A software update meant to remedy a memory problem NASA's Opportunity rover was having on Mars may not have totally worked.
According to Space.com, the rover suffered another instance of amnesia about a week after the update took place. Toward the end of Dec., NASA noticed one of Opportunity's seven flash memory banks was malfunctioning, so engineers aimed to have the bot not concern itself with the defective one.
Flash memory is the data the robot can store even when it is powered down to hibernation mode. On March 25, five days after the software update, Opportunity experienced brief amnesia but managed not to lose any scientific data.
"We changed how the rover uses flash memory in an attempt to correct problems the rover had been experiencing," John Callas, project manager for Opportunity at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a press release. "Although we are a little disappointed at the occurrence of an amnesia event only five days after reformatting, we are not surprised. There is still no clear understanding of what is causing the problems. Only time will tell if we have been successful in mitigating the most serious flash problems."
In the meantime, Opportunity has been able to resume its duties. Alongside the Spirit rover, Opportunity touched down on the Red Planet in 2004 though the former stopped working sometime in 2010.
Trekking Mars for more than 10 years, Opportunity officially logged its 42nd kilometer last week, meaning it has traveled the equivalent of a marathon on Earth. Before that milestone, Opportunity had surpassed the Soviet Union's Lunokhod 2 rover (39km) as the most traversed bot away from Earth.
Like the Curiosity rover that touched down on Mars in 2012, Opportunity has been seeking signs of possible past life on the Red Planet.
