NASA's unmanned spacecraft with the first PlayStation CPU reaches Pluto

Unmanned spacecraft leaving the earth in 2006 "New HorizonsWill recover from the dormant state and observation of Pluto will start. New Horizons, which operates about 3.5 billion miles (about 5.6 billion km) away from the sun, said the same CPU as the original PlayStation is used.

MIPS goes to Pluto - Imagination Blog
http://blog.imgtec.com/mips-processors/mips-goes-to-pluto


New Horizons Mission to Pluto | NASA
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/

New Horizons flies the solar system with two computer systems, one while guidance control, the other is used for command and data handling. What is running these two systems is the microprocessor that New Horizons is equipped with "Mongoose-V". Synova's "10 to 15 MHz clock"R 3000It is a radiation-resistant version of.


MIPS architectureBased on Mongoose-V, "Analysis of location information", "Distribution of operation commands to multiple subsystems" "Collection and processing of instrument data", "Transmission of backup data to the earth", automatic correction at the occurrence of problems We are also implementing an advanced independent algorithm called for rescue to the Earth.

New Horizons, which has reached Pluto, is planning to explore the Moon of Pluto and Pluto in the future,According to NASAPluto at about 20:50 on July 15, 2015 in Japan timeFly-byI plan to. It is planned to end Pluto exploration in late August 2015, but in late 2016Kuiper belt objectAdditional exploration mission is also planned.


It is the base of "Mongoose-V" which is installed in such New Horizons, the same performance "R 3000" is a 32 bit microprocessor. As well as being used for Toshiba microcontrollers as of 2015,The same for the first PlayStationIt is used. It is the first PlayStation that has few opportunities to play, but in the vicinity of Pluto it is not a game, it is used for collecting precious planetary exploration data.