Spirit Rover falls silent.

Redshift

This is very disapointing news indeed after working flawlessly untill now it now appears that the rover has had a serious malfunction.More

halenger

Damn... That's a right shame.

Hope it's not a bug of some sort that's in it's twin also?

That'd be even worse.


It was doing such a good job too-nice pictures.

Maybe if it is a bug that's in both they can fix the other so they don't lose both.

Then again maybe they'll both work fine and Spirit's just in a bit of a huff!

Big al

Ambushed by beagle 2 no doubt

mike65

I heard they're blaming leaves on the line....or the weather anyway!

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/040122anomaly.html

Mike.

GuanYin

Dave, Dave, why aren't you answering me Dave.



To be fair I'm pleasently surprised it worked at all, but when it did its a pity that nothing moe conclusive came out of it.


lots of interesting X-files theories to be found on the net, I was reading them drunk last night.

Capt'n Midnight

Yip it's the martians again - over half of all mars probes in the last four decades have failed...

Cabaal

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
Yip it's the martians again - over half of all mars probes in the last four decades have failed...

Its dodgy alright, I know there's a chance they's will brake dowqn but it seems dodgy and almost would make your paranoid abit.

Jesus if they sent a manned mission to mars they'd properly die on the way there if this thrend continues...

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/23/1

Dated 2002 -

Since 1960 the United States and the former Soviet Union have launched 34 missions to Mars: 15 by the US and 19 by Russia and the former USSR. NASA’s success rate is not too bad: nine of those 15 missions, including the Mars Global Surveyor and 2001 Mars Odyssey missions still in progress, can be considered successes. Russia’s luck has not been nearly as good: 14 of its 19 missions failed, and only one—Zond 3—can be considered a complete success; the remaining four are, at best, partial successes. Overall 20 of the 34 American and Russian Mars missions, or 59 percent, failed.
Four of the seven NASA Mars missions since Viking—Mars Observer, MCO, MPL, and Deep Space 2—have failed.

The problem with Mars exploration now appears to be with spacecraft themselves. Four of the seven NASA Mars missions flown since the twin Viking missions—Mars Observer, MCO, MPL, and Deep Space 2—have failed, all due to spacecraft problems of one manner or another. (MCO is a borderline case, since there was no technical problem with the spacecraft itself, but rather with how ground controllers operated it.) The only other NASA Mars missions to fail, Mariner 3 in 1964 and Mariner 8 in 1971, were each lost due to launch vehicle malfunctions. While getting spacecraft to Mars has become easier over time, making sure the spacecraft operate successfully has, perversely, gotten harder

....

Tony Spear, the project manager for Mars Pathfinder, believes that complex software is a major problem. “It is just as hard to do Mars missions now as it was in the mid-70s,” he said. “I’m a big believer that software hasn’t gone anywhere. There isn’t a project that gets their software done. Software is the number one problem.”

....

Euler instead blamed the problems with Mars 98 with NASA’s decision to use less-powerful launch vehicles, forcing engineers to look for ways to cut mass. “This took up an enormous amount of resources during development that we could have used elsewhere solving some of these integration problems that eventually got us.”

Redshift

It seems Nasa engineers have been able to upload some commands to the rover which resulted in it sending back limited engineering data. At least there is some hope that they may be able to correct this error. From reading the article it seems that it was operating perfectly untill a calibration proceedure on it's motors which ended prematurely, the rover has re-booted it'self over 60 times since the error occoured which doesn't look too good. though nasa are optimistic that they can restore some level of functionality to the mission. I hope so

More

Redshift

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit took and returned this image on January 28, 2004, the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image from the rover's front hazard identification camera shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack. As it had been instructed a week earlier, the Moessbauer spectrometer, an instrument for identifying the minerals in rocks and soils, is still placed against the rock. Engineers are working to restore Spirit to working order so that the rover can resume the scientific exploration of its landing area.

Source

Here's hoping this mission can indeed be salvaged

Ryan

Sparks

Well, they traced the problem to the flash memory section of the rover and they're very confidant that they'll be up and trundling again Real Soon Now

And on the more active site, Opportunity's found layered bedrock

Beeker

Looks like its good night to Spirit:(What a great little Rover she was. Long live her sister Opportunity still going strong!:)
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1105/24spirit/index.html

dublin_daveyboy

They well got their money's worth out of it,90 days was the original mission time but its mad to think how long it will lye on mars for,maybe humans will recover it someday if we get there.

Beeker

dublin_daveyboy wrote: »

They well got their money's worth out of it,90 days was the original mission time but its mad to think how long it will lye on mars for,maybe humans will recover it someday if we get there.

Our decendents will go to see her in a museum on Mars and future Martian school children will become bored looking at her during history trips to the museum:)

Conor108

dublin_daveyboy

Beeker wrote: »

Our decendents will go to see her in a museum on Mars and future Martian school children will become bored looking at her during history trips to the museum:)

how i envy those future martian children,ill be dust by then.:(

are we talking thousands of years it will last for?,im not sure how long it takes for metal to break down into dust but i would imagine a very long time.hope opportunity hangs on in there.

Beeker

dublin_daveyboy wrote: »

how i envy those future martian children,ill be dust by then.:(

are we talking thousands of years it will last for?,im not sure how long it takes for metal to break down into dust but i would imagine a very long time.hope opportunity hangs on in there.

No idea how long it take for metal to break down. I would expect Spirit to be covered by sand and protected by it until future explorers find it and dig it out.

Ardent

Wow, it's like hearing about the death of a really well known person, I'm kinda gutted!

I believe the plan was to eventually set up the rover as a stationary observation point on the surface of Mars, eternally looking out to space - no hope of that now because some jackass drove it into soft sand!

Turtwig

Gonna miss that little guy, he just kept going and going even though he wasn't meant to. What a little machine.

I posted this almost two years ago and hopefully they'll make an updated one sometime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGTuvaWUmtw

lord lucan

Funny how you think of it as nearly a little person with real feelings. I felt sad when i heard it got bogged down on the Martian surface,like a friend had run into trouble.

The 2 Rovers have been brilliant servants,i salute their achievements.:)