NASA: The New Horizons spacecraft returned to full function after the computer switched to safe mode on Saturday

About thirty photos were lost, but NASA says that this is one percent of all the photos that were planned, and that they are not critical

The recovery from the anomaly that caused the New Horizons spacecraft's computer to switch to safe mode on July 4 is progressing as planned, with the spacecraft expected to return to full operation in the coming hours.
The mission managers reported in a press conference broadcast on July 6 that the main computer had resumed activity. The series of commands for the transit near Pluto were transmitted to the spacecraft in full. These orders include observation of Pluto, its moons and the solar wind.
NASA says that the quick response to the computer failure over the weekend ensures that the mission will return to orbit to carry out the entire sequence of commands as planned, including those it will carry out on July 14, the day it will pass at the closest distance to Pluto.
It should be noted that at the distance where the spacecraft is currently located, it takes four and a half hours for the signals to travel the distance at the speed of light in each direction.
"We are pleased that New Horizons has responded to the anomaly," said Jim Green, NASA's director of planetary science. "Now we are happy to return to science and prepare for the return we are expected to receive."

The investigation of the anomaly that caused New Horizons to enter a safe mode on July 4 revealed that the main computer was overloaded due to a timing conflict in the sequence of commands received by the spacecraft. The computer was put under a heavy decision-making burden while it was busy compressing previous scientific data. The primary computer responded exactly as it was programmed to do, by entering safe mode and switching to the backup computer.
However, about 4 observations were lost during the computer's three-day recovery period, less than 16 percent of the total science observations the New Horizons crew expected to collect between July XNUMX and XNUMX. None of the mission's most critical observations were affected. And the agency states that there is no risk that an anomaly of this type will occur again before the approach flight, since no similar operations are planned for the subsequent encounter with Pluto.
This is a marginal slowdown in terms of the overall return we expect to get from this historic mission," said Dr. Alan Stern, New Horizons' principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "When we get a clear view of Pluto's surface for the first time, I promise, it will amaze everyone."

For information on the NASA website