Did you know that Ingenuity, the Mars 2020 helicopter mission, is powered by Apache Log4j?

What is Apache Log4j 2?

Apache Log4j 2 is an update to Log4j that provides significant improvements over its predecessor, Log4j 1.x, providing many of the improvements available in Logback while fixing some inherent problems with the Logback architecture.

The API for Log4j is implementation independent, making it clear to application developers what classes and methods they can use while ensuring backward compatibility. This allows the Log4j team to improve the implementation in a safe and compatible way.

The Log4j API is a logging facade that can of course be used with the Log4j implementation, but can also be used against other logging implementations like Logback. The Log4j API has several advantages over SLF4J: 1. The Log4j API supports logging instead of just Strings. 2. The Log4j API supports lambda expressions. 3. The Log4j API provides many more logging methods than SLF4J. 4. In addition to the "parameterized log" format supported by SLF4J, the Log4j API also supports events that use the java.text.MessageFormat syntax, as well as printf-style messages. 5. The Log4j API provides a LogManager.shutdown() method. The underlying registry implementation must implement the Terminable interface for the method to take effect. 6. Other constructs like Bookmarks, Logging Levels, and ThreadContext (aka MDC) are fully supported.

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What exactly is Ingenuity?

Ingenuity is a small helicopter, a drone, included among the devices that NASA's Mars 2020 mission and the Perseverance rover have taken to Mars. It is a technological demonstration, like the MOXIE experiment, and not a scientific instrument like MEDA or PXL, as it is not intended to assist or carry out any scientific research on the red planet. The main objective is to attempt a helicopter flight to engine on that planet. It is a simple phrase, but it encompasses an infinity of obstacles for it to come out well. The first of these, the Martian atmosphere, which is very thin and about one percent as dense as Earth's.

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