Curiosity Is Awake Again And On The Path To Recovery

03-05-2013 • popsci.com

Curiosity on Mars This artist's concept depicts the Curiosity rover using its Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument to investigate the composition of a rock surface. ChemCam fires laser pulses at a target and views the resulting spark with a telescope and spectrometers to identify chemical elements. The laser is actually in an invisible infrared wavelength, but is shown here as visible red light for purposes of illustration. NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Mars rover Curiosity is back out of safe mode after a computer glitch, according to NASA. The rover is still using its backup computer, but it resumed using its high-gain antenna to communicate with Earth.

The rover experienced some memory problems last week and put itself into safe mode as a precaution. NASA is still analyzing the problem. Meanwhile, rover experiments will resume probably next week.