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Mars Patrol, Please Phone Home
ABC News, JPL and NASA ^ | November 13, 2006 | Ned Potter

Posted on 11/13/2006 2:15:23 AM PST by bd476

Mars Patrol, Please Phone Home

NASA Loses Contact With Mars Global Surveyor Orbiter

By NED POTTER

Nov. 13, 2006 — - Ten years ago -- 10 years last week, in fact -- a little ship named Mars Global Surveyor was launched from Florida, designed to spend two years in Martian orbit.

It hasn't been heard from in a week now, and the engineers at the Jet Propulsion Lab in California are finally getting worried.

Something on the ship apparently went awry when it sent a signal that it was having trouble orienting one of its solar panels to face the sun. A corrective command was radioed back.

The response was two days of silence, and then a carrier signal suggesting the ship had gone into "safe" mode -- essentially shutting down non-essential systems until its earthling masters could figure out what was wrong and send further orders. It's roughly analogous to your computer crashing, then giving one of those messages that says, "This system has recovered from a serious error. …"

That was Sunday a week ago, though, and for a ship that has endured the rigors of deep space for so long, time may finally be running out.

NASA's Deep Space Network has been sending signals to the orbiter every two hours. So far, silence.

"The spacecraft has many redundant systems that should help us get it back into a stable operation, but first we need to re-establish communications," said project manager Tom Thorpe in a NASA statement.

MGS was overshadowed in 1997 by the Mars Pathfinder lander -- you probably remember it, with its toaster-sized Sojourner rover -- that landed on the Martian surface, wandered among the rocks, took beautiful color panoramas, and captured the American imagination.

Global Surveyor quietly did more substantial things. It sent back detailed mapping images of almost all the Martian surface, shooting pictures of what, to many scientists, looked like gullies in the sides of craters. NASA theorized that relatively recently, geologically speaking, there may have been liquid water spurting from underground reservoirs into the Martian sand.

Three other orbiters and two other rovers have arrived safely from Earth since Mars Global Surveyor. They have more advanced cameras and more powerful onboard computers. NASA fully expected to end the MGS mission around 1999; instead, it's had to keep allocating extra money to staff this project that nobody expected would last this long.

JPL has "lost" probes before, and recovered them completely. But it takes time, and skill, and steely nerves.

After the Pathfinder lander went silent in October 1997, Brian Muirhead, the project manager, gave ABC News an interview.

"It's as if a good friend is gone," he said. "I didn't get to say a proper goodbye."



TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: caltech; jpl; mars; marsglobalsurveyor; nasa; pasadena; space
JPL and NASA



Ground Team Stays Busy on 10th Anniversary of NASA Mars Launch

November 07, 2006

Engineers are striving to restore full communications with NASA's Mars Global Surveyor on the 10th anniversary of the spacecraft's Nov. 7, 1996, launch.

The orbiter is the oldest of five NASA spacecraft currently active at the red planet. Its original mission was to examine Mars for a full Martian year, roughly two Earth years. Once that period elapsed, considering the string of discoveries, NASA extended the mission repeatedly, most recently on Oct. 1 of this year.

The orbiter has operated longer than any other spacecraft ever sent to Mars. It has returned more information about Mars than all earlier missions combined and has succeeded far enough beyond its original mission to see two later NASA orbiters arrive: Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Among many important accomplishments so far, Mars Global Surveyor has found many young gullies apparently cut by flowing water, discovered water-related mineral deposits that became a destination for NASA's Opportunity rover, mapped the planet topographically and examined many potential landing sites on Mars.

On Nov. 2, one orbit after commands were sent for a routine maneuver to move the solar panels, the spacecraft reported that the motor moving one of the arrays had experienced errors.

Onboard software responded as programmed, switching the spacecraft to a backup motor controller, then to a backup circuitry connection.

Following these indications of difficulty, a two-day lapse in contact occurred on Nov. 3 and 4. The signal from the spacecraft was received on Nov. 5 during four different orbits, but it did not carry any data from the spacecraft.

The signal's frequency indicated that the spacecraft had entered safe mode, a pre-programmed state of restricted activity in which it awaits instructions from Earth.

No further signal was heard during subsequent orbits on Nov. 5 and Nov. 6. Engineers concluded that the spacecraft had made an additional pre-programmed response, intended to help it survive when it senses that a solar array is stuck.

The spacecraft turns that array toward the sun to maintain its power supply and rotates the rest of the spacecraft in the same direction, thereby making communication with Earth less effective.

"The spacecraft has many redundant systems that should help us get it back into a stable operation, but first we need to re-establish communications," said Tom Thorpe, project manager for Mars Global Surveyor at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Further information on the recovery of the spacecraft will be released as it comes available.

Ground Team Stays Busy on 10th Anniversary of NASA Mars Launch

1 posted on 11/13/2006 2:15:25 AM PST by bd476
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To: bd476

Well built. It's amazing how long these probes last on (or around) Mars.


2 posted on 11/13/2006 2:18:46 AM PST by kinoxi
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To: bd476

I've read that photographs will be taken of MGS by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to determine what mode MGS is in. The two spacecraft come within 60 miles of each other a few times each week.


