The European Space Agency will upgrade the Mars Express spacecraft from software made with Windows 98

Update (12:22 p.m., June 27, 2022): This publication has been updated to reflect that the MARSIS tool is designed with a Windows 98-based development environment.

What you should Know:

• The Mars Express spacecraft, which launched in 2003, will receive a software update to improve the data it sends back to Earth.
• The ship is currently running an operating system built with Windows 98.
• The Mars Express contains the MARSIS instrument, which helped detect signs of liquid water on Mars.

Windows 8.1 may be about to come out, but the European Space Agency (ESA) has an older operating system to deal with. The Mars Express spacecraft needs to be updated by its operating system, which was created with tools based on Windows 98. The MARSIS instrument, which was used to detect signs of liquid water on Mars, is housed in the spacecraft. The software update will allow the device to see in more detail what is below the surface of the Red Planet, according to ESA.

“After decades of fruitful science and a good understanding of Mars, we wanted to go beyond the instrument beyond some of the limitations required at the start of the mission,” said Andrea Chicketti, PI Deputy and Operations Manager at MARSIS at INAF.

“We have faced a number of challenges to improve the performance of MARSIS,” said Carlo Nena. “Not least because the MARSIS software was originally designed more than 20 years ago using a development environment based on Microsoft Windows 98!”

The Mars Express software update will improve signal reception and on-board data processing. This will increase how much data can be sent back to Earth and improve the quality of that data.

Earlier signals suggest that liquid water may be present in several regions near the south pole of Mars. The software update should provide more in-depth information about these areas.

“The new software will help us study these high-resolution regions more quickly and in-depth and confirm whether they are home to new sources of water on Mars. It’s really like having a brand new instrument on board the Mars Express almost 20 years after launch, “said ESA Mars Express scientist Colin Wilson.