Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Selfie taken earlier of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at a drilled sample site called “Okoruso.”
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is deep into Sol 1398, back on line and in full operations.

New imagery indicates that the Mars machinery is back in photo-taking mode, relaying new photos of its surroundings.

This image was taken by Curiosity’s Navcam Left B on Sol 1398, July 12, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Meanwhile, engineers continue to sharp shoot why the rover put itself into a safe standby mode on July 2. The rover team brought Curiosity out of safe mode on July 9.

According to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Curiosity website: “The most likely cause of entry into safe mode has been determined to be a software mismatch in one mode of how image data are transferred on board.”

This Curiosity image was taken by Navcam Left B on Sol 1398, July 12, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Science activity planning for the rover is avoiding use of that mode, according to JPL, a mode that involves writing images from some cameras’ memories into files on the rover’s main computer. Alternate means are available for handling and transmitting all image data.