That's what a team of programmers and engineers at NASA are dealing with as they get ready to download a new version of the flight software on the , which on the Red Planet earlier this week.

This photo is part of the first full-color 360-degree image taken by Curiosity at the Gale Crater landing site. (Image: NASA)

"We need to take a whole series of steps to make that software active," said Steve Scandore, a senior flight software engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "You have to imagine that if something goes wrong with this, it could be the last time you hear from the rover."

"It has to work," he told Computerworld. "You don't' want to be known as the guy doing the last activity on before you lose contact."

Michael Watkins, a mission systems manager at JPL, said during a press conference today that a team of programmers are getting ready to upgrade Curiosity's software from a program to one optimized for working on the planet's surface.