The Opportunity rover begins to forget after ten years of exploring the surface of Mars. THE μνήμη Opportunity's memory appears to have worn out with use, meaning the rover may forget data it has stored when it's turned off.
Opportunity began exploring the planet in 2004, and uses two είδη μνήμης. Οι επιστήμονες τις ονομάζουν πτητική και μη πτητική. Η μη πτητική μνήμη είναι κάτι σαν το σκληρό δίσκο ενός computer and is used to store information that the rover should keep when it is shut down.
But the rover starts constantly losing data when it reboots unexpectedly. THE Admin of the Mars Rover Opportunity, John Callas of NASA, compares the problem to a disease.
"The problems started off quite mild, but now they have become much more serious - it looks like a disease, the symptoms have been mild, but now as time goes on things have become more serious," Callas told Discovery News.
The problem grew, and by Christmas, Rover had ceased to communicate with the Earth. He failed to execute instructions given to him, although he had contact with his auditors.
NASA scientists believe they can handle the problem. It seems that one of the seven memory banks embedded in the rover is causing problems, and they hope that if they isolate the problem, Rover will continue to function normally with the other six.
But to do this, scientists will have to write a new one software and then load and install it on Opportunity. This is expected to happen in the next two weeks.
