NASA Unable to Communicate with Mars Rover

Reuters ^ | Thu, Jan 22, 2004

[presidio9]

NASA scientists said on Thursday they had lost contact with the robot rover Spirit on Mars and were unsure what had caused the problem.

Spirit project manager Pete Theisinger told a news briefing that there was a "very serious anomaly" in communications with the six-wheeled craft, which landed on Mars on Jan. 3 on a planned three-month mission to explore the geologic history of the planet.

Theisinger said scientists had been unable to communicate with Spirit for about 24 hours and had so far been unable to explain the source of the problem.

"There is not one single fault that explains this," Theisinger said, adding that mission scientists had worked throughout the night on scenarios ranging from a major power failure to a software or memory corruption.

Mission managers said Spirit was not completely dead, and had sent out a communication beep and default signals. But they said several attempts since Wednesday afternoon to send commands to the rover and to receive data from it via the Mars Global Surveyor orbiter and the Mars Odyssey orbiter had failed.

The grim news dampened the elated atmosphere at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, where mission controllers have delighted up until now at the virtually flawless landing on Mars.

Spirit last week began its first tentative journeys sampling the surface soil of the Gusev Crater -- a barren, wind-swept basin that scientists believe may have been the site of an ancient lake bed once fed by a Martian river.

The first hitch in the mission came on Wednesday when a thunderstorm in Canberra, Australia, prevented mission controllers from transmitting command sequences from the Canberra large dish antenna complex to Spirit on its 18th day on the red planet.

Project managers initially seemed unconcerned at the setback but are now examining whether the communications glitch may have contributed to the more serious problems with Spirit.

Mission managers said on Thursday that the Spirit communications problems would have no effect on the scheduled arrival on Saturday on the opposite side of Mars of Spirit's twin exploration rover, Opportunity.

The two robotic rovers are the most advanced missions to date in man's 40-year quest to discover the geologic history of Mars and whether it was ever sufficiently warm or wet enough to sustain a recognizable form of life.

[saveliberty]

I wonder if the Beagle2 crashed into it?

[Bush Cheney]

I wonder what happened. Everything was working "Optimal" up until this. Hmmmmm.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Batteries stopped charging?

[Fitzcarraldo]

Batteries stopped charging?

[pbear8]

It's dead Jim

[malakhi]

NASA Unable to Communicate with Mars Rover

Rover is from Mars, NASA is from Venus?

[js1138]

I think this problem occurred about thirty seconds after someone bragged about the thing running on Java.

[ShadowAce]

It's the dreaded BSOD!!!!

[RightWhale]

Several possibilities. One was faulty memory, bad chip. Another was a bad line of code. Another was it might have fallen into a water-filled sinkhole with only the antenna sticking out. Or maybe a Mars dog felt the need to mark its territory.

[Blzbba]

ClassDefNotFound Exception?

NullPointException?

[BenLurkin]

[RoseofTexas]

UGHHHHHHH....Phone home lil'fella!!

[commish]

Buffer overrun?

c: not found :-)

[colorado tanker]

I'm with you. A Martian pulled out a wire. Ever notice how many Martian landers "fail"?

[JOAT]

It just took the Martian HAZMAT response team a while to locate it. They were busy with the Beagle.

[southernnorthcarolina]

Well, thank God we discovered there are rocks on Mars before we lost contact. Reddish-brown rocks, brownish-red rocks, big rocks, small rocks, rocks of many shapes. And all this at a cost to taxpayers of $847,064,933,528,719,406,637,182. More or less.

Next for NASA: a new flavor of Tang!

[isatoi]

Well there is another thread here somewhere from this morning that had a link to a website that shows a picture from the Spirit. Supposedly this was a picture of a DUNE BUGGY.......... Maybe he's been hijacked...........

[Only1choice____Freedom]

When in doubt, reboot.

[sonofatpatcher2]

Re: Well, thank God we discovered there are rocks on Mars before we lost contact. Reddish-brown rocks, brownish-red rocks, big rocks, small rocks, rocks of many shapes. And all this at a cost to taxpayers of $847,064,933,528,719,406,637,182. More or less.

Hummmmmmm...

Do you by chance have a relative who goes by the ID of "from occupied ga?" If so, ask him to name the three guys he says Apollo 11 'landed' on the Moon?