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"Good news" -- Spirit responds in 'cripple mode'



 
 
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  #1  
Old January 24th 04, 11:44 PM
JimO
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Default "Good news" -- Spirit responds in 'cripple mode'


JPL folks were much cheerier today, they have been successfully commanding
Spirit in a mode that avoids use of some of its memory modules -- 'Flash
memort' -- which is suspect. They call it 'cripple mode', in jest --
actually, they could run the rest of the mission at full capability this
way, if necessary, but they want to determine what event precipitated the
failure first.





  #2  
Old January 25th 04, 12:05 AM
Jorge R. Frank
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Default "Good news" -- Spirit responds in 'cripple mode'

"JimO" wrote in
:

JPL folks were much cheerier today, they have been successfully
commanding Spirit in a mode that avoids use of some of its memory
modules -- 'Flash memory' -- which is suspect.


Hmm, so Gareth Slee's crack about "the Spirit is willing but the flash is
weak" wasn't just a joke, after all...?

Sorry, you can all shoot me now. :-)

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  #3  
Old January 25th 04, 12:39 AM
Brett O'Callaghan
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Default "Good news" -- Spirit responds in 'cripple mode'

"JimO" wrote:

JPL folks were much cheerier today, they have been successfully commanding
Spirit in a mode that avoids use of some of its memory modules -- 'Flash
memort' -- which is suspect.


Has Flash RAM been used in past space probes in any significant way?


Byeeeee.
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  #4  
Old January 25th 04, 01:43 AM
lightshow
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Default "Good news" -- Spirit responds in 'cripple mode'

JimO wrote:
JPL folks were much cheerier today, they have been successfully commanding
Spirit in a mode that avoids use of some of its memory modules -- 'Flash
memort' -- which is suspect. They call it 'cripple mode', in jest --
actually, they could run the rest of the mission at full capability this
way, if necessary, but they want to determine what event precipitated the
failure first.






Sweet..

  #5  
Old January 25th 04, 04:55 AM
Henry Spencer
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Default "Good news" -- Spirit responds in 'cripple mode'

In article ,
Brett O'Callaghan wrote:
JPL folks were much cheerier today, they have been successfully commanding
Spirit in a mode that avoids use of some of its memory modules -- 'Flash
memort' -- which is suspect.


Has Flash RAM been used in past space probes in any significant way?


Quite successfully on Deep Space 1, as I recall.
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since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |
  #6  
Old January 25th 04, 08:29 AM
Painius
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Default "Good news" -- Spirit responds in 'cripple mode'

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message ...

"JimO" wrote in
:

JPL folks were much cheerier today, they have been successfully
commanding Spirit in a mode that avoids use of some of its memory
modules -- 'Flash memory' -- which is suspect.


Hmm, so Gareth Slee's crack about "the Spirit is willing but the flash is
weak" wasn't just a joke, after all...?

Sorry, you can all shoot me now. :-)


*BANG*

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.


(Excellent!) g

happy days and...
starry starry nights!

--
Asimov! where have you gone?
Your written word goes on and on,
All becomes so clear to see
In Asimov's Astronomy!

Paine Ellsworth



  #7  
Old January 25th 04, 09:42 AM
Cardman
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Default "Good news" -- Spirit responds in 'cripple mode'

On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 22:44:53 GMT, "JimO"
wrote:

JPL folks were much cheerier today, they have been successfully commanding
Spirit in a mode that avoids use of some of its memory modules -- 'Flash
memort' -- which is suspect. They call it 'cripple mode', in jest --
actually, they could run the rest of the mission at full capability this
way, if necessary, but they want to determine what event precipitated the
failure first.


Hopefully, some of this flash memory is still working, when Read Only
Memory (ROM) is not very good for storing picture in.

Anyway, it sounds to me like Spirit should be back trundling again
very soon, when simply not using the faulty memory should be an easy
thing to fix.

Removing the exact section of faulty memory from use, unless all of it
has gone, should be a touch more tricky, but nothing that any
competent coder could handle.

All this is way too suspect happening right before Opportunity arrived
and virtually fixed at the same time that it arrived. As if it was
planned or not, then this event would have generated a lot of extra
interest in this second landing.

Publicity for NASA right now would be quite important, which makes me
wonder if there was nothing really wrong with Spirit in the first
place.

Cardman
http://www.cardman.com
http://www.cardman.co.uk
  #8  
Old January 25th 04, 03:58 PM
Len Lekx
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Default "Good news" -- Spirit responds in 'cripple mode'

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 08:42:38 +0000, Cardman
wrote:

Removing the exact section of faulty memory from use, unless all of it
has gone, should be a touch more tricky, but nothing that any
competent coder could handle.


Wouldn't that depend on just *how* the memory is damaged...? If
it's a block of addresses - then it can be programmed to avoid that
block. But if it's getting bits flipped at random over the *entire*
address range... that would be tough to code around.

  #9  
Old January 25th 04, 04:03 PM
John Savard
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Default "Good news" -- Spirit responds in 'cripple mode'

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 08:42:38 +0000, Cardman
wrote, in part:
On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 22:44:53 GMT, "JimO"
wrote:


JPL folks were much cheerier today, they have been successfully commanding
Spirit in a mode that avoids use of some of its memory modules -- 'Flash
memort' -- which is suspect. They call it 'cripple mode', in jest --
actually, they could run the rest of the mission at full capability this
way, if necessary, but they want to determine what event precipitated the
failure first.


Hopefully, some of this flash memory is still working, when Read Only
Memory (ROM) is not very good for storing picture in.


But Random Access Memory (RAM) will work for that.

I am more worried that now that it has been disclosed that some people
at NASA, without being halted *immediately* by their management with
stern warnings, have offended against the great God of political
correctness, that we may see JPL, NASA, and the entire U. S. space
program, as a racist, sexist, and phallocentric enterprise that has
now shown its true colors, shut down permanently.

This at least appears to be the way our society works these days.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html
  #10  
Old January 26th 04, 02:02 AM
Cardman
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Default "Good news" -- Spirit responds in 'cripple mode'

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 14:58:43 GMT, Len Lekx
wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 08:42:38 +0000, Cardman
wrote:

Removing the exact section of faulty memory from use, unless all of it
has gone, should be a touch more tricky, but nothing that any
competent coder could handle.


Wouldn't that depend on just *how* the memory is damaged...? If
it's a block of addresses - then it can be programmed to avoid that
block.


Yes, my point.

But if it's getting bits flipped at random over the *entire*
address range... that would be tough to code around.


If it was the entire address range, then so would it deemed faulty and
unusable.

Having all the memory go is unlikely, which is why only a certain
section, maybe even down to the single bit, is the real problem.

More likely is that they just filled up the whole area with data,
where due to a "bug" the data wrapped around and over wrote the start
of this flash memory.

As that is where the system variables are usually kept, then so would
this effect cause a serious malfunction. So maybe they just over
packed it with data?

Cardman
http://www.cardman.com
http://www.cardman.co.uk
 




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