Mars Lander Fixes Problem by Hitting Itself With a Shovel

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Odds are good that at some point, you’ve watched and enjoyed a film about the hard-working, intelligent people at NASA solving a problem in space while remaining earthbound themselves. Apollo 13, Hidden Figures and The Right Stuff all abound with such moments, blending human drama with the thrill that comes from figuring out a solution to a seemingly-insurmountable issue.

This week, NASA’s Mars lander encountered a problem on the red planet that needed to be debugged and fixed remotely. But here, the solution was less The Martian and more Idiocracy — specifically, they solved the problem by telling the lander to hit itself with a shovel. It’s kind of like the “stop hitting yourself” trope, but in space.

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