"JimO" writes:

Toward the end of Thursday's news briefing, Theisinger passed along word
that managers had received a preliminary signal indicating Spirit was still
functioning on the Martian surface. If confirmed, that would mean the rover
had detected what it thought was a software fault.

Yet they mentioned earlier that they didn't get a communication from
it at a certain time (late last night?) that they should have gotten
if it (or the software?) was running in fault mode. And the random
data communication they got off an orbiter was only about 20% as long
as normal. Given that, it was no suprise to hear them imply that the
problems don't match any problems they have considered during the
development.

They seem to be in wait-and-see mode, but I wish some reporter had
thought to ask if it's possible to send reset commands of some sort
and about their ability to replace potentially-corrupted software via
the low-gain antenna. (As long as I'm wishing, I wish JPL would share
more details to begin with, even if it means less time for reporters
to ask how long a Martian day is or how someone feels.)