On Earth, preparing a patch for the Opportunity Mars rover

Flash memory is worn out and does not work normally.

After more than a decade on the surface of the red planet, the electronic memory elements of the Opportunity Mars rover are degrading - this process is well known to many flash drive owners. The faults started six months ago, and now NASA is going to update the software to take into account the wear of "iron".

In some cells of the flash memory to record information is no longer possible. This leads to the fact that the operating system loses data and constantly reboots, making it difficult for any scientific work. Information is lost because telemetry and commands from the Earth are stored in volatile memory, and when the rover goes into sleep mode to conserve battery power, it is turned off.

After “Opportunity” it turns on, but it cannot understand why the reboot occurred. Working in such conditions is about the same as trying to drive a car that stalls every five minutes. In an interview with Discovery, program manager for studying Mars, Mars called this process “amnesia.” And to solve the problems, you need to perform the “lobotomy” operation, as The Register calls the software patch.

NASA has already tried to format the data , as it did with the "Spirit" five years ago. Apparently, it did not help much. Now the software update is just being prepared, it will be uploaded to the rover in the coming weeks.
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Work is complicated by permanent outages. For example, on Christmas (December 25) there was a major loss of communication, which badly ruined the nerves of NASA engineers.

Now the agency is preparing an update that will close access to the seventh memory bank. Rover's flash memory is divided into eight banks (0-7), and engineers believe that the opportunity to record information is lost only in the last. It is going to be completely disabled. After that, the work will continue, if, of course, the solar panels of the device again do not sweep .

What is happening is very important for the program of studying the surface of Mars. The fact is that the rover is located 650 meters from the Marathon Valley, which looks like a clay bed formed by water. These breeds are significantly older than those that Cureiity explores. If Opportunity manages to reach this place and transfer the necessary data, we can better understand the past climate of Mars.

"Opportunity" - the second unit of the program Mars Exploration Rover. He left Earth on July 7, 2003 and arrived on Mars on January 25, 2004. The main program was designed for only 3 months, but the rover has been performing scientific tasks for almost 11 years. He set a record for covered distance - more than 40 km. As Callas says, the current state of the rover is just great, if you remember how intensively it was used.

Of course, sooner or later, the electronic brain or other critical component of the rover will fail. Most likely, this will be a disappointing surprise, which will put an end to the Opportunity program. But it is impossible to predict when this will happen, and there are no special reasons for concern yet.