Scientific Method / Science & Exploration

NASA rover to get Martian memory wipe

Robots, the Red Planet, and a memory wipe, and it's not the next blockbuster.

An alien world, extraterrestrial exploration, and memory wipes on Mars sound like the makings of a Hollywood movie. Instead, it's a major IT project.

After a decade of exploring, the Opportunity rover's computer system will get a reboot to reformat its flash memory and eliminate its reliance on malfunctioning memory cells. In the last month alone, the rover has had to reset its systems a dozen times, a process that can take a day or two, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

"Worn-out cells in the flash memory are the leading suspect in causing these resets," John Callas, project manager for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project, said in a statement. "The flash reformatting is a low-risk process, as critical sequences and flight software are stored elsewhere in other non-volatile memory on the rover."

The rover, more formerly known as Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, is one of two robots that landed on the surface of Mars in 2004. The original missions parameters called for three months of operations. The first rover, Spirit, lasted six years. Opportunity is still going after ten years on the job.

Five years into its own missions, Spirit had to undergo its own memory reformatting to combat an increasing number of, what NASA calls, "amnesia events." Now, it's Opportunity's turn.

In preparation for the reformatting, NASA will download all important data to Earth, put the rover into the equivalent of "safe mode" so it no longer relies on flash memory, and reprogram the communications system to use a slower, but more reliable, form of data transfer.

Opportunity is not the only functioning rover on the Red Planet. In 2012, NASA successfully landed another rover, Curiosity, using a combination of previous descent technologies and a skycrane to lower the 900-kilogram rover to the surface.

NASA also plans to send another rover to the red planet in 2020 to investigate the possibility of past life on the planet, and explore whether humans can live there in the future. A manned mission is planned for 2030.

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