[meteorite-list] Opportunity in Standby as Commanding Moratorium Ends

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:05:41 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201304292305.r3TN5fKo018719_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-151

Opportunity in Standby as Commanding Moratorium Ends
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
April 29, 2013

Mars Exploration Rover Mission Status Report

PASADENA, Calif. - During a moratorium on commanding this month while
Mars passed nearly behind the sun - a phase called solar conjunction --
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity entered a type of standby mode.

Mission controllers learned of the changed status on April 27 when they
first heard from Opportunity after the period of minimized communication
during the solar conjunction. They prepared fresh commands today (April
29) for sending to the rover to resume operations.

Initial indications suggest the rover sensed something amiss while doing
a routine camera check of the clarity of the atmosphere on April 22.

"Our current suspicion is that Opportunity rebooted its flight software,
possibly while the cameras on the mast were imaging the sun," said Mars
Exploration Rover Project Manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We found the rover in a standby state
called automode, in which it maintains power balance and communication
schedules, but waits for instructions from the ground. We crafted our
solar conjunction plan to be resilient to this kind of rover reset, if
it were to occur."

Opportunity has been working on Mars for more than nine years. NASA's
other Mars rover, Curiosity, which landed last year, is also nearing the
end of its solar conjunction moratorium on commanding. Curiosity has
reported coming through the conjunction in full health. Controllers plan
to send Curiosity's first set of post-conjunction commands on May 1.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena,
manages both rover projects for NASA's Science Mission Directorate,
Washington. For more information about Opportunity, visit
http://www.nasa.gov/rovers and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov . You can
follow the project on Twitter and on Facebook at:
http://twitter.com/MarsRovers and http://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers .

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

2013-151
Received on Mon 29 Apr 2013 07:05:41 PM PDT