NASA uses Mars Helicopter's SoC for rover navigation upgrade

by LorenDBon 2/23/2026, 3:12 PMwith 12 comments

by mapton 2/23/2026, 4:36 PM

This system sounds like one of the many pieces of science equipment whose costs are >98% in one-off R&D engineering & mission ops, and <2% in marginal cost of construction/launch.

Imagine a hundred of these exploring Mars semi-autonomously, maybe with LoRa mesh networking, for not a whole lot more money than it cost to send one.

by 1970-01-01on 2/23/2026, 4:51 PM

So 100% of the Snapdragons on Mars are no longer sitting idle and are tasked doing useful work. Why can't we do the same for Earth?

by tibbydudezaon 2/23/2026, 3:33 PM

Those CPU's are not radiation hardened.