[meteorite-list] Spirit Remains In 'Critical' Condition

From: Tom aka James Knudson <knudson911_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:32:08 2004
Message-ID: <000b01c3e1fe$15207fa0$31c343d8_at_malcolm>

I have two theories, Spirit was hit my a meteorite, although a small target
on a big planet, it is more likely than the next theories, Spriit was
attacked by Martians!
Thanks, Tom
Peregrineflier <><
IMCA 6168

----- Original Message -----
From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>
To: Meteorite Mailing List <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 2:50 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Spirit Remains In 'Critical' Condition


>
>
> http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/040123recovery.html
>
> Spirit remains in 'critical' condition
> BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
> STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
> January 23, 2004
>
> The crippled Spirit rover remains in critical condition on the surface of
Mars,
> engineers said today, the victim of ongoing electronic seizures that have
caused
> its central computer to reboot itself more than 60 times over the past two
days.
> Engineers successfully coaxed the rover to beam back limited engineering
data
> during two brief communications sessions and they were relieved to
discover
> the spacecraft's power system was providing the necessary life support.
But
> Spirit's state of mind was clearly - and unusually - different in both
sessions,
> ruling out any simple explanations for what might have gone wrong.
>
> "We have a serious problem," said project manager Pete Theisinger. "The
fact
> that we've got a vehicle that we believe is stable for an extensive period
of time
> will give us time to work that problem. We can command it to talk to us
and
> even though we get perhaps limited information, we do get good information
and
> that helps us work through the problem.
>
> "I expect that we will get functionality back out of this rover. I think
the chances
> that it will be perfect again, I would think, are not good. The chances
that it will
> not work at all, I think are also low. I think we're somewhere in that
broad
> middle and we need to understand the problem to find out exactly where we
> are."
>
> Spirit went on the blink Wednesday as it was carrying out a procedure to
> calibrate drive motors used by its thermal emission spectrometer. Prior to
that
> moment, everything was operating normally. But some event, possibly a
> hardware failure of some sort, threw the rover's electronic brain for a
loop. Since
> then, the spacecraft has been in a state of limbo, responding in unusual
fashion
> to anxious flight controllers.
>
> "This morning, we sent an early beep to the spacecraft and did not get a
> response," Theisinger said. "As we were preparing to send a second, the
> spacecraft talked to us. We got very fractional frames and then moved very
> quickly to ask it to speak to us for 30 minutes at 120 bits per second. We
got 20
> minutes of transmission in that occasion, which was a single frame of
> engineering data repeated.
>
> "Then we repeated that full sequence of events and we got about 15 minutes
of
> engineering data at 120 bits per second where the frames were updated for
15
> minutes and then for the second 15 minutes we had nothing but fill data."
>
> He said Spirit "has been in a processor reset loop of some type, mostly
since
> Wednesday, we believe, where the processor wakes up, loads the flight
> software, uncovers a condition that would cause it to reset. But the
> processor doesn't do that immediately. It waits for a period of time - at
the
> beginning of the day it waits for 15 minutes twice and then for the rest
of the
> day it waits for an hour - and then it resets and comes back up."
>
> Complicating the work to track down the problem, "the indications we have
> on two occasions is that the thing that causes the reset is not always
> perceived to be the same," Theisinger said. "We are
> confused by that, but that's the facts as we presume them to be right
now."
>
> The reset sequence, similar to repeatedly unplugging one's personal
computer
> and forcing it to restart, began Wednesday morning on Mars when a
calibration
> of the spectrometer motors ended prematurely. An anomaly team has been
> formed to study the telemetry and to decide what readings to request from
Spirit
> to help narrow down the range of possible failures.
>
> "I think we should expect that we will not be restoring functionality to
Spirit for
> a significant period of time," Theisinger said, "I think many days,
perhaps a
> couple of weeks, even in the best of circumstances, from what we see
today."
>
> In the meantime, he said, Spirit remains in "critical" condition.
>
> "We do not know to what extent we can restore functionality to the system
> because we don't know what's broke," Theisinger said. "We don't know what
> started this chain of events and I think, personally, that it's a sequence
of
> things, and we don't know, therefore, the consequences of that. I think
its
> difficult at this very preliminary stage to assume we did not have some
type of
> hardware event that caused this to start and therefore, we don't know to
what
> extent we can work around that hardware event and to what extent we can
get
> the software to ignore that hardware event if that's what we eventually
have to
> do.
>
> "We've got a long way to go here with the patient in intensive care. But
we
> have been able to establish that we can command it, and we have been able
to
> establish that it can give us information and we have been able to
establish that
> the power system is good and we're thermally OK and those are all very,
very
> important pieces of information.
>
> "We are a long, long way from being done here, but we do have serious
> problems and our ability to eventually work around them is unknown. Do not
> expect a big sea change in either knowledge or theory in the next several
days.
> This is a very complex problem."
>
> Amid the troubleshooting, Spirit's twin - the Opportunity rover - remains
on
> track to land early Sunday morning East Coast time on Meridiani Planum, a
> region on the other side of Mars where deposits of minerals that form in
the
> presence of water have been detected. Theisinger said engineers do not
believe
> Spirit's problem poses any generic risk to Opportunity, but he said the
flight
> control team would be much more cautious in its daily operations to
minimize
> the chances of a similar problem.
>
> "It is likely, depending upon what happens in the next 48 to 72 hours,
that we
> may not continue the Opportunity impact-to-egress with the same pace and
> dispatch that we did on Spirit," he said. "It depends on if we can get
> Opportunity to a defined, sustainable state on the ground and we can
continue
> to make progress (with) Spirit. We will likely do that and try and
continue to
> make progress on Spirit to get it back to some level of functionality.
That's a
> decision the project will make in consultation with management as we take
the
> temperature of this thing over the next couple of days."
>
> So far, the only change for planned for Opportunity's descent is a
decision to
> deploy its braking parachute at a slightly higher altitude than Spirit's
to provide
> more of a safety margin.
>
> In other developments, engineers today presented a dramatic animation of
> Spirit's landing based on actual telemetry from the spacecraft, showing
how a
> sudden gust of wind forced small side-pointing rockets to fire at the last
second
> to prevent the lander from slamming down at more than 50 mph.
>
> The telemetry, collected earlier and subjected to complex analysis, also
shows
> how the rover bounced across the floor of Gusev Crater before finally
rolling to a
> stop.
>
> Michael Malin, principal investigator of a high-resolution camera aboard
> NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, unveiled a dramatic photograph
> showing Spirit, it's parachute and its heat shield resting on the surface
of Mars.
> The remarkable photograph even shows several of Spirit's bounce marks in
the
> martian soil.
>
>
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Received on Fri 23 Jan 2004 05:13:06 PM PST