After scare, Spirit responding with data again

CNN ^ | Friday, January 23, 2004 Posted: 11:05 AM EST (1605 GMT) | Jeordan Legon, Miles O'Brien, and David Santucci

[Crazieman]

PASADENA, California (CNN) -- After two days having trouble with transmissions, the Mars rover Spirit sent data Friday morning to its NASA flight team in a communications session lasting at least 20 minutes, the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said.

"The spacecraft sent limited data in a proper response to a ground command, and we're planning for commanding further communication sessions later today," Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager Pete Theisinger said.

[Lokibob]

From the Press release yesterday:(http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2004/28.cfm)

Emphasis in red and bold mine.

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2004 News Releases

Mars Exploration Rover Mission Status
January 22, 2004

Flight-team engineers for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission were encouraged this morning when Spirit sent a simple radio signal acknowledging that the rover had received a transmission from Earth.

However, the team is still trying to diagnose the cause of earlier communications difficulties that have prevented any data being returned from Spirit since early Wednesday.

"We have a very serious situation," said Pete Theisinger of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, project manager for Spirit and its twin, Opportunity.

Spirit did send a radio signal via NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter Wednesday evening, but the transmission did not carry any data. Spirit did not make radio contact with NASA's Mars Odyssey during a scheduled session two hours later or during another one Thursday morning. It also did not respond to the first two attempts Thursday to elicit an acknowledgment signal with direct communications between Earth and the rover, and it did not send a signal at a time pre-set for doing so when its computer recognizes certain communication problems. The successful attempt to get a response signal came shortly before 9 a.m. Pacific Standard Time.

No single explanation considered so far fits all of the events observed, Theisinger said. When the team tried to replicate the situation in its testing facility at JPL, the testbed rover did not have any trouble communicating. Two of the possibilities under consideration are a corruption of flight software or corruption of computer memory, either of which could leave Spirit's power supply healthy and allow adequate time for recovering control of the rover.

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I read that as try to collect the data first before re-booting.  Perhaps I am wrong, however.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

This is really good, all things considered. After the news yesterday, I figured the whole mission was in the dumper. Even if the rover is functioning at a limited capacity, it sure beats getting nothing at all from it.

[Hunble]

This is outstanding good news!

Perhaps my $2.67 was well spent.

[Doug Loss]

Actually folks, Spirit is running on VxWorks from Wind River Systems, a RTOS (real-time operating system) designed to control hardware like this. JPL uses VxWorks on a number of their spacecraft. No one not psychotic would use Windows (or Mac OS X, or ordinary Linux...) to control something like a space probe.

[Gorzaloon]

The Spirit rover stopped transmitting data from Mars on Wednesday, but mission controllers remained hopeful about reestablishing a connection, saying there were signs the craft was operating at a basic level.

It was swamped with popup ads for "ENLARGE YOUR GORKHYX", "INVEST NOW IN SEDONIA REAL ESTATE!!!", "BUY TELLURIUM SUPPLEMENTS ONLINE NOW!!!", and "CANALSIDE HOTTIES ON BREAK!!!"

[Flyer]

Whew!

[Lokibob]

A wag on another thread speculated that Rover was in heat, and Beagle was servicing her. The message was, "Leave me alone until I have this cigarette".

LOL, Rush Limbough just said that Rover was secretly communicating with Halliburton over the location of Martian OIL!!!!

[ambrose]

It is indeed.


It is rumored that Spirit was singing a song.

Its called Daisy.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Foxnews reporter just said they were rebooting ! Hmmm!

[Snowy]

I just have this weird picture of some Martian laughing their tail/? off while removing and re-installing the Spirt's antenna.

Wouldn't it be funny if one of the geeks at NASA posted a picture of a gray alien and pretended it came from Mars?:)