It is being anticipated that after experiencing a short circuit, Curiosity Mars rover has its robotic arm left to be obsolete. Scientists believe that the explorer could continue to exist as being disabled for good.
As the NASA reports, the arm of the rover unexpectedly discontinued working on the 27th of February in the duration of transporting rock powder from the drill on its arm to lab instruments aboard for analysis. Messages were transmitted to NASA from the rover of it being subjected to a temporary short circuit following an observation of a surge current in it sensors. This triggered an onboard fault-protection action which is designed to stop the operation automatically in case of such incidents.
As NASA reports, this issue with the rover could obstruct a number of its upcoming operations and Curiosity Mars will probably have to cut down on some of its tasks. This drill still has the possibility of working even if there is a failure in the hammering procedure, although it may not be able to pierce through harder rocks. It is confirmed that the rest of the rover is working fine and is unaffected by the short circuit.
Curiosity has made its landing on Mars in August of 2012. The mission was targeted to comprehend whether Mars consisted of positive conditions for supporting microbial life in the past.
James. K. Erickson, the project manager stated in an interview that the most probable region of short circuit resides in the coil generating magnetic fields for moving strikers which then hammers the drill.
For the time being, Curiosity’s activities are on halt and so are the explorations of the rover till NASA scientists figure out the exact nature of the problem that they are facing currently.
This is not the first time that the rover has faced issues. Back in November 2013, the rover had transferred its operation in safe mode when an up-gradation in software led to some issues. NASA is expecting to fix the arm up and working in a few of days or so.
