14 DAY TRIAL // NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity would do well to kiss its memories goodbye, and be quick about it. This is because, soon enough, scientists will purposely give it amnesia.
Specialists with NASA explain that this little robot is in dire need to have its flash memory reformatted. This is because, as of recently, it has been experiencing glitches on a fairly regular basis.
It is expected that, once Opportunity's memory gets wiped, such glitches will become a thing of the past. Hence, the robot will be able to continue exploring Mars, and will no longer waste time waiting for somebody to reset it.
“Worn-out cells in the flash memory are the leading suspect in causing these resets,” specialist John Callas with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement, as cited by Space.
“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,” the specialist went on to comment on the upcoming reformatting.
Should things go according to plan, the robot's memory will be wiped sometime at the beginning of October, information shared with the public says. Before this operation is given the green light, researchers will make sure to download all available data.