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ZL2VAL > SPIRIT 23.01.04 10:18l 74 Lines 3107 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : E40427ZL2VAL
Read: GUEST
Subj: Spirit Update
Path: DB0FHN<DB0FOR<DB0MRW<OK0PPL<DB0RES<ON0AR<7M3TJZ<SP7MGD<ZL2TZE<ZL2AB
Sent: 040123/0809Z @:ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC #:33848 [New Plymouth] FBB7.00g
From: ZL2VAL@ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC
To : SPIRIT@WW
NEWS RELEASE: 2004-028
January 22, 2004
Mars Exploration Rover Mission Status
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.
Engineers will continue efforts to understand the situation in
preparation for scheduled communication relay sessions using Mars Global
Surveyor at 7:10 p.m. PST and Mars Odyssey at 10:35 PST. Efforts to
resume direct communications between Spirit and antennas of NASA's Deep
Space Network will resume after the rover's expected wake-up at about 3
a.m. PST Friday.
Meanwhile, mission leaders decided to skip an optional trajectory
correction maneuver today for Opportunity, the other Mars Exploration
Rover. Opportunity is on course to land halfway around Mars from Spirit,
in a region called Meridiani Planum, on Jan. 25 (Universal Time and EST;
Jan. 24 at 9:05 p.m. PST).
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena,
manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Office of Space
Science, Washington, D.C. Additional information about the project is
available from JPL at http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov and from Cornell
University, Ithaca, N.Y., at http://athena.cornell.edu
=========================
73 de Alan, (Sysop ZL2AB).
AX25:ZL2VAL@ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC
APRS:!3903.34S/17406.45E]
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Points to ponder
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Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
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