NASA's only working rover is having spatial problems.
Could the rover be in an existential crisis? Curiosity wondered what its place on Mars was after it experienced a technical glitch.
“Halfway through another set of events, Curiosity lost its orientation in space,” Curiosity team member Dawn Sumner, a planetary geologist at UC Davis, wrote in this week's mission update.
The rover stores detailed information about the landscape, the location of its robotic arm, and the directions to which its instruments are pointing. This is all the data that helps the rover know exactly where it is on Mars and how to navigate safely.
“Curiosity stopped moving, frozen until its knowledge of whereabouts was restored,” Sumner writes.
Curiosity stayed in touch with its team on Earth. “The engineers created a plan to inform Curiosity of its location,” Sumner said.
The good news came in the form of another mission update. “We learned this morning that the plan was successful and Curiosity was science ready again,” wrote NASA scientist Scott Guzevich.
The rover team will work to ensure that this crash does not happen again.
Sources: Photo: NASA / JPL-Caltech
