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

From: mark ford <markf_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:32:07 2004
Message-ID: <6CE3EEEFE92F4B4085B0E086B2941B31014440_at_s-southern01.s-southern.com>

Wouldn't it be funny if it has fallen into a puddle...

I did notice that around the time spirit went down, the Magnetometer
networks were showing increased local activity, i.e solar auroral
activity.

Looking at www.spaceweather.com it appears that there have been a couple
of decent sized flares/CME (Coronal mass ejections) recently, maybe this
is what damaged Spirit?=20

Mark Ford




-----Original Message-----
From: kenoneill_at_kenoneill.com [mailto:kenoneill@kenoneill.com]=20
Sent: 23 January 2004 10:08
To: 'Ron Baalke'; Meteorite-List (E-mail)
Subject: RE: [meteorite-list] 'Serious Anomaly' Silences Mars Spirit
Rover



Ron & List,

I heard on the radio just prior to the malfunction announcement that the
Spirit team were excited after finding what appeared to be a soft area
of
ground i.e. mud !

Was there any mention of this anywhere else ?

Regards

Ken O'Neill
IMCA 9465


-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-admin_at_meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-admin_at_meteoritecentral.com]On Behalf Of Ron
Baalke
Sent: 22 January 2004 17:54
To: Meteorite Mailing List
Subject: [meteorite-list] 'Serious Anomaly' Silences Mars Spirit Rover




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.


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Received on Fri 23 Jan 2004 05:28:26 AM PST