NASA's Curiosity mobile has entered "safe mode" on Mars, but no one knows why – BGR



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You know how you feel when a technological element just does not work as it should, but you can not find the cause? Whether with your TV remote control or your smartphone, it's incredibly frustrating. Now, imagine the same feeling, multiplied by only 33 million miles and you'll have a vague idea of ​​what NASA's Curiosity team is currently feeling.

As NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory explains in a new message, the Curiosity rover had a little "hiccup" at the end of last week. The robot has entered a default "safe mode", which it does in case of a problem. The engineers reset the phone after collecting diagnostic information and restarting it, but the cause of the problem remains mysterious.

With a machine as complex as a rover on Mars, there are a lot of little things that can go wrong and cause a mistake. NASA seems encouraged by the speed with which the robot is getting back on its feet, but it's still important to understand what's wrong.

"We are not yet sure of its exact cause and we are collecting the relevant data for the analysis," said Steven Lee, a member of the JPL, in a statement. "The mobile has had a one-time computer reset, but it has been working normally since, which is a good sign. We are currently working on taking a snapshot of her memory to better understand what could have happened. "

In the future, JPL slows things down with Curiosity to limit changes to reads in the vehicle's memory. He wants to make sure that he will not accidentally crush information that might give a clue to the reason for the problem.

The mysterious downtime comes just days after NASA officially announced the end of the rover mission on Mars. Last year, Opportunity ended Opportunity and never recovered. Curiosity is the only NASA rover on the planet.

Image Source: NASA / JPL-Caltech

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