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Marvin Strikes Again
NASA’s Spirit rover stopped transmitting data from Mars for more than 24 hours, mission managers said Thursday, calling it an "extremely serious anomaly."
NASA speak for "Shit!!"
"Zjplinx! Get out from in front of that transmitter! You'll catch cancer of the palps!"
NASA last heard from Spirit early Wednesday. Since then, it has returned just random, meaningless radio noise — and only then sporadically, scientists said.
Sure you aren’t tuned to Al Franken’s radio show?
Initially, the scientists said they believed weather problems on Earth caused the glitch. They now said they believe the rover was experiencing hardware or software problems. "This is a serious problem. This is an extremely serious anomaly," project manager Pete Theisinger said.
NASA speak for "There goes next years budget"
Spirit is one half of a $820 million mission. Its twin, Opportunity, is scheduled to land on Mars on Saturday.
They’re worried it might have the same problem if it turns out to be a design flaw.
NASA last heard from Spirit as it prepared to continue its work examining its first rock, just a few yards from its lander.
It was Marvin The Martians favorite rock. He’s very protective, you know.
Since then, Spirit has transmitted just a few beeps to Earth in response to attempts to communicate with it. It has also skipped several scheduled communications opportunities, either directly with Earth or by way of two NASA satellites in orbit around Mars. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory worked to pinpoint the yet-unknown problem. "It’s not clear there is one cause ... that would explain the observables we’re seeing," deputy project manager Richard Cook said.
NASA speak for "We don’t f#&*$%@*g know what happened."
Posted by: Steve 2004-01-22
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=24828