NASA's Mars rover Spirit rebooted its computer three times this past weekend. Mission engineers aren't sure why.
Spirit, and Opportunity, were designed to last 90 days on Mars. In fact, they've both lasted over five years. During that extended mission, the software for both rovers has been rewritten and transmitted to Mars several times, giving the rovers new capabilities on the fly-- a remarkable feat in an extraordinary mission. Engineers are looking at the most recent software update to Spirit as a possible source of the glitches.
The fact is, though, that Opportunity has the same software and got the same update, and it continues to function normally. That argues the problem might be specific to Spirit.
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