NATION IN BRIEF : WASHINGTON, D.C. : Spacecraft ‘Bug’ Said to Be Fixed by NASA

NASA engineers weeks ago found and fixed a computer software error that had caused the spacecraft Magellan to lose contact repeatedly with Earth after its arrival at the planet Venus a year ago, sources told the Washington Post. The computer “bug” is believed to have caused the spacecraft to be unresponsive for up to three days, resulting in a loss of 1% of the data from its radar mapping mission. The error was the result of a defect in a program used to write software for Magellan and other spacecraft, the newspaper said.