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posted by martyb on Saturday August 30 2014, @07:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the couldn't-they-just-call-AAA? dept.

Ten years after deployment, flash memory needs to be reformatted due to increasing error rates.

At least that's what NASA is finding on the Opportunity Rover, running since 2004 on the surface of Mars. NASA is planning another long distance maintenance operation that will require reformatting the flash storage. They are old hands at this having done the same on the Spirit rover 5 years ago.

Opportunity has "reset" itself a dozen times this month, each time taking a day or two to fully recover. This is forcing the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to plan to reformat the flash memory which is used to store images and data pending transmission to Earth:

"Worn-out cells in the flash memory are the leading suspect in causing these resets," said John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, project manager for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project. "The flash reformatting is a low-risk process, as critical sequences and flight software are stored elsewhere in other non-volatile memory on the rover."

Similar to the flash storage in your cell phone, the Rover's flash is simultaneously more primitive, and more rugged; designed and shielded to survive the radiation of space flight.

The project landed twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity on Mars in early 2004 to begin missions planned to last only three months. Spirit worked for six years, and Opportunity is still active.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Saturday August 30 2014, @10:47PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday August 30 2014, @10:47PM (#87673) Journal

    Opportunity, keep on trucking!

    As a nerd, I have a distaste for opportunism (hunting for opportunity) as opposed to long term thinking/solutions.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 31 2014, @11:38PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 31 2014, @11:38PM (#87960)

    Fortunately NASA knows exactly where Opportunity is, so we don't need to hunt for it. :)