sent back to Earth, according to the ESA post.
