• A spike in electrical current set off the fault-protection response on the rover, resulting in immediately halted action by the rover on February 27, which was its 911th Martian day. Since then, the rover team on Earth has avoided driving Curiosity or moving its arm while engineers have been carrying out diagnostic tests.
  • Curiosity project manager Jim Erickson of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, said “Diagnostic testing this week has been productive in narrowing the possible sources of the transient short circuit. The most likely cause is an intermittent short in the percussion mechanism of the drill. After further analysis to confirm that diagnosis, we will be analyzing how to adjust for that in future drilling.”
  • It is suspected that the short circuit may be originating in the coil component which creates magnetic fields to force the hammering action of the rover’s drill. Once the problem is solved, Curiosity will continue climbing Mount Sharp. NASA is using Curiosity to understand ancient habitable environments and changes in the same.

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