[meteorite-list] NASA Puts Mars Rover Curiosity on Standby After Solar Flare

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2013 11:52:50 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201303071952.r27Jqo9E018794_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.space.com/20103-mars-rover-curiosity-solar-flare.html

NASA Puts Mars Rover Curiosity on Standby After Solar Flare
by Mike Wall
space.com
March 6, 2013

NASA's Curiosity rover has powered down to wait out a Mars-bound solar
blast, complicating efforts to bring the 1-ton robot back from a
computer glitch.

Curiosity's handlers put the rover on standby after the sun unleashed a
medium-strength flare the Red Planet's direction Tuesday (March 5). It's
the second recent shutdown for Curiosity, which had just come out of
protective "safe mode" Saturday (March 2) as engineers work through an
issue with its primary computer system.

"Storm's a-comin'! There's a solar storm heading for Mars. I'm going
back to sleep to weather it out," NASA officials wrote on
behalf of the rover via Curiosity's Twitter feed today (March 6).

The rover team views the shutdown as merely a precaution, as Curiosity
was designed to withstand such solar outbursts, the Associated Press
reported. But the move could delay the rover's return to science
operations, which had been anticipated as early as this weekend.

Curiosity landed inside Mars' huge Gale Crater last August to determine
if the area has ever been capable of supporting microbial life. The
robot had been operating pretty much flawlessly on the Red Planet until
last Wednesday (Feb. 27), when it failed to send recorded data home to
Earth and didn't shift into its daily sleep mode as planned.

The mission team determined that a glitch had affected the flash memory
on Curiosity's main, or A-side, computer system. So engineers swapped
the rover over to its backup (B-side) computer, which spurred Curiosity
to go into safe mode on Thursday (Feb. 28).

Since then, the robot's handlers have been working to configure the
B-side computer for surface operations and fix the problem with the
A-side, which they think may have been caused by a fast-moving charged
particle known as a cosmic ray.

Curiosity has been on the road to recovery. The rover came out of safe
mode on Saturday and began using its high-gain antenna again a day later.
Mission officials have expressed confidence that engineers will fix or
troubleshoot the glitch soon, saying Curiosity may resume science
operations as early as this weekend if all continues to go well.

The solar flare may now push that timeline back a bit, however.

NASA officials do not expect Tuesday's solar flare to seriously affect
any of the agency's other robotic Mars explorers, such as the Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter or Opportunity rover, the Associated Press reported.

Tuesday's flare was accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME), which
blasted a huge cloud of solar plasma toward the Red Planet. CMEs that
slam into Earth inject large amounts of energy into our planet's
magnetic field, spawning potentially devastating geomagnetic storms that
can disrupt GPS signals, radio communications and power grids for days.

But CMEs don't have a similar impact on Mars, which lacks a global
magnetic field, scientists say.

 
Received on Thu 07 Mar 2013 02:52:50 PM PST