NASA has announced that its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is on track to recover from a small glitch that has temporarily halted science and communication operations.
According to Space.com, the MRO automatically went into "safe mode" after the device unexpectedly switched from one main computer to another. NASA officials said the glitch was short-lived and the orbiter should be back to normal soon.
During the time off, the MRO was not able to relay data from the two rovers on the Martian surface and the mission managers on Earth.
"The spacecraft is healthy, in communication and fully powered," MRO project manager Dan Johnston, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., said in a press release. "We have stepped up the communication data rate, and we plan to have the spacecraft back to full operations within a few days."
Safe mode is not uncommon for spacecraft of any kind. It is an automatic standby condition that occurs when the craft meets an abnormal condition it did not see coming. This is now the fifth time the MRO has been on safe mode.
Mission managers were switching a radio transponder as engineers try to figure out what caused the first one to go out of service.
The MRO arrived at Mars in March 2006, a little more than two years after NASA landed the Opportunity Rover in Jan. 2004. The $720 million orbiter is vital for the missions of Opportunity and Curiosity, landed in Aug. 2012, as it relays data from Mars to Earth.
NASA has said that the eight-year-old MRO has relayed more data than any other interplanetary mission in the space agency's history.
The MRO was originally intended for a two-year mission and completed all its science goals in that timeframe. It has since received three extensions, the most recent coming in 2012. Thanks to the probes durability and reliability, scientists have been able to study a wide range of topics on Mars including seasonal changes.
