NASA´s curiosity rover ready to resume full Mars operations, after the rover team on earth brought it out of the lethargy state in which the rover went by itself. It believed that the cause of entry into safe mode was a software divergence in the way in which image data are transmitted on board. The Science strategy is trying to avoid that method and instead, they´re trying to come up with other ways to handle and transmit all image information.
Curiosity enters safe mode
On July 2, 2016, curiosity enter safe mode that prolonged for all weekend ahead and over the 4th of July.
After having put itself into safe mode, curiosity rover is ready to resume operations. The team that operates the rover from earth is taking the appropriate actions to reestablish the rover into full activity. At the moment, the rover is communicating and it’s in stable condition.
The rover´s software
Curiosity has undergone safe mode for three times in the year 2013. On those occasions, the rover´s software has prompted curiosity into that state. This maintains the rover in dormant condition, while diagnostic information is searched. The following measures after having brought the rover into action, consist in an examination of the rover´s active computer and a preliminary checkup of its robotic instrumentation.
Landing on Mars
Curiosity landed on Gale Crater on August 2012 and since then, it has sent important information about Mars´. During its first year in the red planet, it help discovered that Mars had fresh water lakes and rivers on its surface, which were suitable environmental conditions for the development of microbial life.
In further investigations, the rover is helping to understand the processes that have occurred on Mars which have turned it into a dry and inhospitable planet.
Exploration of Mount Sharp
At the time the rover put itself into safe mode, it had reached the lower slopes of Mount Sharp- one of its primary scientific objectives. Now that it is ready to continue operations, curiosity will resume its intended plan and start going up the slopes of the mountain, studying the mountain gradually as it climbs on it. The new findings in this area of Gale Crater is expected to expand the understanding of what is been discovered until now and provide further science advances into Mars´ exploration.
