And now? One of Curiosity's computers crashed!

Since landing on the Red Planet in August last year, the world has been closely following every step of Curiosity. And look that the spacecraft has been very busy, completing all stages of the mission with exemplary performance so far. However, according to NASA, the explorer reported his first major malfunction last Wednesday, February 27, when one of the spacecraft's two computers crashed.

According to the space agency, Curiosity has two identical onboard computers - A and B - one of which (the B) acts as a backup. NASA staff stated that one of the devices (A) has failed to respond to commands sent, and that now only the backup computer is functioning correctly. However, when it began to use the second computer to operate the probe, it eventually entered safe mode.

Locked ...

The defect may cause some delays in the scientific data transmission by the probe and, although it seems a terribly serious problem, NASA believes that within a few days it will be possible to transfer functions between the two devices, restoring the malfunctioning computer (A) as the new backup.

The space agency admitted that this was the biggest problem Curiosity faced in seven months of mission, reporting that the damage may have been caused by exposure to space radiation. However, apparently only the machine's memory has been damaged, and luckily all stored data is still there, safe and sound.