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"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. |
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"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. :-) -- JRF Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail, check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and think one step ahead of IBM. |
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"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. -- Gadzooks - here comes the Harbourmaster! http://www.geocities.com/brettocallaghan - Newsgroup Stats for Agent |
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"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.. |
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"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. -- MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. | |
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"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 |
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"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 |
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"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. |
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"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 |
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"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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