NASA: Mars Rover Comm Problems Look Serious

Fox News | January 22, 2004

[OldFriend]

The Rover has gone on strike for more perks.

[r9etb]

"serious anomaly" is geek speak for it's f#$ked up and we don't know why, take it from a geek that is not good terminology.

Ahhh, it's just NASA-ese. When Challenger blew up the voice guy said, "clearly we have a major anomaly."

I would be exceedingly surprised if there was no backup COMM path for them to use.

[bayourod]

Fell into a lake. I told them to make it amphibious.

[TexasGunLover]

Toward the end of Thursday's news briefing, Theisinger passed along word that managers had received a preliminary signal indicating Spirit was still functioning on the Martian surface. If confirmed, that would mean the rover had detected what it thought was a software fault

[Joe Hadenuf]

So there is communication? Or does this mean that it's only receiving us?

[apillar]

It's my understanding that contrary to CNN Alert message " CONTACT LOST WITH MARS ROVER". That they are getting reponses from the rover that it is receiving communications. It is just not following any of the commands sent to it. I would imagine that they have some sort off fallback position where the rover will perform a "soft reset" or shift into a safe mode if it is some sort of memory error.

[Frank_Discussion]

It is back and forth comm, but only to the extent that the rover is functioning and acknowleding signals sent to it. That's a good sign, and there is indications that it is trying to get around a software fault.

If it can get past the fault and pinpoint it, the controllers can reprogram the little fella.

[adaven]

Fell into a lake. I told them to make it amphibious.

ROFL! It's just stuck in the "mud"

[Mr. Bird]

So there is communication? Or does this mean that it's only receiving us?

My marriage encountered a similar anomaly last night.

[CasearianDaoist]

Talk about offshoring!

[mikegi]

Ahhh, it's just NASA-ese. When Challenger blew up the voice guy said, "clearly we have a major anomaly."

I believe the quote was "obviously a major malfunction". If the scientists are calling this latest thing a "serious anomaly" then they probably think that the rover's main comm link is dead.

I would be exceedingly surprised if there was no backup COMM path for them to use.

There is a low speed backup comm link. I don't remember the exact speed but it was something like 10kbps. According to yesterday's press release, they have been able to communicate with the rover with this low speed link.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Free Shrimp! In the words of Howard Dean, "YEEEEEEHHHHHHAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1062681/posts

[John H K]

From what I saw of the opening of the news conference, there had been 2 orbiter comm attempts and one earth attempt since we first found out about comm problems yesterday afternoon.

They got a very brief signal from the first orbiter attempt and nothing from the second two.

If they got some more comms while the news conference was going on that was obviously a good sign.

[Mr. Quarterpanel]

The term "serious anomaly" was used.

The kiss of death......

[BurbankKarl]

better d/l an patch before the Opportunity lands....

[John H K]

Eh, engineer terminology can be hard to read.

When I was spending two years busily failing math and science classes at a certain extremely well-known engineering school, we used the universal term "non-optimal" to describe everything from getting a B on an exam you expected to get an A on, to your entire dorm room and all your posessions being consumed in a fire, or your roomate jumping to his death.

[mikegi]

Hmmm, wonder if the idiots who did the gloating sack dance over the failure of Beagle 2 will be showing up......

Well, according to my sources, the Beagle_2 didn't crash. It survived the landing but lost comms. In fact, shortly before losing communication with us, the Spirit rover went over a ridge and caught the Beagle_2 "doing the nasty" with one of the Viking landers. Last comm from Spirit was "she's mine"...

[mikegi]

They got a very brief signal from the first orbiter attempt and nothing from the second two.

NASA-TV is replaying the news conference right now. He just said that the low-speed direct link has been lost, too. The radio is on but the computer isn't sending any data. I think Spirit is an ex-rover, unfortunately.

[Clock King]

That's what I was going to say!

From MSNBC:

Toward the end of Thursday's news briefing, Theisinger passed along word that managers had received a preliminary signal indicating Spirit was still functioning on the Martian surface. If confirmed, that would mean the rover had detected what it thought was a software fault and was trying to protect itself. That would be "good news," Theisinger said.

[pbear8]

It is Bush's fault.