NASA’s Curiosity rover is now up and running after a reboot issue caused some concerns. It is once again on the mission to discover new things about Mars.
Boot-Up Issue
Curiosity rover experienced a problem recently when an issue during boot-up halted all the rover’s planned activities for the day and triggered the rover’s protective safe mode. Incidentally, this happened just days after NASA said goodbye to its sister rover, Opportunity. Fortunately, the rover was taken out of safe mode by Feb. 19, and it is currently operating normally. In fact, it has since been successfully booted up more than 30 times without any issues.
According to NASA scientists, the rover experienced a one-time computer reset, although they are still unsure as to why the issue happened. As such, they are gathering relevant data for analysis, and science operations are placed on hold until they better understand what really happened.
“In the short term, we are limiting commands to the vehicle to minimize changes to its memory. We don't want to destroy any evidence of what might have caused the computer reset,” said Curiosity’s deputy project manager Steven Lee.
Curiosity Rover
Curiosity rover is just one of two NASA spacecrafts currently studying the Martian surface, the other being InSight, which is a stationary lander that arrived on the planet just last Nov. 26. As mentioned, there was another rover on the planet, Opportunity, which was on mission for over 14 years.
Curiosity was designed to explore and study ancient environments that may have once supported life. For now, Curiosity is exploring a region on Mount Sharp called Glen Torridon, which is said to be rich in clay minerals.
While engineers are still trying to understand what caused the issue, the scientists are studying the data already collected in the region.
