NASA Uncertain Spirit Rover Will Phone Home

By: William Harwood
Topics: In The News ,; Tech Talk

The Spirit rover

(Credit: NASA)

NASA's aging Spirit Mars rover, stuck in loose soil and forced to endure the harsh Martian winter with reduced solar power, has not phoned home since March 22 and officials warned Friday "a miracle" may be needed to restore the rover to limited operation.

No longer mobile, Spirit was unable to orient itself to maximize solar power levels before the onset of its fourth winter on Mars. Engineers expected the rover to put itself into electronic hibernation, suspending communications and conserving power to warm and recharge its batteries and to run an internal clock.

The rover is programmed to take itself out of hibernation and call home whenever the batteries are sufficiently charged. But if the batteries lose too much charge, and if the internal clock stops ticking, the rover's computer could re-awaken but not know what time it is.

In that case, known as a "mission-clock fault," the Rover's computer would start a new clock, waking up every four hours during daylight to listen for signals from Earth. In a best-case scenario, Spirit could have started listening as early as July 23.

Starting July 26, engineers began sending commands to Spirit, ordering it to phone home if possible. But analysis of available sunlight and the cold environment indicates the rover may not be able to respond until late September to mid October. That's assuming it's able to respond at all.

"It will be the miracle from Mars if our beloved rover phones home," Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said in an agency statement. "It's never faced this type of severe condition before - this is unknown territory."

Winter on Mars runs from May through November. During past winters, heaters kept Spirit's internal temperatures above minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. This time around, most of the heaters are not powered and temperatures could go as low as minus 67 degrees.

Whether Spirit can survive is an open question.

"This has been a long winter for Spirit, and a long wait for us," Steve Squyres, the principal investigator for the Mars Exploration Rovers at Cornell University, said in the NASA statement. "Even if we never heard from Spirit again, I think her scientific legacy would be secure. But we're hopeful we will hear from her, and we're eager to get back to doing science with two rovers again."

Spirit and a twin rover, Opportunity, landed on opposite sides of Mars in January 2004. Designed to operate for just three months, both rovers have now been in operation for six-and-half Earth years, studying the role of water in the martian environment.

Opportunity remains in relatively good health, still mobile and able to collect science data.

Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He has covered more than 125 shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2's flyby of Neptune, and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of "Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia." You can follow his frequent status updates at the CBS News Space page.

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by RoboBlogger July 31, 2010 1:15 AM EDT: Hopefully, no real Aliens stumble upon this technology and find out that one of the brainiacs at NASA left a return address on one of the side panels just in case it gets lost. Now we're really going to have to face a real alien invasion.; Reply to this comment


by imnho July 30, 2010 11:20 PM EDT: To parahase an actor on Star Trek; Its dead Jim.

Actually I hope it phones home soon. It has been very useful in terms of Research and far exceeded peoples wildest expectations.; Reply to this comment

by AnnieDanny July 30, 2010 7:41 PM EDT

I am proud of the Rovers, they have far exceeded expectations. But putting a human colony on Mars? Who in their right mind would want to leave our beautiful planet for a red barren wasteland. The Rovers have showed us what's there and it's not much...

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by RoboBlogger July 31, 2010 1:20 AM EDT: Who in there right mind? Well of course the greedy little real estate agents! Since there is no body of water separating any part of the land mass/es, the first person/representative of their country who sets foot on the planet will actually own the dang planet.


by Lifeson2112 July 30, 2010 5:00 PM EDT: I'm proud of our rovers and rover teams. We've gotten boatloads of science from these little guys. We should build 20 more and send them up since the design seems to work so well. If Spirit doesn't wake up it will be a rest well-earned.; Reply to this comment


by rwsmith29456 July 30, 2010 4:49 PM EDT: Maybe they can eek out just a LITTLE more data before calling it quits. What a champ.; Reply to this comment

by us_1776 July 30, 2010 4:41 PM EDT

Talk about "The Little Engines that Could". These rovers have just done an amazing job on Mars. And of course the science teams behind them.

I'm looking forward to when a human finally steps foot on our sister planet. And hope that one day we will have a fully self-sustaining human colony on Mars.

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