What language is Curiosity programmed in?

What language is Curiosity programmed in? If you're a computer scientist that's what you want know! Well the answer according to Brian Roemmele on Quora is: "A majority of the programming on the rover compute element (RCE) is written in C.  With highly multi-threaded code (over 130 threads).  Some support code is in Java with Python used for some analysis processing in ground based Mac OS and Linux computers. 
    The RCE is actually two units for redundancy.  The RCE is a RAD750 CPU capable of about 400 MIPS. Each computer's memory has 256 KB of EEPROM with 256 MB of DRAM also 2 GB of flash memory for temporary sensor and image storage.  
    The RAD750 CPU is essentially a radiation hardened version of the PowerPC 750 originally developed by Motorola.  It was introduced in 1997 replacing the PowerPC 603e.  This was the same PowerPC microprocessor that was in use in the Power Mac G3.  
    The RAD750 CPU is manufactured by BAE Systems Electronic Solutions and costs about $200,000 per mil-spec grade unit.

In praise of... #NASA

First color photo from Curiosity 

NASA is probably largely responsible for me becoming a scientist. As a small boy I had little interest in dinosaurs or sharks, it was astronauts and rockets that got me excited. My bedroom had maps of the moon and solar system on the walls and models of Saturn 5 rockets and lunar landers. Once again it's great to see NASA successfully landing the Curiosity rover on Mars for what will be I'm sure a valuable mission - and all for the cost of $7 per US citizen. They should try crowd sourcing, I'd happily give NASA $10.
   Visit the official NASA Curiosity mission website (officially called the Mars Space Laboratory) for up to the minute information.

Watch the Curiosity Mars rover land live

Well, you can't actually watch it live because of the time it takes for signals to get from Mars to Earth and because there will be a radio blackout during insertion into Mars' atmosphere. However, you can watch a live feed from NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at CalTech. You'll have as much current information as anyone in the world.


Video streaming by Ustream