A multipurpose spacecraft designed by Lockheed Martin to study and monitor Mars' surface has entered a hiatus on Feb. 17 to allow engineers in performing long-distance maintenance efforts from Earth. The team is updating the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's battery parameters as well as planetary position cables within the flash memory, NASA said Tuesday.
The engineers will focus on updating the Side-A computer's memory prior to its reboot and will shift to the Side-B computer unit to repeat the procedure. Efforts under the maintenance are intended to prevent the spacecraft's batteries from not reaching its supposed energy levels.
Once the team wraps up maintenance, MRO will resume its relay-support and monitoring activities for the next 10 years. NASA has employed the InSight and Mars Curiosity landers to relay data from the red planet to other orbiter systems in light of MRO's maintenance.