On Wednesday, September 24, 2014 5:44:42 PM UTC+2, Isaiah wrote: > > Since we're off the ranch anyway, the brochure is a neat read: > > http://www.isro.gov.in/pslv-c25/pdf/pslv-c25-brochure.pdf > > (the MAR1750 processor is a 16-bit ISA from 1980, implemented in a > radiation-hardened package and widely used for spacecraft control) >
Consider that probes outside of the Earth magnetic field are heavily exposed to cosmic rays, much more than low orbit satellites. I guess they need to build custom hardware to resist that and programming is probably low level.
