NASA Fiddles With Mars Rover

binaryDigit writes "The San Jose Mercury News has an article detailing the delay in launching the next Mars rover. Apparently 'a guillotine like device designed to sever the cables could produce a short circuit'. I assume some sort of standard connector was ruled out in this case? Yet another setback for NASA, though they at least caught the problem before launching it and then not being able to do anything about it."

Comments

I believe that is the standard way

[hubie]

I assume some sort of standard connector was ruled out in this case?

Those devices are very common to sever cables and bolts. They are reliable and effective. Essentially they are pyrotechnic devices that fire an explosive charge that drives a knife edge through whatever you want severed---basically a little cannon that shoots out the knife blade. Judging from the short news blurb, it sounds like a problem with the design of the back-end electronics that were supposed to handle the expected severing.

Re:2010

[gl4ss]

i didnt find it in the article by quick glance.. but i assume that even with non-conductive blade the wires could still short-circuit against each other.