The Mars Curiosity rover has recovered from a software glitch, which sent the spacecraft into a "safe mode" for around three days.
As a part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission (MSL), the car-sized Curiosity rover aims at exploring Gale Crater on Mars. NASA launched Curiosity from Cape Canaveral on Saturday, November 26, 2011, which successfully landed on Aeolis Palus in Gale Crater on Mars on Monday, August 6, 2012. Curiosity traveled 563,000,000 km (approximately 350,000,000 mile).
The key objectives of the Curiosity rover includes investigation of the geology and climate on Mars, to assess whether the selected field site inside the Gale Crater has ever contained environmental conditions, which is favorable for microbial life, as well as investigation the role of water on the planet, and planetary habitability studies that may be required for future exploration of the red planet.
The rover was reported to have gone in safe mode on Thursday, November 7, just a few hours after receiving a software update from scientists on Earth. NASA confirmed on Sunday, November 10, that engineers have identified and resolved the problem.
"We returned to normal engineering operations," said Rajeev Joshi, a mission software and systems engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "We are well into planning the next several days of surface operations and expect to resume our drive to Mount Sharp this week."
NASA reported that the main reason for the recent software glitch was an error in the rover's on-board software, which then resulted in an error in a catalog file. It was when mission engineers on Earth sent an update to resolve the error; Curiosity automatically rebooted its software and before going into safe mode.
Scientists also reported that engineers were able to imitate the software glitch on ground test beds the day after.
NASA scientists says that the Curiosity rover has already explored the 3.4-mile-high (5.5 km) Mount Sharp; however, they want the rover to climb up through the mountain's foothills and collecting data, which may be useful in studying the planet's changing environmental conditions.
