It would be nice to know if they had tried this while the rover was still on Earth with the exact software and procedures. I assume they did.

I have found, that to make sure everything is perfect. This is what happens;

the project is:

• over budget
• Over Schedule

And one might thing well atleast the quality is there, but, on top of that, something else goes wrong that was not anticipated. So your screwed out of the big three.

Budget, Schedule and Quality. Picking two of the three usually does it in most cases.

So as much as running every type of scenario, this is no different that any other project, issues like this always comes up, when implemented.

And and more than likely, the solution was in their risk management plan. So technically, things are going as planned.

So in conclusion, it's much more efficient to plan on mediation, then to ANALyze and correct every possibility.

According to JPL, the patch is not so much a patch, per se, but a complete re-configuration to replace software which is no longer needed, ie, software which governed the entry, descent and landing phases of Curiosity. This software is now 'dead weight' (not that it weighs much :), and takes up valuable memory which will now be used for Curiosity's main mission.

out with the old, in with the new.

reporting must be from a nontechnical reporter with a Liberal Arts degree in ....... DRAMA.

Yep. See a lot of that these days. SciAm, New Scientist, Space.com, Engadget, et al, all seem to subscribe to the notion that Science needs to be dumbed-down to their level. And dramatized - they don't get excited over the more exciting advancements in the scientific and technical fields because they themselves don't understand the ramifications of these new developments, and so they feel compelled to add the drama artificially. IMHO.

Possibly these journalistic morons should all collaborate on a book and just get it out of their system: Science Made Stupid.

I stopped SciAm years ago then "science writers" took over from the scientists. I realized what was happening when little errors appeared that would have been caught if scientists or engineers had been writing the articles.

These days, when you eliminate SciAm's 'little errors' all that remains are the adverts.

"First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?"

I am sure you realize they have a duplicate rover on earth to test everything on.

So they flashed the firmware.

Not sure why it's a big deal. I'm sure it's the first of many to come.

Credit to the design team that remote reconfiguration was performed without a major glitch.

Whats the big deal?

the difference between news and a story.