It doesn't sound like they're doing anything novel compared to computing in harsh environments here on Earth. It's pretty routine to monitor the output of compu

It doesn't sound like they're doing anything novel compared to computing in harsh environments here on Earth. It's pretty routine to monitor the output of computation and cross-verify when an error is hazardous and there is risk of corruption. Frequently when the system is used for some critical task and there's an error with a less critical subsystem it will operate in a "degraded state." And ECC RAM has been standard on these kinds of computers for ages. The only thing novel about this is that they sent a computer designed in this millennium and it survived the radiation unshielded. Regarding the SSD/NAND flash, it makes sense that it would die relatively quickly. It's constantly being bombarded by energetic particles and the cell sizes, geometries, and write voltages are low and small enough that I could see bit flips accumulating relatively quickly from cosmic rays. The drive's firmware would then determine that the write block had failed and mark it permanently as bad. What's probably needed here is a different firmware that attempts to erase the block and then tests it and puts it back into service if it passes. Or different cell geometries and higher write/erase voltages are needed. It's an interesting note.