Posted on 01/22/2004 5:11:40 PM PST by Keith
Controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory believe the Mars rover Spirit has placed itself into "safe-mode" after experiencing some sort of problem, and officials remain hopeful that engineers can coax the craft back into operation.
"We are cautiously encouraged," JPL director Charles Elachi said on NASA Television a short time ago. "We are still concerned until we understand the problem and we address it."
Spirit abruptly stopped relaying its scientific and health data to Earth on Wednesday, sending a streak of fear through Mission Control when the rover went silent.
But earlier today, a signal was sent from Earth to Mars and Spirit responded with a simple tone.
"We did send a command to the spacecraft on a specific channel and we got a response back basically saying 'yeah, I am here' and we got exactly what we expected from it. So that gave us the indication, because it is on that specific channel that we got the response, is that the spacecraft is in safe-mode. Something kind of went wrong and it put itself into a safe-mode," Elachi said.
"The way we set the spacecraft is that if there is something abnormal, it goes into a certain safe-mode. The indication when we linked and it responded positively is that it is most likely in a certain safe-mode."
Controllers are now preparing for the next step in sorting out the problem and bringing Spirit back to useful life.
"We had to team go home and rest. At 5 o'clock tonight (8 p.m. EST; 0100 GMT) they come back and work a plan for the next communication opportunity which occurs at 3 a.m. Pacific time tomorrow morning (6 a.m. EST; 1100 GMT). We will be using the same channel that we used earlier this morning and we got the positive response."
Instead of asking for just a simple tone reply, controllers will instruct Spirit to play back some of its engineering data.
"We want some of its memory so we can do a diagnostic and understand what has happened, what are the corrective actions that need to be done and how do we bring it carefully and thoughtfully to its normal operational mode."
That direct Earth-to-Mars link occurs after Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey craft make overnight flights above the landing site. The orbiters will be in "listen-only" modes and not sending commands to Spirit. As a result, Elachi said he doesn't expect to hear anything from the rover during the passes if Spirit is in safe-mode.
Engineers are delving through the possible reasons that triggered Spirit to stop talking yesterday. Thus far, it is unknown exactly what caused the situation.
"There could be a possibility of some problem with the software in the spacecraft, similar to what happens in your computer," Elachi cited as one of many potential issues.
Options available to the team to fix the problem include correcting a software glitch, rebooting the entire spacecraft or, if it is a hardware failure, developing a plan to work around the faulty part.
"We have a very valuable asset up there that we did a lot of hard work to get it there safely. The public is all excited about it. So we need to do things methodically and carefully. There is nothing that is rushing us to actually go and do something immediately -- the spacecraft has power, the temperature seems to be appropriate," Elachi said.
"In any exploration you do, you always get anxious moments. Things had been working so well. When you are doing something which is 100 million miles away, roving on a different planet, there are going to be some anomalies or going to be some problems.
"So the key thing that is important is to stay calm, thoughtful and careful and not to react too quickly to when a problem actually occurs because sometimes you can do more harm than good by reacting too quick.
"It is a pretty smart machine that we have up there and the key thing that we are going to do next is to communicate with it tomorrow morning and ask it to send us some data down so we can do a diagnostic of what's the problem," Elachi said.
sounds.... windowsish
=)
Sounds like an extra level of complexity to me. But, I am going to remember that line, for possible use later.
"The way we set the candidate is that if there is something abnormal, it goes into a certain safe-mode. The indication when we linked and it responded positively is that it is most likely in a certain safe-mode."
Explains a lot the last couple of days. "safe-mode" is code for "straitjacket".
Typical "kid" -- when they get to be 16, 17 (sols) they don't want to be told what to do anymore by their "parents"...
That's right. If you make it simple enough it should have only one mode - broadcast. But, if it's complex you (or the Chinese) need to authenticate with some code, plus you need encryption either in software or built into the hardware . And, how secure is NASA anyway - can they keep their codes secret.
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