A MYSTERY glitch has sent the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft into “safe mode” for the first time in its eight-year life. Now engineers face a race against time to diagnose the problem and fix the probe.
The spacecraft’s troubles began on 30 July when its primary computer malfunctioned, transferring activities to a back-up system. Engineers rebooted the primary computer but left it in a protected mode. But then, on 26 August, the back-up computer also malfunctioned and tried to return control to the still-quarantined primary one. This put the entire spacecraft into “safe” mode, to protect it from further damage.…
