Spirit Relays Self-Examination Data Back to Earth [still hasn't sent last photos back]

[ambrose]

Still locked within Spirit's memory is science data, including its "last picture show" -- images taken by the robot from its position near a science target -- the football-sized rock that scientists have nicknamed "Adirondack".

[Monty22]

Some of this does sound promising. Hopefully they won't overload Opportunity too.

Sounds like it's more software related than hardware now. I really hope so, then it might be fixable.

I'm still surprised it's only 128kb speed. Can't they get a good megabit going? :)

[Physicist]

Spirit does not have a huge track record of testing, a source said, for fear of damaging the robot and not meeting an unforgiving launch window.

They could have run the software tests on the prototype while the rovers were en route.

[farmfriend]

ping

[The Radical Capitalist]

Prior to its troubles on Mars, Spirit was being put through its paces -- doing things that were not tested with as much vigor here at JPL before being launched.

Spirit does not have a huge track record of testing, a source said, for fear of damaging the robot and not meeting an unforgiving launch window.

What the hell is going on at NASA? This is exactly the same problem they had with the first Hubble mirror - not enough testing. Then they did it again with that Mars probe a few years back that was lost because one of the programmers used English measurements instead of metric ones. A problem that, again, could have been discovered with adequate testing. And now this? Doh!

[GulfWar1Vet]

LOL!

Ya mean it wasn't Martin the Martian!?!

[plain talk]

soooo....where whas this software written..........?????

Outsourced to India?

[farmfriend]

Despite repeated "go to bed" orders from controllers here at JPL, the Spirit rover refuses to listen to parental command. It did not go to sleep even after ground controllers sent commands twice for it to do so.

I'm sorry but as a parent, I find this extremely funny. Been there, done that.

[eclectic]

In other words, they did not bother to test it properly. What a bunch of incompetents! Flag waving and diversity training are not substitutes for solid engineering.
Disband NASA now!

[Hoplite]

What did they expect?

I mean, a RAD6000 system running VxWorks...

Nah, I guess that doesn't have as much octane as it would if the Mars Rover utilized the usual suspects in the hardware/OS wars, does it.

Anyway, cool stuff, especially the 'rocket cam' for Spirit.

[DakotaGator]

Wonder what version of Windows it's using? ;-)

[Jim Noble]

Despite repeated "go to bed" orders from controllers here at JPL, the Spirit rover refuses to listen to parental command. It did not go to sleep even after ground controllers sent commands twice for it to do so.

"I have the utmost faith in the success of the mission, Dave..."

[Viking2002]

The way it's acting, they must've installed shareware from Download.com. LOL

[ambrose]

This only underscores why we need manned exploration. This is the sort of glitch that an astronaut on the ground could fix in about 5 minutes.

[Camel Joe]

Needs a good smack!!

[ambrose]

other "tin foil" thought... could China be sending conflicting commands to Spirit in an effort to kill any momentum for our exploration efforts?

[CasearianDaoist]

You do not know what is going on. By what right do you have to call anyone incompetent. This is the first real instrument of its kind. Just how would you meaningfully QA it? You have no knowledge of their QM regime. Have you any knowledge of professional QM/QA/QC in a real time aerospace environment, especial an off world one. There is a threshold past where one cannot test software without module deployment in the actual working environment. If you actually knew something about it you would understand that.

[ambrose]

If they get this puppy operating again, I think it will be a big victory for NASA. Sort of like how they saved Apollo 13...