[Space] NASA - Mars Exploration Rover MER-A "Spirit" - Update Thread

[GioFX]

Originariamente inviato da gpc
Ma hai postato uguale nei due thread?

ehm, si...

Ci sono notizie sullo stato dello Spirit? Io non ne ho trovate...

Niente novità per ora... aspettiamo il briefing alle 6 pm...

[gpc]

Originariamente inviato da GioFX
ehm, si...

'sta faccia mi fa sempre spataccare...

[GioFX]

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2004

Working as space-age surgeons 100 million miles away, ground controllers are trying to precisely pinpoint the software glitch that halted the Mars rover Spirit's mission to explore Gusev Crater last Wednesday. If successful, officials say the robot geologist could be out of recovery and back at work early next week. Read our full story below...

[GioFX]

Photo received from recovering Spirit rover

BY JUSTIN RAY
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: January 28, 2004

Working as space-age surgeons 100 million miles away, ground controllers are trying to precisely pinpoint the software glitch that halted the Mars rover Spirit's mission to explore Gusev Crater last Wednesday. If successful, officials say the robot geologist could be out of recovery and back at work early next week.

In a promising development late today, Mission Control released the first photograph taken by Spirit since the rover's computer problems began. It shows the rover's science arm reaching out to examine a pyramid-shaped rock nicknamed Adirondack.


Spirit took this image on January 28 and relayed it to Earth, the first picture from the rover since problems began a week earlier. Credit: NASA/JPL

As seen by the rover's front-facing hazard-avoidance camera, the arm remains where it was on the morning of Sol 18 when things began to go awry. The German Mossbauer Spectrometer instrument is seated over the rock in a search for iron-bearing minerals.

After finishing the Mossbauer investigations, the arm was supposed to use the Rock Abrasion Tool to scratch away part of Adirondack's exterior to create a window inside. But that never occurred.

Spirit's computer system, its flash memory bogged down by too many data files, began a continuous series of resets. Contact with Earth was lost for a time.

Now, controllers have managed to get a better handle on their $400 million spacecraft to find the exact source of the problem and delete old files that aren't needed.

"We are attempting to get a trace from the flight software of the problem and compare that to what we believe it to be, what we have seen in the testbed, make sure we are correct and then move forward in deleting some of the files from our flash file system as a result of understanding the problem," mission manager Jennifer Trosper said Wednesday.

"We are extremely careful because we want to make sure that we don't make an error in deleting files. The we have done file deletes on the spacecraft before, so we've shown that does work. The file directories have all different names and you can convince yourself that you are actually deleting the right thing."

Controllers are trying to run a computer script in the rover to track down the bug. But as of mid-day Wednesday, Trosper said things had not gone according to plan.

"Over the past two days we have had some difficulty getting the script to run on the vehicle. So we are continuing to work that problem.

"The method we are using right now in running this script -- it's kind of a back door into the flight software -- is a fairly surgical technique to identify the exact problem and deal with that little problem.

"If we are not able to successfully complete our surgical technique, we have larger hammers, we like to say, that we can use in order to solve this problem."

By strategically going after the bug, officials hope to preserve useful data still stored in the flash memory for later playback to Earth.

"The intent of the last few days has been to maintain the state of the flash memory. We actually think that the flash is not corrupt. We would like keep the data that's in the flash memory. If we can't do that based on the technique we're trying to use then the next step we have is to actually delete the data that is in the flash memory. We've talked to the science team. Almost all of the data is replaceable."

Science information waiting in the flash memory includes the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer and Mossbauer Spectrometer data collected during studies of the Adirondack and earlier collaborative observations between Spirit and the European Mars Express orbiter.

The preview-like thumbnail images of the joint rover/orbiter research have already been received from Spirit, giving scientists some data to use if the rest can't be recovered.

"Most of the science that was desired to be done can be done from the thumbnail images. The science team has agreed that is adequate for the focus of the experiment we had with Mars Express. Clearly, they would like to get the rest of it down. But in order to get all the data down it would take many sols and we have make a risk trade here and a time trade," Trospher said.

"We will attempt the surgical technique about one more day. If that doesn't work, we will move forward to the less-surgical techniques. And hopefully if we are on the right track we would hope at the earliest be back doing science early next week. If we're not on the right track, it could take longer than that."

A specialized group of engineers were brought together to revive Spirit last week and coax the rover back into action. The control team will be returning to its full size in the coming days, if all goes well.

"The anomaly team right now is probably 15 to 20 people because it is a focused effort on solving this flight software problem. Last night, we went to adding probably another 10 people to move towards doing our nominal timeline. And in a few nights, we will go to the full overnight timeline of staffing with the science and engineering teams in preparation for getting Spirit back on its feet for the science mission."

[gpc]

Bene bene bene, speriamo...

[Oaichehai]

io proporrei GioFX come moderatore della sottosezione di Off Topic, denominata "Missioni Spaziali"

[GioFX]

Spirit on the Mend: But Despite Delicate Surgery, Far From Fixed

By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 03:00 pm ET
29 January 2004

PASADENA, Calif. -- The glitch-struck Spirit Mars Exploration Rover is on the mend as computer experts consider delicate electronic surgery on the robot’s software smarts. The hope is fixing the rover and returning it to science-gathering tasks at Gusev Crater by early next week.

There remain nagging worries, however, that what ails Spirit can’t be fully understood. If that’s the case, engineers here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are taking slow steps in certifying that Spirit’s twin – Opportunity that now rests halfway around Mars -- won’t run into the same problems.

Engineers have found a way to halt Spirit's computer from resetting itself by putting the spacecraft into a mode that avoids use of flash memory. Flash memory is a type common in many electronic products, such as digital cameras, for storing information even when the power is off.

The Mars Exploration Rovers have random-access memory. But the robots cannot hold onto information during overnight sleep sessions.


Surgery or heavy hammer?

One of the next steps planned for Spirit is to erase from flash memory the files stored there from the spacecraft's cruise to Mars from Earth. That is intended to lessen the task of managing the flash memory files.

This requires care in abstracting the correct files, said JPL's Jennifer Trosper, Mission Manager for the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) project.

"If we are not able to successfully complete our surgical technique…we have larger hammers that we can use in order to solve this problem," Trosper said yesterday at a morning press briefing here at JPL.

Trosper said that the intent of the last few days has been to maintain the state of the flash memory. "We actually think that the flash is not corrupted. We would like to keep the data that’s in the flash memory," she said.

But if that proves unsuccessful, the next step is to actually delete the data that’s in the flash memory. This heavy hammer approach would wipe out science data collected by Spirit before it ran into trouble on the 18th day of Mars operations.


Risk trade, time trade

Trosper said that, in talks with science teams, almost all of the onboard science data is replaceable.

Of the scientific information that would be lost, however, a coordinated, data-gathering session with Europe’s Mars Express is the most unique, she said. This activity involved Spirit’s instruments looking up while Mars Express science equipment peered down at Gusev Crater.

Trosper said that Spirit did relay thumbnail images from that coordinated look-up/look-down session with Mars Express. "So most of the science that was desired to be done can be done from the thumbnail images," she said.

The science team has agreed that smaller, thumbnail images should prove adequate to glean data that was the focus of the coordinated experiment.

"Clearly they would like to get the rest of it down. But in order to get all of the data down it will take many sols [martian days] We have to make a risk trade and time trade. The science team, I believe, would prefer to have more sols to do new things," Trosper told SPACE.com .


Scene of the crime

Teams of troubleshooting software and hardware experts remain perplexed in trying to find "the scene of the crime" that led to Spirit’s predicament.

If surgical removal of files in flash memory doesn’t solve the problem, reformatting that memory is the next phase, in order to move forward and get back to the science of the mission.


"We can muck around with this thing for a while, clearly. There’s something that we don’t understanding about the problem," Trosper said. It’s also entirely possible that the "heavy hammer" approach of reformatting won’t do exactly what is expected.

By going down the pathway of reformatting the flash memory, all evidence of what happened onboard Spirit would be destroyed.

On the other hand, all that evidence may have already been destroyed after the initial reset, Trosper said. "We just need to weigh the risks against the time it would take to do some of these things and get back on track."


Don’t go there mode

Trosper said that there is a suspicion as to where Spirit’s self-thinking problems occur. "We believe that the flash memory is fine. But it might be that the only way we can get beyond this is just to wipe that flash memory clean," she said.

The good news, Trosper said, is that Spirit’s mission can be done in the state the robot is in right now.

The rover could be hardwired in a "don’t go there" mode of thinking. The outcome of this approach would be that Spirit carries out a more restrictive start-stop type of mission, but still yield a wealth of science during long-distance roving.

"We’re still very mindful of the fact that Spirit is out there and many of us on the team want to get back into that investigation and try and solve the puzzles of Gusev," said Jim Bell, Payload Element Lead for the Panoramic Camera from Cornell University.

[gpc]

Spirit Rover Regains Science Capability
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 10:45 pm ET
30 January 2004





PASADENA, Calif. -- Software engineers here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have been successful in restoring Spirit’s ability to conduct science. Work is still underway to fully characterize the computer hiccups that the robot experienced over a week ago.

The plan now is to delete from the rover’s flash memory loads of information stored before its landing in Gusev Crater. Once that task is done, engineers reported here today that Spirit should then resume its day-to-day workload in normal mode and make use of flash memory.

Computer experts remain unsure of exactly why the robot went into its computerized tantrum. However, at the same time, they are now confident they are on target to identify and rid the robot of the malady.

Still tinkering with software

Mark Adler, JPL Mission Manager for the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) program said team members are hopeful to resume normal operations of Spirit. Part of that process is reformatting the robot’s flash memory.

"The seats in mission control are never cold," Adler said during a press briefing today here at JPL.

And while engineers continue to tinker with Spirit’s software, the rover sent back its first new science data since being crippled by computer troubles.

On Thursday, it took and transmitted panoramic camera images at Gusev Crater, including snapshots of two light-colored rocks, nicknamed Cake and Blanco. Scientists are considering those rocks as possible targets for up-close examination after Spirit finishes examination of the rock called Adirondack over the next few days.

Adirondack: volcanic basalt

Bodo Bernhardt, MER Science Team Member from the University of Mainz, Germany, proudly displayed the first spectrum ever taken of a rock on another planet.

The data was accumulated prior to the rover’s computer problems using the German-provided Mössbauer spectrometer. Twelve hours and twenty-nine minutes of data was collected in studying the martian rock nicknamed Adirondack, Bernhardt told SPACE.com .

"There is no doubt what we see here," Bernhardt said.

Dick Morris, MER Science Team member from the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas said the mineral makeup of Adirondack include olivine, pyroxene and magnetite. That composition is common in volcanic basalt rocks on Earth.

"On Earth, olivine-bearing basalt is one of the most common kinds of rock that we find," Morris said. On Mars, what that type of rock will tell or not explain about the history of Gusev Crater remains to be seen.

If I had a hammer

Spirit also returned microscopic images of the football-sized rock.

Ray Arvidson, MER Deputy Principal Investigator from Washington University in St. Louis said those images suggest Adirondack is a hard, very fine-grain crystalline rock.

"If you were a geologist on Mars…and had a hammer and whacked that rock, it would ring," Arvidson explained.

Given Spirit’s overall health, scientists want to pick up where they left off due to onboard software glitches. They’ll use the robot’s Rock Abrasion Tool – the RAT -- to grind the weathered surface off of a small area on Adirondack and inspect its interior with microscope and spectrometers.

"There’s a lot of unfinished business with Adirondack," JPL’s Adler told SPACE.com . "Then we’ll start to move out."

Head for the hills

Later plans include the rover wheeling toward a crater now tagged Bonneville -- roughly 820 feet (250 meters) away.

Once at Bonneville, scientists operating Spirit are prepared to search for rocks that may have been excavated from below the surface and tossed outward by the impact that dug the crater.

If Spirit can rove up to the crater’s rim, outcrops in the crater walls can be scanned by the robot’s Panoramic Camera and its Mini-Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES), an instrument that sees infrared radiation emitted by objects.

Spirit would then "turn and head for the hills" to the southeast, Arvidson said. "We may not get there, but we’ll get more and more high-resolution views with the Panoramic Camera and the Mini-TES in terms of trying to understand the mineralogy," he said.

"I think the science for spirit is just beginning," Arvidson concluded.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches...te_040130.html

[gpc]

Dov'era quello che diceva "ecco, alla fine dello spirit non resteranno altro che delle belle foto e niente piu'"? Aspettavo tanto per fargli un

[GioFX]

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2004

A week-and-a-half after falling ill to computer woes, NASA on Sunday declared its Mars Exploration Rover Spirit was healthy again.

"We have confirmed that Spirit is booting up normally. Tomorrow we'll be doing some preventive maintenance," mission manager Mark Adler said.

[GioFX]

Thousands of files deleted on Spirit to fix computer trouble

BY SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: February 1, 2004

A week-and-a-half after falling ill to computer woes, NASA on Sunday declared its Mars Exploration Rover Spirit was healthy again.

