Spirit has a mind of its own?

What do you make of this

(http://marsrover.jpl.nasa.gov 8:35 p.m. CDT 1/23/3004)

"NASA's Spirit rover did not go to sleep today even after ground controllers
sent commands twice for it to do so.

Shortly before noon, controllers were surprised to receive a relay of data
from Spirit via the Mars Odyssey orbiter. Spirit sent 73 megabits at a rate
of 128 kilobits per second. The transmission included power subsystem
engineering data, no science data, and several frames of "fill data." Fill
data are sets of intentionally random numbers that do not provide
information."

---

It's good news that the high rate transmission is working, and I hope the
engineering data is helpful. But, it sounds worrisome that the rover would
not go to sleep. Will that wear the battery down to nothing and silence it
permanently? Or, does the rover recharge every day? I think it's the
latter, though over time the battery will degrade. ?

Jon

Jon Berndt wrote in message
...
What do you make of this

(http://marsrover.jpl.nasa.gov 8:35 p.m. CDT 1/23/3004)

It's good news that the high rate transmission is working, and I hope the
engineering data is helpful. But, it sounds worrisome that the rover
would
not go to sleep. Will that wear the battery down to nothing and silence
it
permanently? Or, does the rover recharge every day? I think it's the
latter, though over time the battery will degrade. ?

Jon


I think the rover is battery is charged with solar panels.

From what I have heard, the problems started when they used an electric
motor to do something. A malfunctioning electric motor could cause a
voltage spike which could fry some of the chips associated with the
computer. So maybe the reason it is not shutting down is because the
computer is damaged to the point where it cannot process the shutdown
command.

JD

I think the problem looks like software that encountered something that
generated an error that was not tested for.

At least, I'd rather believe that than the frying of some chips. I'd hope
that designers were better at their job than to allow a motor in any
failure mode to affect the rest of the vehicle. If that is the case, then
once again we see how thick we really are!

Brian

--
Brian Gaff....
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
Email:
__________________________________________________ __________________________
__________________________________


"Jon Berndt" wrote in message
...
| What do you make of this
|
| (http://marsrover.jpl.nasa.gov 8:35 p.m. CDT 1/23/3004)
|
| "NASA's Spirit rover did not go to sleep today even after ground
controllers
| sent commands twice for it to do so.
|
| Shortly before noon, controllers were surprised to receive a relay of data
| from Spirit via the Mars Odyssey orbiter. Spirit sent 73 megabits at a
rate
| of 128 kilobits per second. The transmission included power subsystem
| engineering data, no science data, and several frames of "fill data." Fill
| data are sets of intentionally random numbers that do not provide
| information."
|
| ---
|
| It's good news that the high rate transmission is working, and I hope the
| engineering data is helpful. But, it sounds worrisome that the rover
would
| not go to sleep. Will that wear the battery down to nothing and silence
it
| permanently? Or, does the rover recharge every day? I think it's the
| latter, though over time the battery will degrade. ?
|
| Jon
|
|
|
|
|


---
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"NASA's Spirit rover did not go to sleep today even after ground controllers
sent commands twice for it to do s

thats bad, it might deplete the batteries. wonder if opportunity will have the
same fate? lets hope not.

"Jon Berndt" wrote in
:
What do you make of this

(http://marsrover.jpl.nasa.gov 8:35 p.m. CDT 1/23/3004)

"NASA's Spirit rover did not go to sleep today even after ground
controllers sent commands twice for it to do so.

I find it interesting they make a press release saying they're sending
commands to Spirit to tell it to go to sleep, but they don't say why
they'd like that to happen.

I presume it's to conserve power, or to avoid overheating the craft, but
then again I'm presuming.

They could have just said so, but they didn't.

And they wonder how conspiracy theories start.

In my experience as a computer engineer in general I don't want the
computer to shut down while I'm debugging it - the longer it stays up,
the more I learn about what it's doing. So I have to presume they must
be concerned about power use or heat.

I did read that the computer seems to be in a reset loop i.e. it runs for
a while then resets itself. So I imagine it's pretty unpredictable
exactly how long it will stay up.

Perhaps trying to force the shutdown will serve to keep the rover in a
known state for a while so they can focus on solving the problem.

My best wishes to the folks at NASA/JPL/Cornell, etc. It's a difficult
thing you are up against. I wish I could help.

-DD-

It's those damn Ja-Wahs....

"RDG" wrote in message ...

It's those damn Ja-Wahs....


Rrright! Like, who are they gonna sell a robot with a bad motivator?




--
__ "A good leader knows when it's best to ignore the __
('__` screams for help and focus on the bigger picture." '__`)
//6(6; ©OOL mmiv :^)^\\
`\_-/ http://home.t-online.de/home/ulrich....lmann/redbaron \-_/'

Well then, how about that blue one? Uncle Owen? ?????

"Dave Donnelly" wrote in message
...
| "Jon Berndt" wrote in
| :
| What do you make of this
|
| (http://marsrover.jpl.nasa.gov 8:35 p.m. CDT 1/23/3004)
|
| "NASA's Spirit rover did not go to sleep today even after ground
| controllers sent commands twice for it to do so.
|
| I find it interesting they make a press release saying they're sending
| commands to Spirit to tell it to go to sleep, but they don't say why
| they'd like that to happen.
|
| I presume it's to conserve power, or to avoid overheating the craft, but
| then again I'm presuming.
|
| They could have just said so, but they didn't.
|
| And they wonder how conspiracy theories start.
|
| In my experience as a computer engineer in general I don't want the
| computer to shut down while I'm debugging it - the longer it stays up,
| the more I learn about what it's doing. So I have to presume they must
| be concerned about power use or heat.
|
| I did read that the computer seems to be in a reset loop i.e. it runs for
| a while then resets itself. So I imagine it's pretty unpredictable
| exactly how long it will stay up.
|
| Perhaps trying to force the shutdown will serve to keep the rover in a
| known state for a while so they can focus on solving the problem.
|
| My best wishes to the folks at NASA/JPL/Cornell, etc. It's a difficult
| thing you are up against. I wish I could help.
|
| -DD-
Yes, I wondered about that as well.

If it keeps resetting, I'd suspect some kind of obvious input that caused
it. Assuming they can run the system with say, just diagnostic routines and
comms running, then they ought to be about to find out what is going on, but
if they are thinking, Overheating trip here, then not being able to force it
to sleep is not a good sign.

The thing would seem to be hardware resetting randomly.

Cannot exactly send a service engineer to fix it.

Has the computer got any redundancy, or is it a case of if its shot, so is
the whole thing?

Brian

--
Brian Gaff....
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
Email:
__________________________________________________ __________________________
__________________________________





---
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Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.564 / Virus Database: 356 - Release Date: 19/01/04

I wonder if it is something simple, like a short in the camera motor
connector that causes an intermittent drop in supply voltage, which the
computer senses as a power loss, triggering a reboot. Wish the engineers
would figure out what is wrong with the thing.

I also wonder how much redundancy there is in the design. Seems like a dual
power supply, dual processor, dual memory, and dual transmitters would be
prudent if it would fit with the weight constraints.