NASA Mars Curiosity robot takes a break from science

After officially lose the rover Opportunity After a dust storm on Mars, fans of Red Planet devices were starting to get excited about NASA's Curiosity robot that was still running. The rover's website had not received mission updates or new raw footage for a week.

Now we know why.

NASA announced Friday that Curiosity had experienced a "hiccup at startup" the previous Friday. This caused the mobile to go into safe mode and interrupted planned scientific activities.

Since then, Curiosity has successfully started more than 30 times without any other sign of trouble, but the mobile team continues to receive and review technical data to diagnose the mysterious problem.

"We are currently working on taking a snapshot of his memory to better understand what could have happened," said Steven Lee, Curiosity's Assistant Project Manager. NASA puts the scientific operations of the rover on hold during its investigations.

The rover has encountered technical difficulties in the past, including a memory glitch end 2018.

Curiosity is currently exploring a new clay region of Mars, nicknamed Glen Torridon. The team is considering a possible drilling site at a distance of 200 meters.

Let's hope that Curiosity will soon get the go-ahead from NASA to resume its scientific duties.