[plasmamaniac]

It looks like the Spirit Rover is back in business with 20 minutes of data and pictures transmitted back. Here's the link. I hope everything turns out okay because the pictures are great to look at.

 

[DarrinH]

AOL news, requires a account.

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From JPL website....

Updated Mars Exploration Rover Mission Status

January 23, 2004


The flight team for NASA's Spirit received data from the rover in a communication session that began at 13:26 Universal Time (5:26 a.m. PST) and lasted 20 minutes at a data rate of 120 bits per second.


"The spacecraft sent limited data in a proper response to a ground command, and we're planning for commanding further communication sessions later today," said Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager Pete Theisinger at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.


The flight team at JPL had sent a command to Spirit at 13:02 Universal Time (5:02 PST) via the NASA Deep Space Network antenna complex near Madrid, Spain, telling Spirit to begin transmitting.


Meanwhile, the other Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity is on course to land halfway around Mars from Spirit, in a region called Meridiani Planum, on Jan. 25 (Universal Time and EST; Jan. 24 at 9:05 p.m. PST).

 

[John Mason]

Just finished watching separate JPL news conferences for both missions (~12-1 eastern), and, unless they've updated things in the past few hours, Spirit is still in "critical" condition. They were getting back very-low-level error data (120 bps versus 120 kbps normally), trying to figure out what's happening. It would be great news if I'm mistaken and events have changed that rapidly. -- John

 

[Larry Hutchinson]

The title of this thread should be changed. Spirit is most definitely not back in buisness.


It will likely be weeks before they evern figure out what went wrong. They said there was a very low probability that it will get back to 100% but also a very low probability that it will totally fail.

 

[Marissadad]

HD pictures @120 bps, that would take years.

 

[Larry Hutchinson]

Update: it is looking much better today. The problem appears to be in the flash memory and that can be worked around. But it will probably be 3 weeks before the rover moves again.

See DirecTV chan 376 for the new conferences.


Landing of the next rover is at 905 PM PST today.

 

[plasmamaniac]

When I started the thread I didn't mean that everything was 100% but that they had communication and some pictures and there was hope that they would get some data back and the mission was not a total loss because of no communication or hope of it. It's back in business and they believe there can be a workaround to be able to salvage some of the mission goals.