spacetoday.net: Anomaly stops transmission of Spirit data

Posted: Thu, Jan 22, 2004, 4:53 PM ET (2153 GMT)
Mars Exploration Rover (NASA/JPL)

A "serious anomaly" on the Spirit Mars rover has kept the spacecraft from transmitting any data back to Earth for over 24 hours, flight controllers said Thursday. No data has been received from the rover during several attempts on Wednesday, a problem originally thought linked to difficulties transmitting commands to the rover from an Australian facility early Wednesday during a thunderstorm. Officials now believe that is only coincidental to the data transmission problem, which one official said is likely not caused by a single fault with the spacecraft. The rover does appear to be operating, as ground stations have received simple beeps since the problem started, but those transmissions contained no data. Spirit may be in some kind of safe mode, engineers suggested, but they don’t know yet what caused the situation. The problem comes at a time as controllers gear up for the arrival of Spirit's twin rover, Opportunity, which will land on the opposite side the planet late Saturday night.