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ZL2VAL > ROVERS 02.02.04 13:11l 84 Lines 3794 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Rover update, 1 Feb
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From: ZL2VAL@ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC
To : ROVERS@WW
NEWS RELEASE: 2004-048
February 01, 2004
Mars Rover Spirit Restored To Health
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is healthy again, the result of
recovery work by mission engineers since the robot developed
computer-memory and communications problems 10 days ago.
"We have confirmed that Spirit is booting up normally. Tomorrow we'll be
doing some preventive maintenance," Dr. Mark Adler, mission manager at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., said Sunday morning.
Spirit's twin, Opportunity, which drove off its lander platform early
Saturday, will be commanded tonight to reach out with its robot arm
early Monday, said JPL's Matt Wallace, mission manager. Opportunity will
examine the soil in front of it over the next few days with a microscope
and with a pair of spectrometer instruments for determining what
elements and minerals are present.
For Spirit, part of the cure has been deleting thousands of files from
the rover's flash memory -- a type of rewritable electronic memory that
retains information even when power is off. Many of the deleted files
were left over from the seven-month flight from Florida to Mars. Onboard
software was having difficulty managing the flash memory, triggering
Spirit's computer to reset itself about once an hour.
Two days after the problem arose, engineers began using a temporary
workaround of sending commands every day to put Spirit into an
operations mode that avoided use of flash memory. Now, however, the
computer is stable even when operating in the normal mode, which uses
the flash memory.
"To be safe, we want to reformat the flash and start again with a clean
slate," Adler said. That reformatting is planned for Monday. It will
erase everything stored in the flash file system and install a clean
version of the flight software.
Today, Spirit is being told to transmit priority data remaining in the
flash memory. The information includes data from atmospheric
observations made Jan. 16 in coordination with downward-looking
observations by the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. Also
today, Spirit will make new observations coordinated with another Mars
Express overflight and will run a check of the rover's miniature thermal
emission spectrometer.
Spirit will resume examination of a rock nicknamed Adirondack later this
week and possibly move on to a lighter-colored rock by week's end.
Each martian day, or "sol" lasts about 40 minutes longer than an Earth
day. Spirit begins its 30th sol on Mars at 12:44 a.m. Monday, Pacific
Standard Time. Opportunity begins its 10th sol on Mars at 1:05 p.m.
Monday, PST. The two rovers are halfway around Mars from each other.
The main task for both Spirit and Opportunity in coming weeks and months
is to find geological clues about past environmental conditions at their
landing sites, particularly about whether the areas were ever watery and
possibly suitable for sustaining life.
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. Images and additional information about the
project are available from JPL at http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov
and from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., at http://athena.cornell.edu
==============================
73 de Alan
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Points to ponder
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Birthdays are good for you;
the more you have,
the longer you live.
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