Nasa’s Curiosity rover has ground to a halt on Mars after a glitch forced the termination all of its science experiments, following one of the biggest Martian dust storms on record, which at its peak covered 14 million square miles (36 million sq km), knocking out Nasa’s solar-powered Opportunity rover for three months. Curiosity weathered the storm as it runs on a nuclear-powered battery and so does not rely on the sun’s rays to fuel its operations.
The Curiosity Mission team says the inter-planetary science lab can no longer beam data stored in Curiosity’s memory back to Earth, effectively rendering it useless until the issue is resolved.
The rover is still able to transmit some data, including about its well-being. It can uplink information to a Mars orbiter as it passes overhead, or beam it directly to the Deep Space Network, a series of antennas back on Earth. Vasavada said engineers have instructed Curiosity to send more data about its status, which doesn’t require the rover to dip into previously stored information.
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