The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), namely the new Mars rover called Curiosity, left for Mars on November 26, 2011 but after only three days when it was using its star scanner there was a computer reset that obviously left NASA engineers very concerned.
The Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity has a stars and planets recognition software and the malfunction brought it into the so-called “safe mode”, a precaution to avoid damage. The engineers restored Curiosity’s normal operation and then started hunting the problem.
The Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity is a very complex spacecraft with an extraordinarily sophisticated software and despite the enormous amount of tests on its various systems prior to its departure it’s inevitable that there’s some problem in its hardware and software.
In this case, the engineers changed the way some registers, which are some memory locations used to store specific data, are configured in the memory management of the kind of microprocessor used in the Mars Rover Curiosity.
In some very specific circumstances related to the unique way of using the microprocessor during the mission, there could be errors in memory access. The reset occurred on November 29 was due to one of those rare circumstances.
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Engineers have worked to discover the cause of the reset and find a way to prevent this from happening again. After they changed the configuration of the memory registers, they made billions of computer tests to verify that the new version of the software worked properly.
Once tests were completed with satisfaction, last week the engineers have transmitted the software update to the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity. The communication speed with Curiosity is limited, 1 kb/s in upload and 800 bit/s in download, so the operation took quite some time.
This week, Curiosity confirmed that the update was successful and has started a normal use of all its stellar recognition systems.
While there are pessimistic rumors about possible cuts in future NASA missions to Mars and other planets, the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity continues its journey to the red planet. A big unexpected issue was resolved, let’s hope that the mission continues that way.
