AI & Tech
FFmpeg Runs on Mars Rover Proving Open Source Powers Multi-Planetary Technology
Lex Fridman Podcast
#496 – FFmpeg: The Incredible Technology Behind Video on the Internet
"FFmpeg is used by the Mars rover, the Mars 2020 rover to compress pictures. They really wanted, they wrote a paper about it and they really wanted to use as much commercial off-the-shelf technology as possible. FFmpeg runs on Mars. So we are a multi-planetary open source library."
Kieran Cunha revealed that NASA's Mars 2020 rover uses FFmpeg for image compression on Mars. The space agency specifically chose commercial off-the-shelf open source technology and documented their implementation in a research paper. This makes FFmpeg one of the few software systems operating on multiple planets.