NASA’s venerable Mars rover Opportunity has overcome a glitch that put the robot into standby mode late last month, agency officials announced today (May 1).
“The Opportunity rover is back under ground control, executing a sequence of commands sent by the rover team,” NASA officials wrote in a mission update today. “Opportunity is no longer in standby automode and has resumed normal operations.”
Opportunity apparently put itself into standby automode — in which it maintains power balance but waits for instructions from the ground — on April 22, after sensing a problem during a routine camera check, mission officials said.