NASA engineers reprogrammed Mars helicopter's Snapdragon chip to run the rover instead, reconfiguring system from 140 million miles away — repurposes its 'ancient' unused Qualcomm 801 SoC, accurate to within 10 inches

NASA engineers reprogrammed Mars helicopter's Snapdragon chip to run the rover instead, reconfiguring system from 140 million miles away — repurposes its 'ancient' unused Qualcomm 801 SoC, accurate to within 10 inches

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chip was used to communicate with the Ingenuity Mars helicopter. But now that it's been retired from service, NASA engineers found another use for this relatively powerful chip.

NASA’s Perseverance rover has been running into issues with its autonomous navigation systems on Mars, wherein its systems required guidance from Earth to determine its precise location. While its on… [+2983 chars]