Phison uSSD on Mars

Blog written by Kuo-Ting Lu on May 12, 2021

Over 5 years in the making, NASA’s Mars 2020 mission culminated with the successful touchdown of the Perseverance rover in Mars’ Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021.

Many people worldwide tuned in live to watch the historic event. Despite a global pandemic, NASA was able to buoy the spirits of thousands of people interested in science, technology and space.

Both ground control and fans watching from home cheered aloud when the confirmation and the first videos of the Mars surface finally arrived. After sending audio and video to the staff at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, Perseverance was ready to check systems and get to work on its mission of searching for suitable terrain for future human inhabitation of the red planet and signs of past life.

Phison’s uSSD Right Hardware for the Job

Of course, it’s no surprise that the rover landed successfully in Jezero Crater. NASA and its partners have 25 years of rover successes to use as a foundation. However, it’s not just human ingenuity that makes a feat like this possible. Like the rovers that came before it, Perseverance landed successfully because it was built to withstand speed, extreme temperatures, and landing on Mars. Every component was picked to ensure the success of the mission.

At Phison Electronics Corp., one its components is one of our 8GB industrial-grade PSS4A111-8G uSSDs that was installed in the rover’s “brain“, a motherboard by CompuLab Ltd. The board also contains an Intel’s Atom E3845 processor responsible for receiving, compressing, and assembling photos from the rover’s 23 cameras.

COMEX IE38 includes Phison uSSD
(Image Credit: CompuLab)

Providing Daily Performance on 2 Planets
This may be the first time that Phison’s products have traveled to Mars, but consumers may already have at least one of our products in their homes. While home users do not put their devices through the same rigors as NASA does, they’ve seen how well our products perform day after day. Both video game consoles and the Perseverance rover have limited physical space, another reason our uSSD was the right product.

VP engineering C.S Ma has expressed how the Mars 2020 mission recognizes our company’s long-term commitment to industrial-grade solution. That commitment will continue as we produce controllers and storage solutions of “rocket quality” for all of our partners.