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A selfie taken by NASA's Mars Curiosity rover on the ridge of Vera Rubin, a relief in the foothills of Mount Sharp.
Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover temporarily halted scientific operations due to a technical problem, mission team members announced today (19 September).
The mysterious problem, which arose Saturday night (September 15), prevents the rover from broadcasting on Earth much of the scientific and technical information stored in his memory, Ashwin Vasavada, scientist of the project Jet Propulsion of Pasadena in California. wrote in an update today.
But curiosity remains healthy, he said. For example, the mobile can still transmit real-time data on its status. [Photos: Spectacular Mars Vistas by NASA’s Curiosity Rover]
"The engineers are expanding the details that the mobile is transmitting into this data in real time to better diagnose the problem," wrote Vasavada. "As the amount of data arriving is limited, the engineering team may take a while to diagnose the problem."
The rover team has disabled all scientific instruments of Curiosity while the engineers are studying the problem. The mission team members are also preparing to launch the rover's backup computer, in case they need it to diagnose the problem with the main computer, wrote Vasavada.
The backup, identical to the main computer, has already proven itself. Vasavada noted that he served as Curiosity's main computer for the first 200 rover soils on the red planet, before facing his own problems. (A "sol", or Martian day, lasts about 40 minutes longer than a terrestrial day.)
As mission engineers work on the current problem, the Curiosity science team will study data that the mobile has already collected at Vera Rubin Ridge, in the foothills of Mount Sharp, located 5.5 kilometers from Mars.
Some rocks in this area have proven exceptionally difficult, complicating several attempts to drill Curiosity.
"We're looking at all the clues that tell us rocks are weaker and better for drilling," Vasavada wrote.
In August 2012, Curiosity landed inside the crater Gale (154 km) from Mars. During its six years of activity, the rover has found ample evidence that the red planet could have endured microbial life in the past. For example, Curiosity's observations revealed that billions of years ago, the Gale Crater hosted long-lived lake systems.
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @ michaeldwall and Google+. follow us @ Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
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