NASA’s New Horizons probe is on a mission to Pluto and is powered by the original PlayStation’s processor.
The probe was launched back in January 2006 but is now on its final approach to Pluto, moving at a speed of approximately 36,373 mph with a proposed arrival date of July 14th.
“NASA first mission to distant Pluto will also be humankind’s first close up view of this cold, unexplored world in our solar system. The New Horizons team worked very hard to prepare for this first phase, and they did it flawlessly,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, in a blog post.
As The Verge points out, this isn’t the first time that NASA has opted to make use of technology that has already been developed. In fact, the space agency actually prefers to use tried-and-tested tech. As an example, an IBM processor the was developed in 2002 will be responsible for the controls of NASA’s Orion spacecraft – the same one which it hopes will be able to carry humans to Mars one day.
