NASA engineers are scratching their heads over some unexpected behavior from the long-lived Spirit rover, which began its sixth year exploring Mars this month.
Last weekend, Spirit failed to report in to engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., prompting a series of diagnostic tests this week to hunt the glitch’s source. The aging Mars rover did not beam home a record of its weekend activities and, more puzzlingly, apparently failed to record any of its actions on Sunday, mission managers said.
The little rover that could
More on the rover Spirit’s finicky behavior
Ashley is hot but I think she ought to put the coffee down for a few minutes.
I would say that Spirit isn’t a teenager, but suffering from the common old age problem of CRS.
I hope this is just a temporary problem.
These two rovers have far exceeded expectations.
Guard SGT (ret)