[Don Joe]

The heater, located on Opportunity's robotic arm -- also called its Instrument Deployment Device (IDD) -- has been stuck on since the rover rolled off its landing pad in January.

Why didn't they mention this any sooner? This sort of embarassed secrecy makes me wonder what other defects they're hushing up. And it'll also make people wonder if it's just an excuse to avoid having to explain what they've been finding and not commenting on.

[MrNeutron1962]

This is no secret: "Controllers are looking at an issue on Opportunity. Telemetry from the rover indicates a small power draw, which engineers suspect is a heater on the science arm's shoulder joint that is operating during the cold period of the each day instead of simply when the arm is being used. Mission manager Jim Erickson says it is too soon to say what, if any, impact this will have. "

This was posted on Spacefilght Now at 17:30 GMT on Monday 1/26/2004.

From: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/status2.html