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Glitch Forces Mars Probe Shut-Off
TheEvilOverlord writes to tell us that BBC News is reporting that a 'glitch' has forced the mars probe to switch into a "safe-mode" switching several of its systems off. Perhaps it is just an education tool to show martians the meaning of BSOD.
It's not a glitch, silly. Nor is it a "bug"! It's just a new feature.
Agile Artisans
Yeah, just wait till the screensaver kicks in.
My God! It's full of stars!
People, we've got be a little more precise. There are three functioning spacecraft in orbit, one more on the way, and two on the ground on and around Mars. Between NASA and the ESA, it's getting crowded on Mars.
For those who didn't RTFA, it's the Mars Global Surveyor, which is the oldest of those in orbit.
...which probe?
There's presently functioning two orbiters (Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey), two rovers (MER A a.k.a. Spirit, MER B a.k.a. Opportunity), and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is on the way.
I realize TFA has the info but it sort of belongs in the headline. "The mars probe" just sounds silly and uninformed.
I have a high emotional stake in the mars missions. Recently a good highschool friend of mine passed away in a plane crash. She was a co-op at NASA. In recognition for her work on the Mars reconnaissance orbiter, her memory and name were launched into space with with it. Krys, We love you. Story: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8931065/
The Mars Global Surveyor's mission ended in 2001 and has been on an extended mission ever since.
I'd say Americans are getting their money's worth and then some.
http://www.fastcompany.com/online/06/writestuff.ht ml
well, TFA is about the space shuttle, but i'd guess it applies to other space gadgets, too.
"Consider these stats : the last three versions of the program -- each 420,000 lines long-had just one error each. The last 11 versions of this software had a total of 17 errors. Commercial programs of equivalent complexity would have 5,000 errors."
Mars rovers use WindRiver VxWorks, probably version 5... who needs a BSOD when you have this little favorite "workQPanic: Kernel work queue overflow"... ugh.
h owpage&pid=227 , to be fair, these guys go above and beyond to try and prevent glitches and random crappola.
check out http://acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=s
-j
Apparently this probe (the Mars Global Surveyor) went into "safe mode" before in its mission.
e nt.html
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/status/wkreport/curr
But only limited communications. The primary channel, which allows high bandwidth communications, is more fussy to maintain (antenna has to be pointed in the right direction, etc.) In 'safe mode' the probe uses a secondary communications method that is more reliable but much lower bandwidth.
You missed the point: 'safe mode' is the fallback system. The probe is not in a 'known state'. They do not yet know what fault caused the probe to go into safe mode. Safe mode is a generic state designed to maintain power and communications with Earth when an unknown fault has occurred, to give the operators time to find a solution or just to check that everything is OK. When they are sure everything is OK they will send a command to exit safe mode.
There is reason to be cautious. An important satellite was lost a few years ago because the operators rushed their diagnosis of the problem. The satellite's operating state was not what they thought it was--two of the gyros had failed. The operators misinterpreted the data and switched the satellite from its last working gyro to one of the nonworking ones, resulting in total loss of communications and destruction of the satellite. Not good. Before they do anything, they need to be sure they understand what has happened and what state the probe is in.