[meteorite-list] 'Serious Anomaly' Silences Mars Spirit Rover

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:32:06 2004
Message-ID: <200401221753.JAA21471_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://space.com/missionlaunches/spirit_silent_040122.html

'Serious Anomaly' Silences Mars Spirit Rover
By Leonard David
space.com
22 January 2004

PASADENA, Calif. -- Mars Rover officials at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
announced that "a serious anomaly" occured onboard the robot Spirit Wednesday.

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 Mars Global Surveyor or the Mars
Odyssey spacecraft now orbiting the red planet.

German-built Alpha-Particle-X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) is being used to
determine the elemental chemistry of rocks and soils on Mars. The APXS
performs elemental analyses of martian surface materials by directly
touching a rock or patch of soil. Analyzing the elemental make-up of
martian surface materials will provide scientists with information about
crustal formation, weathering processes, and water activity on the red
planet.

However, Jennifer Trosper, mission manager of Surface Operations,
interrupted the press briefing to announch that a signal had been recieved
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 anamoly.

A communique' released late afternoon Wednesday from JPL indicated an
unresolved issue with the status of the Spirit Mars rover.

According to the statement, ground controllers were able to send commands
to the Mars Exploration Rover 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.
Received on Thu 22 Jan 2004 12:53:52 PM PST