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Nasa rover breaks down on Mars

Mr. Anderson

Mr. Anderson

Moderator emeritus
Nov 1, 2001
22,568
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VA
They're not going to know anything more until 9 PM PST - that's got to be tough having to wait around for that.

I really hope they get it fixed - supposedly things like this happened to Pathfinder - so not all is lost.

D
 
Mr. Anderson

Mr. Anderson

Moderator emeritus
Nov 1, 2001
22,568
6
VA
Originally posted by evoluzione
heh, bet the Beagle boys are grinning at that one
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actually, I'll bet they're a little sorry of the NASA guys aswell.....

And I hope this isn't a system issue that affects the other lander when it arrives on Saturday....that would be death for the project :(

D
 
I

iGav

macrumors G3
Original poster
Mar 9, 2002
9,025
1
Originally posted by krimson
i think one of the martians decided to kick the rover trying to figure out what it was.
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Nah... Scouse Martians... probably nicked the wheels when it stopped to negotiate some rocks ... heheheh
 
Juventuz

Juventuz

macrumors 6502a
Dec 4, 2002
669
1
Binghamton
Originally posted by evoluzione
heh, bet the Beagle boys are grinning at that one
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Not much for them to grin about considering that Spirit was FAR more successful than the Beagle ever was.
 
evoluzione

evoluzione

macrumors 68020
Jul 19, 2002
2,016
9
down the road, that's where i'll always be
Originally posted by Juventuz
Not much for them to grin about considering that Spirit was FAR more successful than the Beagle ever was.
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oh i'm sure they're bummed but i'm also sure that a li'l wry grin appeared somewhere, after all, it did ultimately fail whether it was way more successful or not.


iGAV ... haha, reminds me of a joke, can't remember who, but they talked about putting a stereo with no plug on it on the street, next to a motor, and guaranteed the car would be on bricks before the stereo went
 
wdlove

wdlove

macrumors P6
Oct 20, 2002
16,568
0
My thoughts are with JPL for continued success with Spirit. This is probably just a temporary glitch, could be due to a whole host of reasons. All we can do now is wait till 9pm PST.
 
Gymnut

Gymnut

macrumors 68000
Apr 18, 2003
1,887
28
Well, it's gonna be such a huge letdown for NASA if they lose Spirit after it gave space exploration the boost it needed in the wake of the Columbia accident.
 
idkew

idkew

macrumors 68020
Sep 26, 2001
2,111
1
where the concrete to dirt ratio is better
you gotta wonder what type of safeguards are built in.

i would think that if the rover goes a week without hearing from earth, it would "restart" and revert to defaults.... not sure how possible this is, but i think it only makes sense.

phat- you beat my by 2 min...
 
whocares

whocares

macrumors 65816
Oct 9, 2002
1,494
0
:noitаɔo˩
Originally posted by Juventuz
Not much for them to grin about considering that Spirit was FAR more successful than the Beagle ever was.
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Well it's a least far more succesfull than the previous effort that crash-landed on one of the poles due to some scientist working in miles and the others in kilometers. :rolleyes:

Now that's an expensive way to learn about emperial/metric systems :p
 
wdlove

wdlove

macrumors P6
Oct 20, 2002
16,568
0
Sadly on my 11pm local news they said it has ben more than 24 hours since they got any meaning data from Spirit. Just some beeps. Ruled out bad weather on Earth. Hopefully they can fix the problem soon. A theory on my part, may the soon to be arrival of opportunity is temporarily interferring with the signal!
 
A

alphaone

macrumors 6502
Aug 12, 2003
300
0
Update

Posted on SpaceFlightNow.com
But earlier today, a signal was sent from Earth to Mars and Spirit responded with a simple tone.

"We did send a command to the spacecraft on a specific channel and we got a response back basically saying 'yeah, I am here' and we got exactly what we expected from it. So that gave us the indication, because it is on that specific channel that we got the response, is that the spacecraft is in safe-mode. Something kind of went wrong and it put itself into a safe-mode," Elachi said.
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Sounds like they can fix it...I think.
"The way we set the spacecraft is that if there is something abnormal, it goes into a certain safe-mode. The indication when we linked and it responded positively is that it is most likely in a certain safe-mode."
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LOL :rolleyes:

Controllers are now preparing for the next step in sorting out the problem and bringing Spirit back to useful life.
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Sounds good to me :)
 
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