[meteorite-list] Rover Team Readies For Second Landing While Trying to Mend Spirit

From: Greg redfern <gredfern_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:32:08 2004
Message-ID: <000201c3e22e$40519fd0$110110ac_at_DHRYBX21>

All,

  If I may...Spirit is still positioned in front of Adirondack. It was =
not
hit by a meteorite, suffer a coronal mass ejection radiation event or =
any
other type of external incident.=20

  Personal telecon w/JPL/MER managers has revealed that they DO NOT know
what has happened and are trying through fault tree analysis coupled =
with
engineering/health telemetry from Spirit to recreate the precipitating =
event
using the almost one for one rover they have for a test bed.

  Power and thermal protection systems are currently nominal. JPL is =
trying
to command Spirit to power down its computer and go into sleep mode =
which it
has not done for the past several nights. This is causing Spirit to use =
more
power than expected and is causing a drain on the batteries.

  The spacecraft is alive, being commanded from Earth and has sent back =
over
75MB of data today when Odyssey flew over. The team is trying to put the
pieces together in such a way as to cause no harm to Spirit. They have
plenty of time to analyze and fix this anomaly...

   Remember, every major spacecraft mission has had its glitches and our
team is pretty darn good at solving them. Time and telemetry will tell.

All the best

Greg Redfern
JPL NASA Solar System Ambassador
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ambassador/index.html
International Meteorite Collectors Association #5781
http://www.meteoritecollectors.org/
Member Meteoritical Society
http://www.meteoriticalsociety.org/


-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-admin_at_meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-admin_at_meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of
j.divelbiss_at_att.net
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 9:26 PM
To: Ron Baalke
Cc: Meteorite Mailing List
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Rover Team Readies For Second Landing =
While
Trying to Mend Spirit

Ron,

Do you know if the rover was still parked in front of the Adirondack =
named=20
rock?

I was just curious where it was and what was it doing. Someone mentioned =
a=20
rumor was that it drove into a "soft" spot. I thought it was parked by =
the=20
rock.

John

>=20
>=20
> MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
> JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
> CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
> NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
> PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
> http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
>=20
> Guy Webster (818) 354-5011
> Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
>=20
> Donald Savage (202) 358-1547
> NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. =20
>=20
> NEWS RELEASE: 2004-031 January 23, 2004
>=20
> Rover Team Readies For Second Landing While Trying to Mend Spirit=20
>=20
> Some members of the flight team for NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers are
> preparing for this weekend's landing of the second rover, Opportunity,
> while others are focused on trying to restore the first rover, Spirit,
> to working order.
>=20
> "We should expect we will not be restoring functionality to Spirit for
> a significant amount of time -- many days, perhaps two weeks -- even
> in the best of circumstances," said Peter Theisinger, rover project
> manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
>=20
> Spirit transmitted data to Earth today for the first time since early
> Wednesday. The information about the rover's status arrived during
> three sessions lasting 10 minutes, 20 minutes and 15 minutes.
> Engineers will be examining it overnight and developing a plan for
> obtaining more on Saturday morning.
>=20
> Spirit's flight software is not functioning normally. It appears to
> have rebooted the rover's computer more than 60 times in the past
> three days. A motor that moves a mirror for the rover's infrared
> spectrometer was partway through an operation when the problem arose,
> so the possibility of a mechanical problem with that hardware will be
> one theory investigated.
>=20
> "We believe, based on everything we know now, we can sustain the
> current state of the spacecraft from a health standpoint for an
> indefinite amount of time," Theisinger said. That will give the team
> time to work on the problem.
>=20
> Meanwhile, Spirit's twin, Opportunity, will reach Mars at 05:05
> Universal Time on Jan. 25 (12:05 a.m. Sunday EST or 9:05 p.m. Saturday
> PST) at a landing site on the opposite side of the planet from Spirit.
> Opportunity's landing site is on plains called Meridiani Planum
> within an Oklahoma-sized outcropping of gray hematite, a mineral that
> usually forms in the presence of water. Scientists plan to use the
> research instruments on Opportunity to determine whether the gray
> hematite layer comes from sediments of a long-gone ocean, from
> volcanic deposits altered by hot water, or from other ancient
> environmental conditions.
>=20
> Analysis of Spirit's descent through Mars' atmosphere for its landing
> at Gusev has contributed to a decision by flight controllers to
> program Opportunity to open its parachute higher than had been planned
> earlier, said JPL's Dr. Wayne Lee, chief engineer for development of
> the rover's descent and landing systems.
>=20
> The Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter has
> taken an image of Spirit's landing region that shows the spacecraft's
> lander platform on the ground. The jettisoned parachute, backshell
> and heat shield are also visible, noted Dr. Michael Malin of Malin
> Space Science Systems, San Diego, lead investigator for the orbiter's
> camera and a member of the rover science team.
>=20
> JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena,
> manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Office of Space
> Science, Washington, D.C. Images and additional information about
> the project are available from JPL at=20
>=20
> http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov
>=20
> and from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., at=20
>=20
> http://athena.cornell.edu/ .
>=20
> -end-
>=20
>=20
> ______________________________________________
> Meteorite-list mailing list
> Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
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Received on Fri 23 Jan 2004 10:57:55 PM PST