Spirit Rover Communications Error 824
cybrthng writes "Through yesterdays press release and the current Nasa Briefing there is news that they are having communications errors with contacting spirit. Is she lost or is it something akin to the Pathfinder failures that happened? Or did little green people claim an expensive tonka truck toy?"
Opportunity (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's hope its just software (Score:5, Interesting)
It sounds like we still have power and an antenna. Hopefully its just some software error will need a reboot to correct the problem. I think they were late debugging this stuff and actually had to upload the software after the launch. Maybe they missed something.
The only issue I heard was some voltage spikes when the high-gain antenna was rotated. They were not reproduced but perhaps some underlying problem has occurred.
Up to now, NASA has made this look so easy. This is a wake-up call. Putting robots unto another planet is still an epic achievement and so much is left to go wrong even after the landing is over.
Let's hope this is just a red screen of death and a reboot will shake things loose.
Check it out... (Score:3, Interesting)
I sure hope this does better than some of the others so far.. Otherwise we might already know it's fate.
Lander Camera (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:not as bad as it sounds. (Score:5, Interesting)
If it is corruption of secondary memory, and since they can send valid commands, presumably they can attempt to upload new data/code to fix it.
If they haven't forced it through safe mode, then they're not too worried and are more interested in characterizing the problem than getting on with the scientific mission. Which is a good or a bad thing depending on which sort of information is more valuable. I'm sure the guys in the software group have their bias.
Reboot? (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess it was fun while it lasted ...
Maybe Garbled Commands? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it at all possible that getting half commands or garbled commands has confused Sprit?
Re:Worst case: Opportunity (Score:3, Interesting)
So even if Spirit gives up the ghost, her kin can carry on the flame (albeit in a less interesting location).
Not if the problem is due to a design fault. That's the drawback of sending multiple identical probes: if one is intrinsically fucked, they all are.
HEY NASA -- USE ATOMIC BATTERIES YOU DUMMIES!! (Score:1, Interesting)
DUMB WAY:
US Gov spends Billions on these sorts of programs for a rover to go up for a few weeks. If any dust gets on the solar panels, after 90 days its get dark, recharge. A few nice pics...
SMART WAY:
Put a damn atomic battery on these things! You don't need to worry about dust on the solar cells, recharge issues, power down-up worries, constant juice. And..
The rovers could run for weeks, even years, plus
the power could be used to HEAT the electronics and prevent this -100F issue that craps it all out...
these engineers need to think out of the box and stop being politically correct.
Re:Mars is a dangerous place (Score:2, Interesting)
Does no one study history, America needs a challenge in order to rise up to it.
From the webcast (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Let's hope its just software (Score:1, Interesting)
of pure hardware (vs) software. The transmitter
being nothing other than an autonomous h/w it
could still function perfectly. I think NASA
had relied too much on the software(since it
could allow to "program" anything), making the
entire system unnecessarily complex. Also
I am not sure how good environment protection
the h/w computer system modules have. I feel
the problem is just due to harsh variations
in the martian atmosphere, breaking up the
computer system h/w on the rover. A system
wide reset may not help recover from such a
situation, unless there is hardware redundancy
involved at a device level.
I feel that NASA totally forgot the critical
nature of time(where they could have started off
speedily instead of sitting duck, banking on
the unreal time they have before the solar
panels are covered with dust). It is also
possible, a forbidden command is sent out
accidentally, destroying the h/w - if this
is the situation, it will be never reach the
public, and will just get buried forever with
those who are responsible.
ones and zeroes... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm telling you I've been contacted by aliens. What if those 1's & 0's are martian encoded binary?. Any martian translators in the house?
Maybe the message is "please don't send us your junk we want Britney Spears"
Re:Mars is a dangerous place (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, there probably should be a refueling station in Earth orbit. Lunar fuel/oxydizer would make trips to the Moon much cheaper. Particularly if reusable Lunar lander-shuttles are active.
Launching directly from Earth to the Moon is quite difficult. That's why most people expected a trip to the Moon would be based from an Earth space station -- nobody expected the ridiculously powerful engines which allowed the Saturn V to exist. The huge Saturn V is what allowed us to toss all the mass necessary for a lunar expedition up to Earth orbit.
What does the Spirit OS look like? (Score:5, Interesting)
What does the system do if it determines it has had an unexpected result/crash? How is such a system designed and tested?
I've never thought about it before - but a system like this must have redundant levels of i/o security, internal error checking, exception trapping, and some sort of self-repair, all built within multiply redundant systems.
Would any details of the embedded system architecture / program structure be available to the public?
Life (Score:3, Interesting)
wbs.
Re:Radio update (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:not as bad as it sounds. (Score:2, Interesting)
NASA has experience with uploading new software (including os) to deployed spacecraft to correct defects.
INFORMATION ON THE PATHFINDER/SOJOURNER FAULT: (Score:5, Interesting)
- Part 1 [microsoft.com]
- Part 2 (more detail) [microsoft.com]
There's a lot of rumor and inconclusive news about Spirit floating around right now, so this is entirely subjective, but I'm getting the feeling this, too, is a software fault of some kind. Put most simply, you could interpret what we're reading right now as "we received the ACK tone for our instructions but didn't get the data back we expected."These kinds of problems are not unprecedented, and furthermore I'm under the impression there are options for dealing with even serious OS-level trouble that would shock and awe the average general purpose computer user.
you joke (Score:4, Interesting)
When we tried to run the satellite without the terminal, the low level hardware CTS/DTR loopback wasn't present and the satellite hung when it tried to send its first character to the console. We caught that only a couple weeks before shipping the thing, too!
Earth 0 - Mars 3 (Score:2, Interesting)
Mars: "Pathfinder...check, beagle2...check, Spirit...in the process..."
Wouldn't It Be Nice.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Robots are great until they break.
It's ALIVE!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Just curious . . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
I believe your hoax theory... (Score:1, Interesting)