Curiosity Resumes Science Investigations. Curiosity Mars Rover Sees Trend in Water Presence. Rover Finds Conditions Once Suited for Ancient Life on Mars. Curiosity Rover's Recovery Moving Forward. Computer Swap on Curiosity Rover. Computer Swap on Curiosity Rover Mission Status Report PASADENA, Calif. - The ground team for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has switched the rover to a redundant onboard computer in response to a memory issue on the computer that had been active. The intentional swap at about 2:30 a.m. PST today (Thursday, Feb. 28) put the rover, as anticipated, into a minimal-activity precautionary status called "safe mode. " The team is shifting the rover from safe mode to operational status over the next few days and is troubleshooting the condition that affected operations yesterday.
The condition is related to a glitch in flash memory linked to the other, now-inactive, computer. "We switched computers to get to a standard state from which to begin restoring routine operations," said Richard Cook of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, project manager for the Mars Science Laboratory Project, which built and operates Curiosity.
Scientific investigations by the rover were suspended Wednesday and today. Mars Rover Curiosity Has First Big Malfunction. The Mars rover Curiosity experienced its first significant malfunction on Wednesday, when one of its two onboard computers became corrupted and failed to turn off and enter "sleep mode" as planned. The Curiosity team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory sent up commands to switch all operations from the corrupted A computer to the twin B computer early Thursday morning, according to a Thursday NASA statement. Most spacecraft have a backup computer to step in if the primary computer fails. (Related: Meet One of Curiosity's Earthbound Twins.) Richard Cook, project manager for the Curiosity project, said the problem was the most serious experienced by the rover so far in its nearly seven months on the red planet.
Cook said the team was most concerned Wednesday night, before they got a handle on the nature of the problem. But once they began to understand better, it became clear that switching to the other computer was necessary and unlikely to have long-term consequences.