The Curiosity rover froze in place thanks to a software glitch. The multi-billion dollar rover has been operating on Mars since 2012. The unexpected glitch came in the form of the rover forgetting its awareness. Curiosity is designed to maintain an awareness of where each of its arms and implements are so it won’t damage them as it goes around Mars. On January 20, Curiosity lost this awareness, triggering a safety mode in which it ceases any movement, as SlashGear details:
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According to Dawn Sumner, a Planetary Geologist at University of California Davis and one of the people working on the Curiosity project, that “body awareness” – also known as attitude – is checked before any motor on the rover is activated. That way, it stands a better chance of spotting a potential issue before it happens.
“When the answer is no – or even maybe not – Curiosity stops without turning the motor,” Sumner writes. “This conservative approach helps keep Curiosity from hitting its arm on rocks, driving over something dangerous, or pointing an unprotected camera at the sun.”
It was that safety evaluation which was interrupted, with “some knowledge” of Curiosity’s attitude escaping it, Sumner explains. The rover did continue sending back information to Earth, and that allowed scientists on the ground to come up with a recovery plan. “The engineers on the team built a plan to inform Curiosity of its attitude and to confirm what happened,” Sumner says. “We want Curiosity to recover its ability to make its safety checks, and we also want to know if there is anything we can do to prevent a similar problem in the future.”
image via wikimedia commons
Source: neatorama