http://space.com/missionlaunches/spirit_silent_040122.html
PASADENA, Calif. -- Mars Rover officials at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced Thursday that "a serious anomaly" occurred onboard the robot Spirit Wednesday, stopping the transmission of direct data for almost 24 hours.
Peter Theisinger, Mars Exploration Rover project manager, began Thursday's press conference by telling reporters that they had not received contact from Spirit, either through relays from the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor or Mars Odyssey spacecraft.
However, Jennifer Trosper, mission manager of Surface Operations, interrupted the press briefing to announce that a signal had been received from the rover via its direct link to Earth. That said, no direct data had yet to be received from the robotic geologist.
Theisinger explained that the situation remains serious and that "no one single fault ... that we can conceive of" can explain this anomaly.
Spirit can communicate with Earth directly via an onboard "X-band system," or it can beam signals up to either of NASA's two orbiting spacecraft using a UHF antenna. There are four chances each day to reach the orbiters.
NASA receives signals from spacecraft through its Deep Space Network (DSN) of tracking stations in Australia, Spain and California.
Direct Mars-to-Earth communications are reserved for critical Spirit mission data, such as rover health and engineering. It takes about 10 minutes for a radio message, moving at the speed of light, to travel between planets. Signals transmitted to the orbiters can be delayed as little as 90 minutes to as long as 24 hours because of the way each orbiter works and communicates with Earth.
Spirit has missed several opportunities to phone home.
A communiqué released late afternoon Wednesday from JPL indicated an unresolved issue with the status of the rover.
According to the statement, ground controllers were able to send commands to Spirit early Wednesday and received a simple signal acknowledging that the rover heard them.
However, ground controllers here did not receive expected scientific and engineering data from Spirit during scheduled communication passes during the rest of that Martian day.
Preliminary indications from the spacecraft suggest its radio is working and it continues to generate power from the Sun with its solar panels, said deputy project manager Richard Cook. It is not known, however, if the glitch involves hardware or software. Software problems might be fixed by sending new commands or even software patches, as has been done with other spacecraft.
A hardware problem would be more grave, mission managers said.
Officials said weather problems Wednesday at the Australian Deep Space Network receiver were not related to Spirit's current silence.
The rover landed Jan. 3 and is slated for a three-month mission.
Spirit had been gradually moving away from its landing pad, in the Gusev crater near the Martian equator. It has already sent back dozens of photographs and had begun exploring the soil of the red planet and digging into a rock named Adirondack.
Spirit's twin, called Opportunity, is on target for landing on the opposite side of Mars Saturday night. The combined mission, designed examine Martian geology and also determine if Mars once had large bodies of standing water, carries an $820 million price tag.
PASADENA, Calif. -- Mars Rover officials at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced Thursday that "a serious anomaly" occurred onboard the robot Spirit Wednesday, stopping the transmission of direct data for almost 24 hours.
Peter Theisinger, Mars Exploration Rover project manager, began Thursday's press conference by telling reporters that they had not received contact from Spirit, either through relays from the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor or Mars Odyssey spacecraft.
However, Jennifer Trosper, mission manager of Surface Operations, interrupted the press briefing to announce that a signal had been received from the rover via its direct link to Earth. That said, no direct data had yet to be received from the robotic geologist.
Theisinger explained that the situation remains serious and that "no one single fault ... that we can conceive of" can explain this anomaly.
Spirit can communicate with Earth directly via an onboard "X-band system," or it can beam signals up to either of NASA's two orbiting spacecraft using a UHF antenna. There are four chances each day to reach the orbiters.
NASA receives signals from spacecraft through its Deep Space Network (DSN) of tracking stations in Australia, Spain and California.
Direct Mars-to-Earth communications are reserved for critical Spirit mission data, such as rover health and engineering. It takes about 10 minutes for a radio message, moving at the speed of light, to travel between planets. Signals transmitted to the orbiters can be delayed as little as 90 minutes to as long as 24 hours because of the way each orbiter works and communicates with Earth.
Spirit has missed several opportunities to phone home.
A communiqué released late afternoon Wednesday from JPL indicated an unresolved issue with the status of the rover.
According to the statement, ground controllers were able to send commands to Spirit early Wednesday and received a simple signal acknowledging that the rover heard them.
However, ground controllers here did not receive expected scientific and engineering data from Spirit during scheduled communication passes during the rest of that Martian day.
Preliminary indications from the spacecraft suggest its radio is working and it continues to generate power from the Sun with its solar panels, said deputy project manager Richard Cook. It is not known, however, if the glitch involves hardware or software. Software problems might be fixed by sending new commands or even software patches, as has been done with other spacecraft.
A hardware problem would be more grave, mission managers said.
Officials said weather problems Wednesday at the Australian Deep Space Network receiver were not related to Spirit's current silence.
The rover landed Jan. 3 and is slated for a three-month mission.
Spirit had been gradually moving away from its landing pad, in the Gusev crater near the Martian equator. It has already sent back dozens of photographs and had begun exploring the soil of the red planet and digging into a rock named Adirondack.
Spirit's twin, called Opportunity, is on target for landing on the opposite side of Mars Saturday night. The combined mission, designed examine Martian geology and also determine if Mars once had large bodies of standing water, carries an $820 million price tag.
