[BenLurkin]

possibly caused by space radiation???

[Secret Agent Man]

There is a lot more radiation that makes it to the surface of Mars than here, due to our atmosphere and stronger magnetic field.

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

Did anyone check the measurement units to see if the calculations reflected USEngineering or metric?

[RinaseaofDs]

I know. ‘Space radiation’. Space radiates, you know. Gotta love journalism.

The engineers KNEW they were going to a planet that had no magnetosphere. Moreover, you can test for this. You can actually create a lab environment where the vehicle has to perform under these conditions, and for extended lengths of time.

I’ve been studying the correlation between planetoids with magnetic fields and the observation of lightning on the planetoids.

[zeugma]

Interesting stuff from Wikipedia about the computers for the rover:

• Computers: The two identical on-board rover computers, called "Rover Computer Element" (RCE), contain radiation hardened memory to tolerate the extreme radiation from space and to safeguard against power-off cycles. Each computer's memory includes 256 kB of EEPROM, 256 MB of DRAM, and 2 GB of flash memory.^[29] This compares to 3 MB of EEPROM, 128 MB of DRAM, and 256 MB of flash memory used in the Mars Exploration Rovers.^[30]

The RCE computers use the RAD750 CPU, which is a successor to the RAD6000 CPU used in the Mars Exploration Rovers.^[31][32] The RAD750 CPU is capable of up to 400 MIPS, while the RAD6000 CPU is capable of up to 35 MIPS.^[33][34] Of the two on-board computers, one is configured as backup, and will take over in the event of problems with the main computer.^[29]

On February 28, 2013, NASA was forced to switch to the backup computer due to an issue with the then active computer's flash memory which resulted in the computer continuously rebooting in a loop. The backup computer was turned on in Safe mode and subsequently returned to active status on March 4th.^[15] The rover is expected to resume full operations some time next week. NASA is working on the best way to restore the currently non working computer for use as a viable backup.^[14]

[bgill]

[blueunicorn6]

It was looking at porn and got a virus.