Dwarf planet ahead (Image: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Southwest Research Institute)
A BUSY to-do list can frazzle your brain 鈥� even if you鈥檙e a spacecraft.
Last Saturday NASA lost touch with its New Horizons probe, which is in the final days of its decade-long journey to Pluto. About 80 minutes later, mission controllers regained contact with the craft, which had gone into 鈥渟afe mode鈥�, where it stops collecting data. The incident was a one-off and won鈥檛 threaten any of the mission鈥檚 science, says NASA.
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鈥淭he computer was trying to do two things at the same time,鈥� says Glen Fountain of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.
As it loaded instructions for the fly-by, New Horizons was also compressing old data to make room for new observations. This caused its processor to overload, sending the craft into safe mode.
Engineers spent the weekend fixing the problem. 鈥淚 am quite confident that this kind of event will not happen again,鈥� says Fountain.
For live coverage of the 14 July Pluto fly-by, visit .
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淧luto probe hiccup鈥�
