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

[Guybrush_threepwood]

[ominiverdi]

SPIRIT UPDATE: - Jan 22, 2004, 10:35 am PST
The Mars Exploration Rover Spirit radioed a beep Thursday morning confirming that it had received a transmission from Earth. Still, it has not returned any data since early Wednesday. Flight-team engineers for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project are working to diagnose the cause of communications difficulties.

[GioFX]

Spirit rover suffers 'serious anomaly'


After a day of troubleshooting, engineers have not yet been able to restore communications with the Spirit rover, which stopped beaming back science and engineering data Wednesday. Project manager Pete Theisinger at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., described the situation as "a very serious anomaly," but said it was too soon to say what might be causing the problem, whether it might be potentially fatal or whether the spacecraft can be restored to normal operation.

"The team has been meeting this morning and through the night working on a set of postulated fault scenarios," Theisinger said. "There is no one single fault that explains all the observables."

He said engineers planned to regroup later this evening to continue troubleshooting and to determine a plan of action.

The loss of contact came at one of the worst possible times for engineers at JPL. An identical rover, named Opportunity, is on target to enter the martian atmosphere around midnight Saturday. But Theisinger said Spirit's troubleshooting would not interfere with Opportunity's descent. The second lander is on target and in good health. Managers are still debating whether to simply stand down on Spirit operations until after Opportunity makes it to the surface.

In the meantime, tension mounted.

"If this problem on Spirit is somehow a software corruption issue, or memory corruption issue that's reflecting itself in software, and there's not a serious power fault, for example, then I think Spirit can go for quite a long time and we can pick up the pieces again," Theisinger said. "But if on the other hand it's had some kind of major power fault ... it may be more difficult to recover from that."

A rainstorm in Australia yesterday interfered with commands being uplinked to Spirit. At that time, the spacecraft sent a short signal indicating it had received the instructions but engineers said the strength of the uplink was much lower than desired and that not all of the commands got through.

The rover's electronic brain is programmed to ignore incomplete commands and engineers thought Spirit would simply stand by, executing previous instructions before calling Earth with daily downlinks of science and engineering data and awaiting further instructions.[/b]

Had the rover been operating properly, that would have happened during afternoon and evening overflights by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey orbiters, which are being used as communications satellites for the Mars rover mission.

No data was received during the first overflight. A short signal was received late Wednesday during a Global Surveyor relay pass, but it contained no data. Nothing was heard from Spirit during subsequent passes, either through satellite relay or through programmed direct-to-Earth transmissions using the rover's high-gain antenna.

"There were beeps we heard yesterday afternoon on Mars and then we got the Mars Global Surveyor signal that indicated it heard from the (rover's) UHF link," said Richard Cook, a senior rover manager. "It was not what we expected. We saw a signal, meaning the rover's radio was on, but there wasn't data present. ... The computer wasn't sending information over to it. But we did at least see a signal."

This morning, flight controllers sent a low-data-rate signal to Spirit on the assumption the computer believed it had run into a problem and had loaded fault-protection routines. What may have been a brief response was received. If that data turn out to be valid, it would indicate Spirit is still alive, giving engineers hope they might be able to recover from whatever has gone wrong.

"That would tell us the spacecraft thinks it's on the fault side of the tree somehow, for some reason, that would mean we have positive power, some element of the software is working. ... But, you know, we need to confirm that. So don't take that further than it deserves to go right now."

[GioFX]

'Serious Anomaly' Silences Mars Spirit Rover

By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 02:11 pm ET
22 January 2004

PASADENA, Calif. -- Mars Rover officials at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced Thursday that "a serious anomaly" occurred onboard the robot Spirit Wednesday, stopping the transmission of direct data for almost 24 hours.

Peter Theisinger, Mars Exploration Rover project manager, began Thursday's press conference by telling reporters that they had not received contact from Spirit, either through relays from the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor or Mars Odyssey spacecraft.

However, Jennifer Trosper, mission manager of surface operations, interrupted the press briefing to announce that a signal had been received from the rover via its direct link to Earth. That said, no direct data had yet to be received from the robotic geologist.

Theisinger explained that the situation remains serious and that "no one single fault ... that we can conceive of" can explain this anomaly.


Fault mode

This morning’s beep from Spirit was welcomed news. That beep confirms that the robot had received a transmission from Earth. Still, it has not returned any data since early Wednesday.

Flight-team engineers for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project are working to diagnose the cause of communications difficulties.

Spirit appears to be in what's known as "fault mode," said Theisinger, given that the robot has beeped back to ground controllers. That is good news for perplexed engineers.

"So at least some element of Spirit’s software that is necessary to process that command and take action…took action," Theisinger said.

However, the robot is not transmitting significant data -- enough information for troubleshooting -- that the engineers can use to fully determine what has happened.


Communication chain

Spirit can communicate with Earth directly via an onboard "X-band system," or it can beam signals up to either of NASA's two orbiting spacecraft using a UHF antenna. There are four chances each day to reach the orbiters.

NASA receives signals from spacecraft through its Deep Space Network (DSN) of tracking stations in Australia, Spain and California.

Direct Mars-to-Earth communications are reserved for critical Spirit mission data, such as rover health and engineering. It takes about 10 minutes for a radio message, moving at the speed of light, to travel between planets. Signals transmitted to the orbiters can be delayed as little as 90 minutes to as long as 24 hours because of the way each orbiter works and communicates with Earth.


NASA's Deep Space Network antennas in Canberra, Australia, including the 70- and 34-meter dishes. CREDIT: NASA/JPL

There are several upcoming communication periods with Spirit via the two NASA Mars orbiting spacecraft now circling the red planet. Anxious engineers here hope to re-establish solid data contact with Spirit.

Today, a Mars Global Surveyor relay session with Spirit is at 10:10 p.m. (EST). A follow-on Odyssey relay chat session with the rover will take place overnight at 1:35 a.m. EST. On Friday, a wake-up call to Spirit is scheduled to be beamed from Earth at 6:00 a.m. EST.


Power positive

Getting tones from Spirit means a number of important things on the rover are in working order. Spirit is in what engineers call "power positive mode" and is maintaining proper temperatures in the frigid air of Mars. It continues to generate power from the Sun with its solar panels, said deputy project manager Richard Cook.
The command from Earth requested Spirit to react if it did hear a signal. That response came in the form of a beep, lasting for five minutes. It heard the command and acted upon it.

The rover was operating in the day when the problem cropped up. Engineers always worry about the issue of "thermal cycling" -- hardware that must survive repeated day-to-night temperature swings.

Theisinger told SPACE.com that this concern can’t be discounted. "Yes something could break…something could fail." But the likelihood of that being the problem is now low on the list of probabilities, he said.


Wednesday hump

A communiqué released late afternoon Wednesday from JPL indicated an unresolved issue with the status of the rover.

According to the statement, ground controllers were able to send commands to Spirit early Wednesday and received a simple signal acknowledging that the rover heard them.

However, ground controllers here did not receive expected scientific and engineering data from Spirit during scheduled communication passes during the rest of that Martian day.

Officials said weather problems Wednesday at the Australian Deep Space Network receiver, which disrupted communicatins, were not related to Spirit's current quietude.


Two weeks and counting ...

The rover landed Jan. 3 and is slated for a three-month mission.

Spirit had been gradually moving away from its landing pad, in the Gusev crater near the Martian equator. It has already sent back dozens of photographs and had begun exploring the soil of the red planet and digging into a rock named Adirondack.

Spirit's twin, called Opportunity, is on target for landing on the opposite side of Mars Saturday night. The combined mission, designed examine Martian geology and also determine if Mars once had large bodies of standing water, carries an $820 million price tag.


Staying alive

Those who operate spacecraft are used to glitches.

"I’ve never been on a flight project that didn’t have one of these. Every single one that I’ve been involved in has had an event like this, or worse than this," said Steve Squyres, principal investigator for the overall Mars Exploration Rover (MER) program. Squyres works at Cornell University, which is collaborating with NASA on the project.

Even highly successful spacecraft missions, like Voyager and Magellan, have had technical woes that were eventually sorted out, Squyres said.

"The vehicle is up there. It is talking to us. It’s definitely responding to things that we do. So a lot of stuff is working right on this spacecraft," Squyres told SPACE.com. "I’ve got a huge amount of confidence in this team. This vehicle is very, very good at keeping itself alive."

Squyres said that his expectation is that the Spirit team will pull through this and have a long and successful mission. "But I might not sleep as well for the next few nights as I would have otherwise," he said.

[teogros]

non per dire ma... un po' di italiano?

Non ci capisco una mazza!!!

[gegeg]

Insomma lo spirit e' MORTO !! non risponde + ! Speriamo x domani mattina marziana !

[GioFX]

Originariamente inviato da teogros


non per dire ma... un po' di italiano?

Non ci capisco una mazza!!!

SPAM???? Solo perchè è in inglese? E' tutto OT, e mi spiace ma non ho ne voglia ne tempo di tradurre tutti gli articoli...

[jumpermax]

Originariamente inviato da gegeg
Insomma lo spirit e' MORTO !! non risponde + ! Speriamo x domani mattina marziana !

non è morto, ha trasmesso un bip per dire che c'è ancora ma non manda dati. Sono pip acidi cmq...

[GioFX]

Originariamente inviato da gegeg
Insomma lo spirit e' MORTO !! non risponde + ! Speriamo x domani mattina marziana !

Veramente ha risposto. Il 'beep' ricevuto dall'Odyssey indica che il Spirit ha riconosciuto di essere in "fault mode" e che il problema è serio (può essere di origine hardware o, più facilmente, software).

[jumpermax]

Originariamente inviato da GioFX
Veramente ha risposto. Il 'beep' ricevuto dall'Odyssey indica che il Spirit ha riconosciuto di essere in "fault mode" e che il problema è serio (può essere di origine hardware o, più facilmente, software).

il problema grosso è se i supporti vitali sono ancora operativi. Basta una notte al freddo e ce lo giochiamo...

[ominiverdi]

Originariamente inviato da GioFX
Veramente ha risposto. Il 'beep' ricevuto dall'Odyssey indica che il Spirit ha riconosciuto di essere in "fault mode" e che il problema è serio (può essere di origine hardware o, più facilmente, software ).

oddio spero non gli abbiano installato windows, altrimenti si che il problema e' serio

[gegeg]

Originariamente inviato da ominiverdi
oddio spero non gli abbiano installato windows, altrimenti si che il problema e' serio

[GioFX]

Originariamente inviato da jumpermax
il problema grosso è se i supporti vitali sono ancora operativi. Basta una notte al freddo e ce lo giochiamo...

No, è la cosa più difficile che possa accadere, anche se non è impossibile... tutto l'hardware più importante e vitale e il computer sono all'interno di uno speciale box termocontrollato (il WEB, Warm Electronics Box) sotto i pannelli solari, e costituisce il cuore del rover. Gli ultimi dati dalla telemetria indicano il perfetto stato di tutto l'hardware. E' anche per questo che si pensa ad un guasto del software o, nel caso dell'hardware, di parte della memoria.

Anche lo stato di carica delle batterie potrebbre centrare... forse non è stata effettuata la completa ricarica la notte del Sol 18, magari a causa dei pannelli sporchi di sabbia (il Gusev Crater è una zona spazzata da fortissime bufere di sabbia).

[jumpermax]

Originariamente inviato da GioFX
No, è la cosa più difficile che possa accadere, anche se non è impossibile... tutto l'hardware più importante e vitale e il computer sono allinterno di uno speciale box termocontrollato (il WEB, Warm Electronics Box) sotto i pannelli solari, e costituisce il cuore del rover. Gli ultimi dati dalla telemetria indicano il perfetto stato di tutto l'hardware. E' anche per questo che si pensa ad un guasto del software o, nel caso dell'hardware, di parte della memoria.

Anche lo stato di carica delle batterie potrebbre centrare... forse non è stata effettuata la completa ricarica la notte del Sol 18, magari a causa dei pannelli sporchi di sabbia (il Gusev Crater è una zona spazzata da fortissime bufere di sabbia).

ah cappero ma in caso di pannelli sporchi credo ci sia più poco da fare ormai... spirit non ha modo di pulirli no?
Cmq credo che le prossime missioni di superficie dovranno per forza di cose essere alimentate ad energia nucleare, le celle solari sono un punto critico, vanno bene per le sonde in orbita ma non per il pianeta...

[GioFX]

Originariamente inviato da jumpermax
ah cappero ma in caso di pannelli sporchi credo ci sia più poco da fare ormai... spirit non ha modo di pulirli no?

beh, è difficile che sia successo ora, anche perchè il cambio di stagione si farà sentire solo verso la fine della missione, in marzo. Ad ogni modo, come il vento può alzare la polvere, la può anche togliere, e questo non è poco.

Cmq credo che le prossime missioni di superficie dovranno per forza di cose essere alimentate ad energia nucleare, le celle solari sono un punto critico, vanno bene per le sonde in orbita ma non per il pianeta...

il problemma è che per generare energia non basta un motore a radioisotopi o simile, infatti non si deve spingere una navetta, ma fornire energia elettrica, e per questo, se si vuole usare energia nucleare, richiede per forza un meccanismo di reazione... il problema quindi è il peso e il costo.

[jumpermax]

Originariamente inviato da GioFX


il problemma è che per generare energia non basta un motore a radioisotopi o simile, infatti non si deve spingere una navetta, ma fornire energia elettrica, e per questo, se si vuole usare energia nucleare, richiede per forza un meccanismo di reazione... il problema quindi è il peso e il costo.

un sistema come quello di Cassini non andrebbe bene quindi?

[GioFX]

Originariamente inviato da jumpermax
un sistema come quello di Cassini non andrebbe bene quindi?

no, occorrerebbero dei convertitori termoelettrici molto più grandi (e pesanti) per generare almeno 100 W di energia al giorno (i pannelli di Spirit ne producono circa 140)...

[teogros]

Originariamente inviato da GioFX
SPAM???? Solo perchè è in inglese? E' tutto OT, e mi spiace ma non ho ne voglia ne tempo di tradurre tutti gli articoli...

Era una battuta, non volevo chiederti di tradurre!

Comunque come sta la situazione? Il robot risponde al bip ma non va niente? 'mazza che sfiga...

[GioFX]

Originariamente inviato da teogros
Comunque come sta la situazione?

Nessun contatto con Spirit da ieri mattina.

[GioFX]

FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 2004
0545 GMT (12:45 a.m. EST)


Mars Global Surveyor did not detect a signal from the Spirit rover during an orbit over the landing site earlier tonight. However, controllers didn't expect Spirit would communicate with the orbiting spacecraft if the rover is truly in its "safe-mode" as engineers suspect.

Mission Control is gearing up to make direct Earth-to-Mars contact with the rover after the Sun rises at the Gusev Crater. Efforts are expected to begin around 3 a.m. Pacific time (6 a.m. EST; 1100 GMT) this morning. Using a communications channel that successfully received a beeping reply from the rover on Thursday, engineers hope they can get Spirit to transmit some data about its health.

Meanwhile, NASA's Mars scientist Jim Garvin appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman tonight, telling the CBS audience about exploration of the Red Planet and showing off pictures taken by Spirit.

"But the thing is busted now, isn't it?" Dave quipped.

"Well not exactly, no," Jim replied.

"You haven't heard from it in about a day, right?" Dave asked.

"We did hear from it (on Thursday). We've gotten a heart beat, and the rover now is in a special mode where it is protecting itself from the extremely cold environment on Mars. We're now communicating with it at very-low rate to tell it how to wake itself back up," Jim explained.

"I heard it was just transmitting, like Paul said, gibberish. You were getting back gibberish and were concerned there were problems with the hardware or software on the rover itself," Dave said.

"Well Dave, we have the best women and men trying to figure out what state it is in now. But we know it called home, we have this little heart beat -- beep, beep, beep -- and now we are going to try to diagnose the problem while we get ready for Opportunity to land early Sunday morning," Jim responded.

"So I guess calling AAA is out of the question?" Dave joked.

"That is true," Jim confirmed!