[Space] NASA - Mars Exploration Rover MER-A "Spirit" - Update Thread

[GioFX]

Originariamente inviato da devis
Gio,sai dirmi che hardware (cpu, qta ram ecc) monta il lander?

Tutto l'elettronica di controllo e il computer di volo (flight computer) è contenuta nel WEB (Warm Electronics Box):



si trattatta di un box termocontrollato necessario per far resistere l'elettornica alle rigidissime temperature della notte (che possono scendere a -96° C).

Il computer vero e proprio è il REM (Rover Electronics Module). Per comunicare con gli strumenti e i sensori esterni utilizza un particolare bus progettato ad hoc per la missione, chiamato VME (Versa Module Europa). Vi sono 3 tipi di memorie:

- 128 MB di DRAM di tipo ECC (con controllo e correzione errori), usata in real-time mode. Volatile

- 3 MB di EEPROM, usata per immagazzinare parte del software di volo

- Memoria flash (quantità non nota), per l'immagazzinamento di altra parte del software di controllo delle operazioni e della telemetria e delle immagini.

Tutta la memoria è estremamente sofisticata, ed è appositamente studiata per sopportare le condizioni estreme di un viaggio interplanetario e di lavorare in presenza di forti tempeste di radiazioni.

Per il processore non so dirti, non ci sono dati precisi in merito (penso sia sviluppato dallo stesso JPL o dal Caltech).

[devis]

Grazie per l'esuariente spiegazione

Per la CPU ho letto, per esempio, che il vecchio Sojourner aveva un preistorico Intel 80C85 . Spero che anche per i MER lo si venga a sapere

[GioFX]

Spirit's Hidden Secrets: Trapped Within the Rover, Unique Data Captured with Mars Express

By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 04:30 pm ET
26 January 2004

PASADENA, Calif. -- As it silently sits in Gusev Crater, NASA’s Spirit Mars rover is frozen in time. It holds in its memory files unique data that can help unlock the secrets about Mars rocks and the planet's atmosphere, including a rare combination analysis completed with the help of the European Space Agency's Mars Express.

On Wednesday, January 21, Spirit was preparing to run its Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT), a grinding device that removes dust and weathered rock, on the exposed fresh rock "Adirondack" when the robot came to a screeching halt. The leading theory is that the robot suffered a breakdown in software that controls file management of its memory.

Right now, Ron Greeley, a Science Operations Working Group Chair for the rover effort from Arizona State University in Tempe, and others in his group are trying to figure out what data could be in memory, and of those data, what’s the prioritization.

"We’ve been looking at what are the things that we want to get back. There are some things that are unique data [that] we’ll never have a chance to get again," Greeley said.

"We’re working through what might be in memory, " said Greeley. "So if there’s any choice, we want this first, then this, then this…and work down the list that way."


Mars Express and Spirit Data

Held tight in Spirit’s memory software are choice science products. That library of knowledge includes first looks at the Adirondack rock using the Mössbauer Spectrometer and Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer, called the APXS for short.

When Spirit is brought back to health, scientists want to move ahead and use the RAT on Adirondack. But the pre-RAT spectrometer data is important for before-and-after comparisons. So that data set is a very high priority, Greeley said.

Both the Mössbauer Spectrometer and the APXS units have built-in memory. But that information is relayed through Spirit’s central brain control. These instruments could be re-queried, but it would take many hours to regain the same data that could be lost.

But Greeley also pointed out that a unique set of data onboard Spirit involves the overhead pass of Europe’s Mars Express. There was coordination of Spirit looking up while Mars Express instruments looked down on the site. Doing so would give scientists a one-of-a-kind profile in time of atmospheric particles in the Gusev Crater region, he said.

"There’s nothing absolutely critical," said Jim Bell, Payload Element Lead for the MER Panoramic Camera (Pan Cam) from Cornell University. "If they have to pull the plug…so be it…if we need to do that to move on. Maybe the worst hit would be those measurements taken during the Mars Express over flight. We were taking data the same time they were."

"We got back the little thumbnails [of data], but we didn’t get back many of the big full-frame images from that sequence. And that can’t be repeated until the next time that spacecraft flies over. But if that’s the worst that we lose some of that data, it’s not going to affect mission success," Bell said. "We don’t want to lose any data of course."


Spirit in rehab

Things are progressing well here at JPL in trying to regain Spirit’s sensibility.

Troubleshooting is going on around-the-clock, said Jennifer Trosper, JPL’s MER Mission Manager. It could be two-to-three weeks of work before Spirit is back in a driving state, she said today at an early morning press briefing.

From its early flat-lined medical condition, Spirit is now in rehab, Trosper said.

Too many memory files, too many tasks being fulfilled, and not enough deleting of less-needed data appears to have conspired to upset Spirit.

