Mars Rover is alive again ... amazing!

For 2 days, it was a complete silent.
Then ESA showed spectacular images taken from their Mars Express
orbitting satellite.
And now... suddenly Mars Rover is alive again.
What's going on here ?

aniram wrote:
For 2 days, it was a complete silent.
Then ESA showed spectacular images taken from their Mars Express
orbitting satellite.
And now... suddenly Mars Rover is alive again.
What's going on here ?


The vagaries of chance?

Brett 'Either that, or a mysterious conspiracy' Buck

On 23 Jan 2004 17:00:55 -0800, (aniram) wrote:

For 2 days, it was a complete silent.

Almost, but there was garbled data and the beep.

Then ESA showed spectacular images taken from their Mars Express
orbitting satellite.

Yes, but I hope that they improve these images, when they look very
computer generated, which is of course what they are.

And now... suddenly Mars Rover is alive again.

It has always been alive all the time. As it is just that it's alive
state changed from very healthy to critical.

What's going on here ?

According to what I have heard one or two things broke, but we will
have to see about that, when it could also be a software bug.

This began when the higher brain functions of Spirit, which they seem
to call the "flight control software" detected some fault and reset
the system.

Since then it powers up, works for up to 60 minutes in a safety mode,
then it detects this fault and resets again. So it does this in a
continuous cycle, which leads to short communication sessions.

As they did not get the data they were expecting, following a couple
of tries, then they did the basic test of sending it a message saying
like "if you can hear this then please respond".

Sure enough Spirit went "beep", which proved that it lived on. Further
more this highlighted that this rover's processor was working, the
communication system and in some form at least the power system.

Since then they have been talking to Spirit's low level brain
functions that generates this "beep", where they are currently getting
back some data as to the health of the system.

The cause of this failure is currently unclear, when according to them
no one thing seems to be to blame. However, they now also know that
the power system is hunky dory and the internal temperature is just
fine.

And so what they have to do now is to work around this problem that is
causing Spirit to reset, which should bring it back to some better
form of life beyond this coma.

If Spirit will ever "trundle" again remains to be seen, when they have
been very good so far at not saying as to what part of Spirit has
blown up.

So it could be some time before you see any further photos from
Spirit, but as I know computer systems, then once this problem is
identified their software people should be able to come up with a work
around. Even cutting out a few procedures could do it in order to
prevent whatever is faulty from functioning.

To me this seems all too convenient seeing that Opportunity is only
now 23 hours away from landing. As this reported fault on Spirit will
only go and generate extra interest in Opportunity.

The Apollo 13 scenario you could say.

And so if Spirit pops back up to full health shortly following the
landing of Opportunity, then I would be highly suspicious. As even
their very software people can code such a timed situation into their
rover that would fool most of their own people.

Maybe that would be going a bit far by losing many days of science
data, but NASA has always found public support important. Also since
the people on this rover project did not think that this is how a
project should be run, then maybe claims of "software bugs" could
change how such projects are run.

Who knows, but we can only hope that Spirit makes a good if not full
recovery. From this you also have to wonder if Opportunity is going to
"blow a fuse / pop a hatch" as well, which is why this rover leaving
it's "home" could well take even longer.

So what you should expect over the next week is that they will get
back more data and eventually nail down the problem. Not of course to
forget to mention what this problem is to everyone else.

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

aniram wrote:

For 2 days, it was a complete silent.
Then ESA showed spectacular images taken from their Mars Express
orbitting satellite.
And now... suddenly Mars Rover is alive again.
What's going on here ?

Let me guess, you are trolling?

"Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )" wrote in message
...

Let me guess, you are trolling?


It wouldn't work. People are way too down-to-Earth in here...



--
__ "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 \-_/'

On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 23:46:17 -0800, "Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion
in lieu of the frontal attack )" wrote:

aniram wrote:

For 2 days, it was a complete silent.
Then ESA showed spectacular images taken from their Mars Express
orbitting satellite.
And now... suddenly Mars Rover is alive again.
What's going on here ?

Let me guess, you are trolling?

Just someone not keeping up-to-date on the news stories on this matter
before posting here. I am not sure why it would have anything to do
with Mars Express though.

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

Does NASA release its flight software for public review?
Maybe it's time to open up NASA and the projects to engineers
who have experience that dwarfs the knowledge of the 20+ YO MIT
grads. As we further abstract the machine, problems occure.
Even with C, libs are poorly written and have undefined fault
paths. The higher the complexity, IE: C++ the greater the chance
that faults may occure. Who do you trust?
JimD.

On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 06:19:14 +0000, Cardman wrote:


Since then it powers up, works for up to 60 minutes in a safety mode, then
it detects this fault and resets again. So it does this in a continuous
cycle, which leads to short communication sessions.

As they did not get the data they were expecting, following a couple of
tries, then they did the basic test of sending it a message saying like
"if you can hear this then please respond".

Sure enough Spirit went "beep", which proved that it lived on. Further
more this highlighted that this rover's processor was working, the
communication system and in some form at least the power system.

Since then they have been talking to Spirit's low level brain functions
that generates this "beep", where they are currently getting back some
data as to the health of the system.

The cause of this failure is currently unclear, when according to them no
one thing seems to be to blame. However, they now also know that the power

It's very simple really. The Warner Brothers Martian is keeping watch on
it but, he keeps nodding off every hour (Well, he's been on duty for quite
awhile!). His drooping head bumps on the reset switch, resetting the
computer and waking him up again as well (from the bump), don't worry, his
replacement is due very soon.

Cardman wrote in message . ..
On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 23:46:17 -0800, "Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion
in lieu of the frontal attack )" wrote:

aniram wrote:

For 2 days, it was a complete silent.
Then ESA showed spectacular images taken from their Mars Express
orbitting satellite.
And now... suddenly Mars Rover is alive again.
What's going on here ?

Let me guess, you are trolling?

Just someone not keeping up-to-date on the news stories on this matter
before posting here. I am not sure why it would have anything to do
with Mars Express though.

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

My point is that some people are trying very hard to manipulate
events.
What was the sudden interest of the US to suddenly announced mission
to the moon (after absence of Apollo)..... When the chinese said so
sometimes late last year after their suceess with sending man to
space. ...
Or it may be something else.... a political diversion .... a sagging
approval polls ... or who knows.

We know the rivalry of Boeing and Airbus. NASA will lost the
competition in the mind of media watcher if they lost their rover, as
as Mars Express showing those images. Again.... ESA's motif to produce
those images may be because of the Beagle flop. ... who knows.

Human mind is very creative, adaptive and clever... However, if their
moral is not controlled (yes... it is WRONG to lie and lie and lie),
there is only one way for humanity... going down the hill.
One lie is humane... many lies are a sickness.... and people will not
believe what are the truths and what are the lies anymore.

jimmydevice wrote in
:

Does NASA release its flight software for public review?


It's a hardware problem. I told you that I didn't like bounce and roll.
It's might even be just a badly soldered wire.