Shedding light on the Mars rover malfunction

Embedded.com: "'It was recognized just after [the June 2003] launch that there were some serious shortcomings in the code that had been put into the launch load of software,' said JPL data management engineer Roger Klemm. 'The code was reworked, and a complete new memory image was uploaded to the spacecraft and installed on the rover shortly after launch.'

That appeared to fix the problems that had been identified with the initial load. But what no one at JPL could have anticipated was that the new load also made possible a totally implausible sequence of events that would, many months later, silence Spirit. "