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Author Topic: MER-A "Spirit"  (Read 102036 times)

Offline LunarOrbit

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MER-A "Spirit"
« Reply #15 on: January 18, 2004, 05:46:01 PM »
On January 24/25, depending on your time zone.
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" We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..."
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Offline Satanic Mechanic

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MER-A "Spirit"
« Reply #16 on: January 20, 2004, 03:25:14 PM »
On the JPL site, the landing will at 9:05 PST this Saturday (01/24).
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Offline fiona_j

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MER-A "Spirit"
« Reply #17 on: January 20, 2004, 05:46:21 PM »
PST? Give me some scientific theory to look at and I usually cope. Give me acronyms for world times and fall apart! Guidance oh knowledgable Americans/Canadians!

fi x
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Offline LunarOrbit

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MER-A "Spirit"
« Reply #18 on: January 20, 2004, 06:17:19 PM »
I have the same problem, Fiona. :)

Pacific Time (PST) is 3 hours behind me, and I'm in the Eastern time zone (EST) which is 5 hours behind Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) where you are.

So it looks like Opportunity will be landing at 5am in your time zone.

Here's a useful site that I just found:

http://www.worldtimezone.com/
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" We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..."
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Offline fiona_j

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MER-A "Spirit"
« Reply #19 on: January 20, 2004, 06:29:19 PM »
Thanks very much mate :) Will come in handy when I go to Canada in October (cant wait)!

fi x
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Offline LunarOrbit

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MER-A "Spirit"
« Reply #20 on: January 20, 2004, 07:51:13 PM »
I hope you enjoy your visit! :)
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" We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..."
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Offline skyjim

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Glitch on Spirit!
« Reply #21 on: January 22, 2004, 12:35:17 PM »
Damn!  Major glitch on Spirit.  No data returned last night - this morning's press conference, it was ominous that only the project manager (Pete Theisenger) and Deputy PM (Rich Cook) were up at the table.  Before anything was said, I took one look at their faces and postures and thought to myself "Uh-oh!"

Could be software problems, could be high gain (they got a shortened UHF signal on the MGS pass last night - UHF uses the low gain), could be any number of things.  The team needs to be ready for Opportunity's landing so this might get less effort going into the planned 3 day standown on Spirit activities to accomodate the Opportunity critical events.  At the end of the briefing, there was an update that indicated that they might have gotten a UHF signal indicating the vehicle went into a fault mode.  That hadn't been confirmed as they broke the conference up.

Jim
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Offline Ottawan

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MER-A "Spirit"
« Reply #22 on: January 22, 2004, 12:43:49 PM »
Hi Jim!

Spacedaily.com was reporting this morning that contact was unavailable due to thunderstorm activity at the tracking station in Australia.

Was that mentioned at the PC?
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Offline skyjim

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MER-A "Spirit"
« Reply #23 on: January 22, 2004, 12:57:38 PM »
Apparently the ratty com is now suspected to be from spacecraft problems as well as the weather last night at Canberra.  The MGS pass should've worked as before if all the problems were weather at the DSN site.
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Offline skyjim

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MER-A "Spirit"
« Reply #24 on: January 22, 2004, 12:58:56 PM »
Sorry - Hi Bill!

They did talk about it - with the conclusion above.

Jim
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Offline LunarOrbit

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MER-A "Spirit"
« Reply #25 on: January 22, 2004, 08:21:41 PM »
Thanks for keeping the forum up to date, guys... I just found out about the problems with Spirit. Bummer.

It sounds to me like they will be able to reboot the rover out of it's fault mode, but unless they can figure out what caused it in the first place it will just happen again. Is that right?
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" We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..."
 - John F. Kennedy

Offline skyjim

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MER-A "Spirit"
« Reply #26 on: January 22, 2004, 08:54:13 PM »
Maybe, Kel.  At this point I don't think they know enough to even say that much.  Hopefully they'll get some data late tonight/tomorrow morning and they'll be able to figure out the right recovery procedure...

Jim
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Offline Simkid

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MER-A "Spirit"
« Reply #27 on: January 22, 2004, 10:59:26 PM »
God, they really dont need this, hope its alright.
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Offline Satanic Mechanic

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MER-A "Spirit"
« Reply #28 on: January 23, 2004, 11:04:56 AM »
Hurrah!
It's back online.  Here is the update from JPL:

"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."


120 BPS!  Man that is slow but of course you are transmitting across millions of miles.  

SM
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Offline LunarOrbit

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MER-A "Spirit"
« Reply #29 on: January 23, 2004, 11:18:40 AM »
Is that the speed it normally communicates at, or is it somehow reduced due to the communications problem?

This is a good sign though. Phew!
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" We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..."
 - John F. Kennedy
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