"We have confirmed that Spirit is booting up normally. Tomorrow we'll be doing some preventive maintenance," mission manager Mark Adler reported Sunday.

Controllers worked to fix the computer ailment afflicting Spirit by purging thousands of data files from its flash memory. The no-longer-needed files piled up on the rover and prevented its computer system from successfully accessing the flash memory, triggering Spirit's computer to reset itself over and over again.

The flash memory stores engineering and scientific data even when the power is turned off, similar to electronic products like digital cameras.

Many of the tossed files were left over from the spacecraft's cruise to Mars.

A scan of the flash memory was performed late last week, providing engineers important diagnostic information, Adler said.

"We are now able to tell that when we mount the flash memory, it does in fact take a lot of the system RAM in the process. In fact, more system RAM than is available. So that's helping confirm the theory we had that the reason the restarts were hanging up was because we were running out of memory when we are trying to mount the flash memory," he explained during a news conference Friday.

Contact with Spirit was lost after the trouble began on Wednesday, January 21. Wrestling to regain control of the craft, engineers developed a plan to put the rover into a "cripple" operating mode that didn't use the flash memory.

With the file deletions completed, Spirit's computer has been "stable" while working in the standard mode with access to the flash memory.

"To be safe, we want to reformat the flash and start again with a clean slate," Adler said Sunday.

Monday's reformatting will erase everything stored in the flash file system and install a clean version of the flight software.

In preparation for that reformatting, Spirit was expected on Sunday to transmit priority data remaining in the flash memory. The information included data from atmospheric observations made in mid-January when the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter flew overhead.

Engineers say the flash may need to be reformatted every one-to-two weeks to prevent further trouble. Similar measures are likely for sister-rover Opportunity.

In the upcoming days, Spirit will finish the study of its first rock, nicknamed Adirondack. The Rock Abrasion Tool will be used to scrub off the rock's surface to give the science instruments a window into Adirondack's interior.


This close-up look at Adirondack was captured by Spirit's microscopic imager. This is the first-ever microscopic image of a rock on another planet. Credit: NASA/JPL/US Geological Survey

Spirit's Mossbauer Spectrometer made readings of the pyramid-shaped, football-sized rock's composition and the microscopic imager snapped extremely close-up views prior to the computer problems. That data was finally transmitted to Earth late last week.

"If you had a hammer and whacked that rock, it would ring," said Ray Arvidson, rover deputy principal investigator.

Adirondack is a hard, crystalline rock that contains olivine, pyroxene and magnetite minerals. Researchers say that composition is common in Earth's volcanic basalt rocks. It isn't the proof of past water on Mars that the rovers were sent to find.

"Adirondack seems to be a good, hard volcanic rock," Arvidson said. "That suggests to us that we may be looking at material either excavated from below by craters, or broken out lava flows or transported in. It's not the kind of smoking gun evidence that we are looking for in terms of climatic history."


Two of Spirit's potential target rocks, which are near the rock called Adirondack, are seen here. The rock on the left has been named "Cake," and the white rock on the right has been named "Blanco." Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell

Next, Spirit will drive to a nearby light-colored rock for study. Future plans call for the rover to head toward a crater, nicknamed Bonneville, about 820 feet away to study rocks thrown outward by the crater-forming impact.

"I suspect what we will do is take a look at some of these so-called white rocks that might be dusted basaltic rocks. If they don't look interesting, as quickly as possible do a traverse up to Bonneville Crater," Arvidson said.

Nearing the one-month mark of its planned three-month mission on Mars, Spirit is just beginning its science work. Officials are quick to point out the rover's wheels won't fall off when the 90-day primary mission period ends, giving hope that the craft will continue to explore in an extended life.

"We have gone through a third of our warranty, I guess, on the mission. But we think we have quite a few more months to go. I expect once we get the vehicle back in operation we will make pretty rapid progress in getting through the science objectives that we have in sight," Adler told reporters.

[gegeg]

ma insomma che era successo in parole povere allo spirit ?

[gpc]

Originariamente inviato da gegeg
ma insomma che era successo in parole povere allo spirit ?

La memoria flash si era riempita e il computer era andato in fault mode perchè non riusciva più a scriverci. Adesso l'hanno cancellata e dovranno rifarlo ogni due settimane per evitare che si riempia.

