NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover Receives Third OS Upgrade

NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has received a new software upgrade which will check the wear and tear of its own wheels, according to a press release issued last week.

Curiosity is operating on version 11 of its flight software, the third upgrade since landing on Mars approximately 16 months ago, according to Jim Erickson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Erickson is the project manager for the NASA Mars Science Laboratory Project, which controls the Curiosity rover.

The switch from 10 to 11 took about a week to complete, and will advance the rover's capabilities, according to NASA.

Version 11 will make it easier to move Curiosity's arm while it is on slopes, according to NASA. Additionally, it increases flexibility for saving information overnight to access during autonomous driving the following day.

"We want to take a full inventory of the condition of the wheels," Erickson said, according to NASA. "Dents and holes were anticipated, but the amount of wear appears to have accelerated in the past month or so. It appears to be correlated with driving over rougher terrain. The wheels can sustain significant damage without impairing the rover's ability to drive. However, we would like to understand the impact that this terrain type has on the wheels, to help with planning future drives."

An upcoming study will involve driving to a "smooth patch of ground" to take pictures of the rover's aluminum wheels by using the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera, according to NASA. The camera is located at the end of Curiosity's arm.

Recently Curiosity drove through an area that had a number of sharp rocks in the ground, and NASA has been able to chart such locations to figure out different routes for future missions.

Curiosity discovered evidence of an ancient lake that could have supported microbes called chemolithoautotrophs earlier this month, according to Space.com.

The lake existed approximately 3.7 billion years ago, and is believed to have covered a 96-mile-wide portion of the Gale Crater, which is where Curiosity has mainly been researched since 2012.