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NASA Update Will Deal With Opportunity Flash Memory "Amnesia"

Posted by samzenpus on from the patch-it-up dept.

BarbaraHudson writes Computerworld has some details on NASA's latest fix to allow the Opportunity Mars Rover to store data while in overnight "sleep mode." Opportunity has been suffering from a glitch that's causing what NASA scientists describe as memory and data loss — or robotic "amnesia" — caused by flash memory deterioration since early December. Currently any information gathered is stored temporarily in RAM and must be sent to Earth so it's not lost when Opportunity powers down.

5 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Flash memory sucks by Russ1642 · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is why I'll never use an SSD in my computer. They're just unreliable.

    1. Re:Flash memory sucks by Shakrai · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'd say pretty much every part of that rover has performed well beyond anything it was ever expected to.

      All except for The Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator.

      --
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      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    2. Re:Flash memory sucks by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 5, Funny

      several G forces worth of acceleration at each end of the trip?

      That must be what caused that WHOOSH.

  2. Re:Don't worry, NASA is really good at this by ArcadeMan · · Score: 4, Funny

    (puts Mars bar on the floor)
    "Come here boy!"
    (rover sits on Mars)

    (clicks on big Staples button) That was easy

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  3. Re:Don't worry, NASA is really good at this by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 4, Funny

    Heh. I took the train into Chicago for many years. There's a Mars plant next to the line, with a passenger stop. Every morning the robot-voice would announce "The next stop will be ... Mars".