[GioFX]

Originariamente inviato da gpc
La memoria flash si era riempita e il computer era andato in fault mode perchè non riusciva più a scriverci. Adesso l'hanno cancellata e dovranno rifarlo ogni due settimane per evitare che si riempia.

In realtà quando scrive sulla flash (ricordo che vi è gran parte del software di volo) si è scoperto che tende a saturare la RAM, e per questo motivo in condizione di flash piena rebootava senza motivo.

[gpc]

Originariamente inviato da GioFX
In realtà quando scrive sulla flash (ricordo che vi è gran parte del software di volo) si è scoperto che tende a saturare la RAM, e per questo motivo in condizione di flash piena rebootava senza motivo.

io ho capito diversamente... cioè, ho letto anche io che centrava in qualche modo la RAM, ma mi pareva di aver capito che quando la Flash si riempiva si saturava anche la ram... boh... dopo me lo rileggo meglio...

[GioFX]

Originariamente inviato da gpc
io ho capito diversamente... cioè, ho letto anche io che centrava in qualche modo la RAM, ma mi pareva di aver capito che quando la Flash si riempiva si saturava anche la ram... boh... dopo me lo rileggo meglio...

Esatto, in condizione di flash in saturazione veniva usata troppa RAM, che costringeva il computer a riavviarsi perchè considerava il problema ciritico e quindi impostava automaticamnte il "fault mode".

[gpc]

NASA Works on Mars Spirit Rover Computer Problem
By Andrew Bridges
Associated Press Science Writer
posted: 07:30 am ET
04 February 2004

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) -- The Mars rover Spirit briefly resumed science operations before NASA once again halted the work to finish correcting a computer memory problem that has stymied the wheeled robot's mission.

Mission officials had hoped the rover would brush off and examine a rock that it has faced since Jan. 18, but ongoing software problems forced engineers to delay gathering the data until Thursday, a day after they planned to reformat the rover's flash memory.

"We decided it would be better to not try new things until we got the flash reformatted," deputy project manager Richard Cook told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Spirit landed on Mars on Jan. 3, followed three weeks later by its twin, Opportunity, on the opposite side of the Red Planet. In the meantime Spirit was suddenly crippled by a problem with its flash memory.

"We're just trying to get Spirit back to nominal operations, so we can have two missions operating in parallel," project manager Pete Theisinger said.

Opportunity was continuing to work well, taking microscopic photographs of soil that scientists believe could contain evidence the dry planet once was a wetter world capable of sustaining life.

The pictures, released Tuesday, show a coin-sized patch of grainy soil, peppered with what look like minute pebbles. Opportunity captured the images with its microscopic imager, one of four instruments at the end of its robotic arm.

Opportunity also began a 24-hour analysis of the tiny patch of soil, this time using its Mossbauer spectrometer. The German-built instrument measures the composition and abundance of iron-bearing minerals.

Scientists hope the spectrometer can provide the second eureka moment of Opportunity's mission. Within days of landing, Opportunity used another instrument, its mini-thermal emissions spectrometer, to discover an iron-rich mineral called gray hematite at its landing site. Preliminary measurements suggest the mineral is of a variety that forms in liquid water, providing the first hint that the site once was wet.

NASA launched the $820 million pair of rovers to find geological evidence of past water activity on Mars.

Scientists are now eager to learn if the Mossbauer can reveal the presence of either of two other iron-bearing minerals, goethite and magnetite. Finding one or the other should confirm or deny their hypothesis.

Finding goethite, named for the German poet Goethe, would point to a watery origin for both it and the previously discovered hematite.

Otherwise, if Opportunity discovers magnetite in the soil, that would suggest that it and the hematite formed from iron-rich volcanic lava. The process does not require water.

NASA expected the Mossbauer results early Wednesday. It was not immediately clear when the space agency would release them to the public.

"I'm waiting for it, too, because I want to know it says," Theisinger said of the Mossbauer results.

NASA plans to continue hammering away at Mars throughout the decade.

[GioFX]

heyla!

[gpc]

La politica ti fa male... hai postato lo stesso articolo

[GioFX]

Originariamente inviato da gpc
La politica ti fa male... hai postato lo stesso articolo

No, è che da qualche giorno a questa parte HU si è trasformato in una vecchia caffettiera (grazie davide )... avevo visto il tuo articolo e così o fermato l'inserimento, ma si vede che se l'è magnato lo stesso...