3 posted on 11/13/2006 2:29:14 AM PST by cabojoe
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To: kinoxi

Depends on whethher the spacecaft is Russian or American.


4 posted on 11/13/2006 2:30:27 AM PST by screaming eagle2 (No matter what you call it,a pre-owned vehicle is still a USED CAR!)
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To: kinoxi
Just gets bugs Bunny to fly up there.. I have a sneaking suspension that Marvin the Martian is playing with our satellites :-)
5 posted on 11/13/2006 2:32:12 AM PST by dcrider182 (Col. Dean R. Hiatt.. WWII Hero. LC.Cpl. Brad Shuder. 9-11 Hero.. you are both loved and missed)
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To: screaming eagle2
Depends on whethher the spacecaft is Russian or American.

Yeah. ;)

I have heard anything publicly about their debris getting in our way yet. :)
6 posted on 11/13/2006 2:36:03 AM PST by kinoxi
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To: kinoxi
kinoxi wrote: "Well built. It's amazing how long these probes last on (or around) Mars."

That's true, Kinoxi.

Last Spring I went on a tour of JPL. It was a fascinating tour and the most fun day I've had in a long time.

The 30 year old technology for one of our outer space probes continues controlling the probe as it approaches (or by now, is already in) the Kuiper Belt.

The power for the satellite/probe is a now 30 year old small nuclear powered battery.

We are still in communication with the satellite/probe even though the satellite/probe's communication system is based on 30 year old computer programming.


7 posted on 11/13/2006 2:38:12 AM PST by bd476
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To: kinoxi; screaming eagle2; Cindy; RadioAstronomer; Global2010; BurbankKarl; lainie; merry10; ...
It's hard to imagine being able to control a camera on anything so far away but a company in San Diego, California does exactly that. And we can see the Martian North Polar Cap pretty clearly because of it.



Mars Global Surveyor
Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS Mars Orbiter Camera: 10 Years In Space
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1607, 7 November 2006

Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) was launched 10 years ago today, on 7 November 1996. The spacecraft reached Mars on 12 September 1997, and has been observing the ever-changing red planet over the course of the past 5 martian years.

The Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) has spent 10 years in the near vacuum of space—not bad, considering that the Primary Mission, at the time of launch, was expected to end in early 2000.

Since September 1997, MOC has been acquiring new images that highlight the geology and meteorology of Mars; more than 240,000 images have been returned to Earth. A recent example, from 15 October 2006, is shown here.

Two annular (i.e., somewhat circular) clouds are seen in the upper left corner of this mosaic of MOC wide angle camera daily global mapping images.

To the right of the picture's center is the martian north polar cap. The image has a scale of about 7.5 kilometers (4.7 miles) per pixel.

Annular clouds are common in mid-northern summer in the north polar region, and may result from eddy currents in the lower atmosphere.

The appearance of such clouds happens every year; this year they came like clockwork within a two-week forecasted period, based on the previous 4 martian years of experience gained from MGS MOC daily global imaging.

Despite their superficial resemblance to Earth-orbiting satellite views of hurricanes, these cloud features are not the result of strong winds, and they typically dissipate later in the day.

The pictures used to make this mosaic were acquired less than 2 days before the MOC was turned off for MGS's fifth Mars-Earth Solar Conjunction period.

During Conjunction, Mars was on the other side of the Sun, relative to Earth, and thus MGS could not transmit data (through the Sun) during the second half of October.

Examples of north polar annular clouds seen in previous Mars years were featured by the MGS MOC team in September 2005: "Celebrating 8 Years at Mars: Repeated Weather Events."

To review the MGS launch of 10 years ago, one can visit the NASA Kennedy Space Center web site, which includes pictures and video at:

NASA Kennedy Space Center.

Video clips of the launch and many animations and videos from the earlier phases of the MGS mission can be reviewed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory web site at:

Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Malin Space Science Systems and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, California.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, California and Denver, Colorado.

Malin Space Science Systems

8 posted on 11/13/2006 2:59:08 AM PST by bd476
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To: bd476
"We are still in communication with the satellite/probe even though the satellite/probe's communication system is based on 30 year old computer programming.

Dos 6.2 with the upgrade to 7 patch?

9 posted on 11/13/2006 3:45:14 AM PST by Nathan Zachary
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To: Nathan Zachary
Lol!

10 posted on 11/13/2006 4:11:02 AM PST by bd476
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To: bd476

Perhaps Howard Dean could help...he is usually far out in space.


11 posted on 11/13/2006 5:56:58 AM PST by The Great RJ ("Mir we bleiwen wat mir sin" or "We want to remain what we are." ..Luxembourg motto)
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To: bd476

Thanks for posting this. I have been in the MGS control room and a friend of mine leads the flight team. :-)


12 posted on 11/13/2006 6:14:32 AM PST by RadioAstronomer (Senior member of Darwin Central)
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To: bd476

Sorry, thought this was about Shelia Jaxson Lee or someone like that from Texas......


13 posted on 11/13/2006 6:17:38 AM PST by litehaus (A memory tooooo long)
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To: bd476

And Beagle was never lost either...

14 posted on 11/13/2006 11:26:24 AM PST by BurbankKarl
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