Mars Rover resumes its scientific mission after a computer inconvenience

It's a gigantic undertaking to bring a rover to the surface of Mars. NASA has designed its robots for at least two months. Fortunately, most of them work much longer. An opportunity has recently been declared lost after 15 years on the red planet. Curiosity is still strong after more than six years, but there was a little fear at the beginning of the month. NASA confirmed that it had verified that the mobile was fully operational and resumed its scientific activities.

Curiosity landed on Mars in 2012 and began exploring Gale Crater. In 2014, he climbed the slopes of Mount Sharp to better understand the geological history of the planet. The mobile encountered difficulties during its journey, including at the beginning of the month when it failed to start. This sent Curiosity in safe mode when NASA evaluated its state.

NASA announced on Feb. 22 that it had released Curiosity from safe mode by successfully completing the boot sequence 30 times. However, he was not ready to continue the mission for the moment. It was not the first computer error to hit Curiosity. Last year, the mobile computer got stuck in a boot loop, forcing NASA to switch to the backup system. Fortunately, the mobile was designed with two identical computers for this reason.

Naturally, NASA considers as a serious problem any potential sign of a mobile system failure. There is no way to exchange components or even give it a good therapeutic boost millions of miles away. The agency chose to gather more information on the flaw before resuming the mission.

The Glen Torridon region of Mount Sharp is rich in clay minerals.

We still do not know exactly what caused the failure of the startup sequence on February 15th. The NASA update indicates that all systems are functioning normally and that the mobile has not encountered any other problems during testing. The engineers are still studying the incident, but NASA is now ready to give Curiosity back its operational status.

Curiosity is currently studying a region known as Glen Torridon, whose orbital observations have been found to be rich in clay minerals. Clay usually forms in the presence of water, which is of great interest to the scientific team. Curiosity is perfect for studying the geology of clay deposits. The next rover, currently known as Mars 2020, will focus on finding signs of life on the red planet.

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