Mars Curiosity rover on the road to recovery after computer glitch

The Mars Curiosity rover had to suspend operations last week after a glitch in its computer memory put it into non-operational 'safe mode'. However, after switching over to its 'B-side' backup computer, the rover has slowly been brought back to active status and is now on the road to recovery.

In what is sure to get some conspiracy theorists talking, Curiosity was right in the middle of analyzing powder from a rock it drilled into a couple of weeks ago, when the computer glitch happened. When engineers contacted the rover last Wednesday (Feb 27th), it didn't send them any of the information it had recorded, but instead only responded by informing them of its current status. What information they did get out of the rover told them that it hadn't properly switched over to its 'sleep' mode that day, and running diagnostic simulations at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratories told them that the rover's memory, specifically the memory location that deals with addressing memory files, was corrupted.

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"We are making good progress in the recovery," said Richard Cook, the project manager for the Mars Curiosity mission. "One path of progress is evaluating the A-side with intent to recover it as a backup. Also, we need to go through a series of steps with the B-side, such as informing the computer about the state of the rover -- the position of the arm, the position of the mast, that kind of information."

NASA engineers are still investigating the cause of the problem, and will probably know more once they are able to scan through the 'A-side' computer. The best idea put forth, so far, is that a cosmic ray particle hit the A-side computer, causing the corruption of the memory location.

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Like all spacecraft, Curiosity's backup computer is specifically there for these kinds of problems. Once they've completely filled in the B-side computer of the rover's status and location, it will be able to take over the rover's operations. The NASA engineers are hopeful that they will be able to set up the A-side computer again as a backup in case the B-side suffers a failure in the future.

The mission team hopes to have Curiosity fully restored and back on track as of next week.

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