By Sooraj Shah 24 Aug 2012

The Mars Curiosity Rover, a robot sent to Mars by

NASA to investigate the possibility of extra-terrestrial

life on the planet, had to undergo a rigorous software

verification process to ensure that it could safely land

on Mars.

The robot, which had its first test drive on

Wednesday, was built by NASA Jet Propulsion

Laboratory (JPL). JPL opted to use development

testing software provider Coverity to ensure that flight

control and on-board function software were

thoroughly tested.

In an interview with Computing, Andy Chou, chief

technical officer and co-founder of Coverity, explained

what the project entailed.

"The JPL developed several million lines of code – which if printed would be a 6ft stack of paper – and part of it

was for the landing process, but also for other experiments. Before the software was fully testable, the JPL

eliminated a large portion of the defects they found," he said.

JPL then enforced a mandate to use static analysis tools, including Coverity, and fix everything that these tools

found; both defects and "false positives", which are incorrect reports of the tools.

Full scans were completed every night on all of the code and this resulted in what Chou called a "near infinite

detection" of the defects that were introduced onto the code base.

"This allowed JPL to remove defects and ensure quality as the code is being formed and written and as a result it

got quality code upfront so that its later testing could be more rigorous and focused on more difficult issues," he

said.

Chou explained that it was very difficult to get anything of that size to be defect-free.

"JPL tried everything it could and got it right and it shows that we can get it right even for large software systems,"

he said.

[Turn to next page]

© Incisive Media Investments Limited 2012, Published by Incisive Financial Publishing Limited, Haymarket House,

28-29 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4RX, are companies registered in England and Wales with company registration

numbers 04252091 & 04252093

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. > Find out more

here

Mars Curiosity Rover required ‘most rigorous software testing’

Mars Curiosity Rover required ‘most rigorous so�ware tes�ng’ ‐ 24 Au... h�p://www.compu�ng.co.uk/ctg/news/2200904/mars‐curiosity‐rover‐...

1 of 1 8/25/2012 8:52 AM