First off signal was restored with the spirit rover after a scary few days with limited almost nothing signal.

 

 

PASADENA, California (CNN) -- After two days having trouble sending transmissions, the Mars rover Spirit sent data Friday morning to its NASA flight team in a communications session lasting 20 minutes, the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said.

 

"The spacecraft sent limited data in a proper response to a ground command, and we're planning for commanding further communication sessions later today," Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager Pete Theisinger said.

 

NASA reported transmissions were detected at a NASA antenna complex near Madrid, Spain.

 

The Spirit rover stopped transmitting data from Mars on Wednesday, but mission controllers remained hopeful about reestablishing a connection, saying there were signs the craft was operating at a basic level.

 

Their efforts at restoring communications with Spirit come at a time when they are also focusing on a safe landing for the rover's twin, the Opportunity, set to descend on the other side of red planet. Opportunity was on course to land in a region called Meridiani Planum at 6:05 p.m. ET on January 24, NASA said.

 

Since Wednesday, NASA scientists had received a basic communication tone from the Spirit rover indicating it was alive, but the solid flows of data that marked its first 18 days on Mars stopped, said deputy project manager Richard Cook.

 

The tone is programmed into the spacecraft, to be emitted when there is a serious problem onboard.

 

"We know that we have had a very serious anomaly on the vehicle," said Pete Theisinger, manager of the $400 million Spirit mission, told reporters Thursday.

 

"Our ability to determine exactly what has happened has been limited by our inability to receive telemetry from the vehicle."

 

To find out what went wrong, scientists need additional data. The team was pursuing several scenarios, such as a possible software crash or a problem with the solar power supply, sources said.

 

The problem initially was blamed on rain in Canberra, Australia, where NASA operates a major radio dish that receives radio messages from space.

 

But several opportunities to communicate with Spirit since then came and went with the space agency receiving no solid data, said Cook, who managed the ill-fated Mars Polar Lander, which presumably crashed into Mars in 1999.

 

Mars project engineers sent a query to the rover Wednesday afternoon, and it did respond. But the craft was silent when the Mars Odyssey, a satellite in Mars orbit, passed over the six-wheeled robot, Cook said.

 

Later, when another red planet satellite, the Mars Global Surveyor, passed over the rover, NASA received radio communication but no data. Several opportunities came and went Thursday with no communication. But later the basic communication tone was received.

 

Previously, the rover's performance had been virtually flawless. Scientists were reviewing the early data to see if they might have missed some predictor of trouble.

 

Second off water has been found on Mars!

 

CNN) -- The European orbiter Mars Express detected ice at the Red Planet's south pole, mission officials at Darmstadt, Germany, said Friday.

 

NASA's Mars Odyssey, also an orbiter, confirmed water ice at the north pole, along with dry ice -- frozen carbon dioxide -- in 2002. It picked up signs of hydrogen at the south pole, the first indication that water ice might be found there.

 

Mars Express confirmed Odyssey's suspicions about the south pole.

 

"We have already identified water vapor in the atmosphere," scientist Vittorio Formisano said. "We have identified water ice on the soil on the south polar caps."

 

Mars Express headed off for the fourth planet on June 2 specifically to look for water. It carried with it the European Space Agency's rover, Beagle 2, but that craft was never heard from after its expected Dec. 25 landing.

 

Express, however, attained its final operational orbit in the last week and has continued its scientific mission. Express made an unsuccessful attempt to contact Beagle 2 earlier this month when it passed near the rover's landing site.

I know it is very expensive, but man this is so interesting.

Is it just me, or do Aliens keep stealing the tires off our mars explorers?

whew, good to hear they got contact restored. would hate to see NASA take another hit.

Because it is related, my take on the Moon-Mars idea:http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=craigramblings&tab=weblogs&uid=58408399

 

I Suggest We Build A Master Race On The Moon

 

I have had it with all of those jerks against future moon and mars missions. Today is microeconomics, the professor said, "A mission to Mars forces a tradeoff between money spent in space and money spent on Earth." Of course she insinuated that we are throwing money into the vacuum of space instead of throwing money into Earth-like programs, which of course always give us our money's worth.

 

Space exploration and NASA as a whole has benefitted mankind to such a degree that at this point it is almost not measurable. Everyday products we take for granted, our standard of living, things that entertain us, some way or another are all here in part thanks to the study of the universe and space exploration. Alone the advances we made in the study of physics thanks to the study of space will allow us to build weapons of unimaginable destructive power. How cool is that?

 

Anyway, back to the story. The professor had people raise their hands for who supported farther space explortion and who did not. About 25% of the class was against it and only one brave extremely handsome guy supported it...ME! I can only think to myself this thought: what a bunch of dopes! I know a good part of the room supported the ever so useful attack on Iraq or the recent Prescription Drug Plan, but the 800,000,000 dollar tax hike was too much. We are not talking about some insane increase in spending here. In the midst of a Mars mission, the cost of it would only be about twice of what NASA is spending now, and NASA is the singlemost smallest government bureaucracy in America. It has improved our standard of living and destructive power (our army would be inadequate without satellite technology) more than any of our other bureaucracies.

 

NASA, for the amount it spends, is extremely useful. Imagine if the money from the conquest and occupation of Iraq went purely towards space exploration. Just imagine. We can do so much with it. We can go to the Moon and Mars. We can build a super race of people on Mars and transport the population of Haiti to work on Martian sugar cane fields. We can build a gigantic laser that is more powerful than all the bombs we have on Earth, because it can destroy 5 earths instead of merely 1! We can than use that laser and enslave the planet. See, the price of dominating merely Iraq is too high when we can dominate the planet using NASA technology.

 

 

That's how powerful our technology is and it would be wrong to say that it can be used for good without acknowledging how our technology is used for evil. However, this does not detract from the overall usefullness of NASA and how much it not only improved technology, but our way of life. The advances we made is worth far more than what we are paying. We might never go to heaven, but we can reach for the heavens and to knowlingly not advance when one could is an act of idiocy.

 

Enjoy this article: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1059895/posts