NASA has forced its Curiosity mobile to use its backup "brain" after taking action

NASA has recently had incredible success with its missions to Mars. The rover Opportunity, which may be dead now, has already managed to exceed its expected life of more than 10 years. The Curiosity rover recently re-learned to drill stones to overcome a potentially devastating setback. Now, to make sure its success story is not stopped, NASA has ordered Curiosity Mobile to change its "brain" to diagnose specific behaviors from the robot.

In a new post, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory explains that he has asked Curiosity to switch to his backup computer so that engineers can better understand a very strange problem. Recently, the mobile has failed to store "key scientific and technical data," and switching to its backup computer could help NASA understand why.

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"Like many spacecraft NASA, Curiosity was designed with two redundant computers, called here computers A and B, to continue its operations in case of problems," says JPL in the poster. "After reviewing several options, the JPL engineers recommended that the mobile move from side B to side A, the computer initially used by the mobile after landing."

This will allow NASA to see if the problem with data storage is somehow related to the computer itself or perhaps to something else. If all is well after the mobile has changed brain, scientists will be able to diagnose the problem, but the Curiosity team intends to use the Side-B computer again as soon as possible. Five years ago, the Side-A computer had to be changed after discovering a problem, limiting memory and making the Side-B computer the preferred "brain."

"At this point, we are confident that we will be able to resume operations, but it is too early to say when," said Steven Lee of JPL, Curiosity's Assistant Project Manager. "We are working on the A side as of today, but it may take time to fully understand the root cause of the problem and to find workarounds for the B-side memory."

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