Curiosity Rover Moving Ahead: NASA

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has now recovered from its memory lapse and is moving ahead, the agency announced Monday.

Last month, Curiosity's A-side computer was found to have signs of some corrupted memory. The Rover was currently using the B-side computer. What caused the glitch in the memory isn't known yet.

Researchers tested the memory lapse in the computer over the weekend, the agency said in a news release.

The research team will re-assess the working of the computer after two software patches - targeting onboard memory allocation and vehicle safing procedures - are installed, most likely later this this week. 

"These tests have provided us with a great deal of information about the rover's A-side memory. We have been able to store new data in many of the memory locations previously affected and believe more runs will demonstrate more memory is available," said Jim Erickson, deputy project manager for the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Live Broadcast of Curiosity's analysis of Martian rock powder

NASA has also announced that it will be discussing the Curiosity rover's analysis of rock powder from Mars, in a news conference at 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT), Tuesday, March 12.

Curiosity had obtained the rock sample from Mars rock John Klein Feb. 8, reported SPACE.com. Interestingly, the color of the sample was found to be gray and not the typical orange color of the planet.  

The conference will be broadcast live from NASA Headquarters in Washington on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's website.