Mars Spirit Rover Update : Signal received!

[frogfromthenorth2]

NASA's Deep Space Network communications station near Madrid, Spain, received a signal from the Spirit rover at 7:34 a.m. EST (1234 GMT) today, officials report.

"The transmissions came during a communication window about 90 minutes after Spirit woke up for the morning on Mars. The signal lasted for 10 minutes at a data rate of 10 bits per second," the Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced.

Mission Control plans to issue commands to Spirit seeking additional data from the spacecraft during the subsequent few hours.

A news conference is planned for 1 p.m. EST today

http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/status.html

[frogfromthenorth2]

1. That's good news... At 1 PM let's hope we see happy faces at

the news conference... I will keep you updated!

[SheepyMcSheepster]

2. i am happy to here this.

that is alot of money to spend for nothing. and i am sure the team working on this are very relieved. yay.

[DenverDem]

3. Now if only we could get some intelligible signals

from the White House.

[Ripley]

4. Good news...also heard Europe's orbiter found ice

at the South Pole. More good news. I just wish they didn't lose their Beagle. Maybe they'll find that too!

[OldEurope]

5. err....sorry, but...

I´m afraid the only signal received was kind of "Spirit has a serious problem".
Sorry, that my only link is in German (but a nice picture...)
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/artikel/394/25369/

[frogfromthenorth2]

6. "ESA weist Wasser auf dem Roten Planeten nach"

Wow... I don't know what it means nut it sure scares the shit out of me just trying to pronounce it...

[OldEurope]

9. It means

water found on the red planet.
Very bold of you to try the pronounciation...:hi:

[frogfromthenorth2]

10. LOL...it reminded me about a stand up comedy bit by that Home Improvement

guy. He was explaining why German was a scary language. Quite funny.

[OldEurope]

14. ever read that story of Mark Twain about the German language?

[frogfromthenorth2]

16. Nope.... ?

[Liberalator]

21. "The Awful German Language" by Mark Twain

Here's a link for the story:



http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html

The Awful German Language
by Mark Twain

This is Appendix D from Twain's 1880 book A Tramp Abroad. This text is basically a HTML conversion of the plain ASCII e-text formerly found at gopher://english.hss.cmu.edu:70/0F-2%3A2607%3AThe%20Awful%20German%20Language, with some further editing. Report errors to [e-mail]; note that the German orthography is that of the late 19th century.

I went often to look at the collection of curiosities in Heidelberg Castle, and one day I surprised the keeper of it with my German. I spoke entirely in that language. He was greatly interested; and after I had talked a while he said my German was very rare, possibly a "unique"; and wanted to add it to his museum.

If he had known what it had cost me to acquire my art, he would also have known that it would break any collector to buy it. Harris and I had been hard at work on our German during several weeks at that time, and although we had made good progress, it had been accomplished under great difficulty and annoyance, for three of our teachers had died in the mean time. A person who has not studied German can form no idea of what a perplexing language it is.

Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp. One is washed about in it, hither and thither, in the most helpless way; and when at last he thinks he has captured a rule which offers firm ground to take a rest on amid the general rage and turmoil of the ten parts of speech, he turns over the page and reads, "Let the pupil make careful note of the following exceptions." He runs his eye down and finds that there are more exceptions to the rule than instances of it. So overboard he goes again, to hunt for another Ararat and find another quicksand. Such has been, and continues to be, my experience. Every time I think I have got one of these four confusing "cases" where I am master of it, a seemingly insignificant preposition intrudes itself into my sentence, clothed with an awful and unsuspected power, and crumbles the ground from under me. For instance, my book inquires after a certain bird -- (it is always inquiring after things which are of no sort of consequence to anybody): "Where is the bird?" Now the answer to this question -- according to the book -- is that the bird is waiting in the blacksmith shop on account of the rain. Of course no bird would do that, but then you must stick to the book. Very well, I begin to cipher out the German for that answer. I begin at the wrong end, necessarily, for that is the German idea. I say to myself, "Regen (rain) is masculine -- or maybe it is feminine -- or possibly neuter -- it is too much trouble to look now. Therefore, it is either der (the) Regen, or die (the) Regen, or das (the) Regen, according to which gender it may turn out to be when I look. In the interest of science, I will cipher it out on the hypothesis that it is masculine. Very well -- then the rain is der Regen, if it is simply in the quiescent state of being mentioned, without enlargement or discussion -- Nominative case; but if this rain is lying around, in a kind of a general way on the ground, it is then definitely located, it is doing something -- that is, resting (which is one of the German grammar's ideas of doing something), and this throws the rain into the Dative case, and makes it dem Regen. However, this rain is not resting, but is doing something actively, -- it is falling -- to interfere with the bird, likely -- and this indicates movement, which has the effect of sliding it into the Accusative case and changing dem Regen into den Regen." Having completed the grammatical horoscope of this matter, I answer up confidently and state in German that the bird is staying in the blacksmith shop "wegen (on account of) den Regen." Then the teacher lets me softly down with the remark that whenever the word "wegen" drops into a sentence, it always throws that subject into the Genitive case, regardless of consequences -- and that therefore this bird stayed in the blacksmith shop "wegen des Regens."

Please follow link to continue...

[frogfromthenorth2]

22. Thanks!

[transeo]

37. That's hilarious

It's so funny and so true! I studied German for a long time and had great difficulty keeping the cases straight. However, I will say that English is definitely not much easier, and is probably harder. Of course, English is a Germanic language, so it's no wonder.

[Shadder]

7. Try this

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 limted 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.

[frogfromthenorth2]

8. Another link : "...tone emitted when there is a serious problem onboard. "

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/23/spirit.contact/

[Heyo]

11. They have received an additional signal..

...In addition to the tone.

It appears that it may have gone into "safe mode"..

Is there any Microsoft software on board that thing? :mad:

Seriously, I am SO happy and releived that the outlook looks a little better now...

I am hoping and praying for the best.


-Heyo

[wtmusic]

12. 10 bits/second?

At that rate it would take around a week to send a fax. Not very promising.

[frogfromthenorth2]

13. Transmission is not the problem. They have received 120 bits/sec

info as well, see link up here...

[gbwarming]

15. They're using a big dish to listen - and the slow data rate means

the rover antenna doesn't have to be pointed accurately. I don't know the details of the rover radios but there is a steerable high gain antenna that they use to transmit high rate data. If the rover doesn't know it's orientation or the time for some reason it wouldn't be able to point it correctly. Hopefully this is a failsafe mode and they will be able to get it functioning again.

http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn/antennas/index.html


Edit: better info http://www.machinedesign.com/ASP/strArticleID/56430/strSite/MDSite/viewSelectedArticle.asp
The Rovers will stay in touch with Earth during their 90-day missions using three different systems: a low-gain antenna (LGA), a UHF antenna, and a high-gain antenna. The omnidirectional LGA transmits at a low data rate to the Deep Space Network when rover orientation is unknown. DSN antennas communicate with far-flung spacecraft at frequencies of 2.2, 8.4 and 32 GHz. The omnidirectional UHF antenna communicates through orbiters Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor passing overhead.
<snip>
The HGAG uses a PID digital controller with feedback from motor encoders and from a potentiometer for absolute position reference. Stored in memory is what is termed an Ephemeris file containing the relative motions and positions of Mars, Earth, and the Sun. The program and a high-accuracy clock directs the HGAG to track an antenna on Earth. The Earth from the perspective of Mars moves across the sky at a rate of roughly 15°/hr.

