NASA’s Curiosity Rover Faces Unexpected Flaw on Mars

A software hiccup has frozen NASA’s Curiosity rover in the Martian land. Before a few months in August, the rover celebrated its seventh Anniversary there. Besides this, it has made various notable discoveries over there. The news arrived this week through a mission update. In the statement, the team functioning the rover noted the rover had lost its direction during its last set of operations. Dawn Sumner, the Curiosity team member, said something went wrong with Curiosity’s data regarding altitude; thus, it could not make the required safety assessment. He added the rover records its body attitude in memory. Apart from this, it even stores the direction of each joint, which instrument at the end of its arm is pointing downward, and its distance from the ground.

Besides this, Curiosity records particulars of the local site, as well as the location of its robotic arm. The entire set of information assists rover in determining its precise location on Mars and how to move around safely. Sumner noted the rover has become immobile, and it would freeze on-site until the recovery of its knowledge of orientation. Curiosity has remained in contact with the team on Earth. Sumner said the engineers had developed a scheme to notify Curiosity regarding its attitude. Apart from this, through the effort, they aim to confirm what happened precisely.

Currently, the billion-dollar rover has some years before its nuclear power system lowers enough to end operations considerably. Thus, NASA anticipates the probe can offer some more hints regarding the planet before the launch of its Mars 2020 mission. The current year is going to be a crucial one regarding Mars exploration. Above all, NASA is preparing to launch the Mars 2020 rover on July 17. The rove will then join the currently-ill rover on the Red Planet. According to NASA, the Mars 2020 rover would touch Martian land in February 2021. There it would discover strangely high methane levels on Mars. Well, in 2019, Curiosity rover has also made a groundbreaking discovery. It has detected oxygen that performs in a way that long way researchers cannot describe.