Mars Rover Glitch

JPL ^ | 21 Jan 2004 | JPL

[Fitzcarraldo]

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

NEWS RELEASE: 2004-027
January 21, 2004 4 p.m. PST

MARS EXPLORATION ROVER MISSION STATUS

Ground controllers were able to send commands to the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit early Wednesday and received a simple signal acknowledging that the rover heard them, but they did not receive expected scientific and engineering data during scheduled communication passes during the rest of that martian day.

Project managers have not yet determined the cause, but similar events occurred several times during the Mars Pathfinder mission. The team is examining a number of different scenarios, some of which would be resolved when the rover wakes up after powering down at the end of the martian day (around midday Pacific time Wednesday).

The next opportunity to hear from the vehicle is when the rover may attempt to communicate with the Mars Global Surveyor orbiter at about 8:30 p.m. Pacific time tonight. A second communication opportunity may occur about two hours later during a relay pass via the Mars Odyssey orbiter. If necessary, the flight team will take additional recovery steps early Thursday morning (the morning of sol 19 on Mars) when the rover wakes up and can communicate directly with Earth.

Full details on the rover's status will be described in the next daily news conference Thursday at 9 a.m. Pacific time at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which will be broadcast live on NASA Television.

- end -

[gitmo]

Hope it's not a 404.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Cross your fingers, folks.

[RightWhale]

Uh-oh. Lots of data already sent, but lots more yet to go.

[Howlin]

Uh oh.

[Abogado]

If they are running windows they probably need to reboot:\

[Lawdoc]

"Houston, we have a problem...."

[TBall]

The microbes in the soil must have disabled it.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

ping

[RightWhale]

"Thunderstorms in Australia have created a slow workday on Mars."
Could this . . .? Nah.

[DoctorMichael]

The Blue Screen of Death?

Hope not.

[DB]

Other reports said that there were thunder storms in Australia where the rover's signals are currently being received causing communications problems.

[bonfire]

Thanks for the ping. Was just showing my college son and his fiance the latest Rover pics.

Almost feel like Rover is "alive" and that we should pray or something!

[Triple Word Score]

If they're running Linux they may be in even more trouble. The only way to get tech support is to find a bunch of geeks and tell them Windows is better than Linux because Windows doesn't (whatever problem you're having with Linux.)

[tubebender]

Ping...

[Dallas59]

Are they getting the dreaded Red "X"....

[snopercod]

...or worse yet, the dreaded 1202 alarm.

[Fitzcarraldo]

I heard on this morning's press conference they had trouble sending commands to the spacecraft earlier today because of rain over the Canberra, Australia tracking station. Maybe some garbled commands sent the rover off on an unplanned excursion.

[FractalMan]

If they are using UNIX, they probably need to replace the spaces in the file names with underbars. :-)

[Dog]

What we didn't do anything to the rover....don't blame us.