NASA engineers updated the software for a robotic Mars rover, correcting a computer glitch more than two months old while the robot hurtled through space on its way to Mars.
Late in November, NASA launched its $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory. Dubbed Curiosity, the SUV-size super rover is on an eight-month journey to Mars with a mission to help scientists learn whether life can exist, or has ever existed, on the Red Planet.
However, a problem caused a computer reset on the rover Nov. 29, three days after the launch, NASA reported last week. The problem was due to a cache access error in the memory management unit of the rover’s computer processor, a RAD750 from BAE Systems.