Link margins (a measure of signal strength) require that the antenna stay aligned within 2° of its Earth-based target during a communication session. To slew the antenna, the controller ramps up motor current, runs the motors for 4 sec at maximum speed which equates to a slew rate of 3°/sec, ramps down, waits 20 sec, then does it again. This on-off duty cycle repeats for an entire communication session. A session lasts about one hour and happens three times each day of the mission.
<snip>

About half of all communications will go through the HGA, a 0.28-m-diameter antenna that beams data directly to earth receivers over the X-band (8 to 12 GHz) at 1,850 bits/sec. The HGA is not omnidirectional so a two-axis high-gain-antenna gimbal (HGAG) points it to a receiving antenna.

[snooper2]

39. Cool..

Thanks for the info...

[Endangered Specie]

17. 120 bits per second.... Better than AOL dialup

[0007]

27. LOL!!

[OldEurope]

18. Update from German Radio News:

Water and WATER-STEAM found. What ever that means.

[gbwarming]

19. Water vapor, perhaps? nt

[OldEurope]

28. Sorry, I´m no native speaker. My dictionary doesn´t make a difference

steam is from water, correct? and this is what I heard from the radio. Or is steam only when made in a technical way, like a boat or so??
very confusing.

[Pale_Rider]

30. Probably water vapor ....

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/23/mars.water.ice/index.html

"We have already identified water vapor in the atmosphere," scientist Vittorio Formisano said. "We have identified water ice on the soil on the south polar caps."

[OldEurope]

31. so please help me once more:

steam is a technical term and vapor is what emerges from sorts of natural vaporisation?
How do you call what comes out of your cooking pot?

[frogfromthenorth2]

20. A Spa on Mars....hummmmm Vacation time....

[tinrobot]

23. Mar's atmosphere has lower pressures...

So water boils at a much lower temperature == steam. This is why liquid water is hard to find on Mars.

It's been decades since college chemistry, but I recall water can go directly from ice to vapor/steam at certain temps/pressures. The process is called sublimation, but darned if I know if the conditions on Mars are ripe for that.

[Tommy_Douglas]

26. I'd say its possible.

I mean snow on the floormat of a car can go from a solid to vapour.

[Skidmore]

24. Must've finished downloading the correct patch

from Microsoft.

[proud patriot]

25. WOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOO ! ! !

Bill Nye was on CNN last night .Saying don't give up hope.

I love Bill Nye the Science guy "Science Rules"

[jokerman93]

29. It's good to wake up this morning and hear this news

I'm a big fan of space exploration and have been so harved up about the mars projects. The bad news about Spirit was really depressing. It's good to hear there may be a way to get our little Spirit rover back online.

All my thoughts and best wishes go to the technicians, engineers, scientists, manufacturing people and coffee runners who've been working so hard on this historic scientific mission!

LIFE and SUCCESS to NASA's peaceful mission and NASA's brilliant and dedicated people!

[frogfromthenorth2]

32. News conference starting now....

[Barrett808]

33. NASA briefing on now (10:00 PST)

http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html

[frogfromthenorth2]

34. Not much more info given..... Expect many days of no news...

[frogfromthenorth2]

35. From the PRESS CONFERENCE

FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 2004
1807 GMT (1:07 p.m. EST)

At the news conference underway right now, project manager Pete Theisinger says that the data received from Spirit this morning indicates that the rover's flight software is not behaving normally.

An anomaly team has been formed to continue gathering data from the rover and narrow the possible causes of the situation.

Theisinger says the rover should be able to sustain its health for an indefinite amount of time. He also noted that restoring Spirit to normal operations could take a couple of weeks.

[Sterling]

36. Going to Mars is stupid.

I predict a huge waste of money and tragic loss of life before this is all said and done.

We really do have problems here on Earth to deal with before we start fucking up other planets.

[frogfromthenorth2]

40. bla bla bla bla bla bla bla

You make as much sense as Spirit does actually....

[snooper2]

38. 10 bits per a second?

That would be..

1001010111

In ten minutes it had enough time to say, "Hello, how are you doing this fine morning?"