News

posted on 19 June 2008 12:26

NASA's Mars Lander, currently analysing soil samples on Mars, has lost photo images due to a data overload.

The lander stores its digital images in a flash memory unit. It excavated a small trench and communicated pictures of it back to misission control. However a data overload caused it to lose that data and not store it in its on-board flash memory.

The overload was exhibited when the lander transmitted the same piece of housekeeping data 45,000 times to mission control. This data took up space in the flash memory and prevented any more being stored in it. Once the lander powered down for the night the trench images, in non-volatile memory, were simply lost.

Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said: "The spacecraft is healthy and fully commandable, but we are proceeding cautiously until we understand the root cause of this event."

More here. http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/index.php.

^{[Paul Roberts, news editor.]}