NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, at Mars since 2006, made an unplanned switch on Wednesday from one main computer to a redundant one onboard, triggering a hiatus in planned activities.
Sensing the computer swap, the orbiter put itself into a precautionary safe standby mode. It remained healthy, in communication and fully powered. The mission’s operations team expects the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to resume full duty within a few days, including communication relays and science observations. The orbiter has experienced this type of unplanned computer swap six times previously, starting in 2007 and including two occasions in 2014.
“We never quite know when it’s going to happen, but we know what to do when it does,” said Reid Thomas, mission manager for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. [More at link]