"For this mission to be successful, a lot of things have to happen at the same time," said Bell "There were 18 days in a row of this ballet of the engineers, the scientists, the data management people, and the software people -- all working together juggling everything," he added.

Bell said he doesn’t think Spirit’s situation was brought about by overworked or tired personnel, or somebody hit the wrong button. "I don’t think that’s the situation," he said.

Also locked within Spirit’s memory are older Pan Cam shots when Spirit still sat on its lander. There are some pieces of a horizon panorama too, and pictures of the robot’s arm deploying science instruments.


Deep space gremlins

Spirit has already delivered an amazing legacy of scientific data, with by far the best images and spectra ever obtained for another world," said James Garvin, NASA Lead Scientist for Mars Exploration within the Office of Space Science in Washington, D.C.

"I am literally speechless over what it has achieved in only 18 sols of science operations, intermixed with many steps to get moving on the real Mars. And over the next weeks to months, I am confident the MER science team will uncover some of the mysteries of Mars, from the nature of the soils…to the basic chemistry and mineralogy of local materials," Garvin told SPACE.com .

"I believe that our team will get Spirit moving again, doing science and delivering on its promise," Garvin said. "We have only begun to fight the ‘deep space gremlins’ and Spirit will be back in business."

[devis]

Un'altra cosa: ci sono novità sulle missioni in cui si preleva del materiale per poi riportarli sulla terra ?

[gegeg]

Lo spirit ha sicuramente un Intel come cpu, percio' s'e' bloccato, se avesse avuto un AMD non si sarebbe trovato in queste condizioni. Cosa ? E' tardi ? Vabbe' vado a nanna !

[jumpermax]

Originariamente inviato da gegeg
Lo spirit ha sicuramente un Intel come cpu, percio' s'e' bloccato, se avesse avuto un AMD non si sarebbe trovato in queste condizioni. Cosa ? E' tardi ? Vabbe' vado a nanna !

a dire il vero monta dei G4...

[GioFX]

Originariamente inviato da devis
Un'altra cosa: ci sono novità sulle missioni in cui si preleva del materiale per poi riportarli sulla terra ?

Per quanto riguarda Marte, sono stati già avviati programmi che prevedono il recupero e il ritorno a terra di campioni di roccie, come l'europeo Aurora...

per quanto riguarda gli asteroidi, attualmente sono due le missioni in corso, Stardust della NASA e Rosetta dell'ESA.

La prima è stata lanciata il 7 frebbraio 1999, ha raccolto la prima polvere interstellare tra febbraio e marzo del 2000 e la seconda tra agosto e dicembre del 2002, ha incontrato l'asteroide Annefrank il 2 novembre 2002 e infine ha incontrato finalmente la cometa oggetto primario della missione, Wild 2, il 2 gennaio 2004.

Il ritorno della capsula con il campione di polvere è previsto per il 15 gennaio 2006.


La seconda missione, Rosetta, non prevede di ritornare a terra un campione, ma di depositare un lander sulla cometa 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko e di studiarla con esso e con l'orbiter circa 3 anni.

Verrà lanciata il 26 febbraio 2004, farà il primo "fly-by" della terra nel novembre 2005, il sorvolo di marte nel febbraio 2007, il secondo della terra nel novembre 2007, il terzo nel novembre 2009 e poi verso la cometa con incontro previsto per il gennaio-marggio 2014, discesa del lander nel novembre 2014 e la fine missione per il 2015 (seguendo la cometa attorno al sole).

[GioFX]

Originariamente inviato da jumpermax
a dire il vero monta dei G4...

Veramente monta un RAD6000 (32-bit di tipo RISC).

[GioFX]

Originariamente inviato da devis
Spero che anche per i MER lo si venga a sapere

E' un RAD6000 RISC a 32-bit della Bae Systems.

[devis]

http://www.iews.na.baesystems.com/sp...6000_sbsc.html

http://www.iews.na.baesystems.com/sp...sers_guide.pdf

[jumpermax]

Originariamente inviato da GioFX
E' un RAD6000 RISC a 32-bit della Bae Systems.

si hai ragione, volevo dire un powerPC è della stessa famiglia dei processori che usano i mac oggi...

The rovers use a RAD6000 computer produced by BAE systems. This processor is nearly identical in architecture to an old PowerPC processor used in early Macintosh computers. By today's standards, these processors are slow. They run at 20 megahertz, about 1/100th the speed of a typical desktop computer today. They have 128 kilobytes (KB) of RAM, 256 KB of flash memory and some ROM to hold the boot code and operating system. There are no disk drives.

[GioFX]

MONDAY, JANUARY 26, 2004

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit appeared to be teetering on the brink of failure last week when ground controllers lost contact with the craft sitting in Gusev Crater, its arm extended to a rock as the scientific adventure was beginning. Now, engineers are cautiously hopeful that Spirit will soon be restored to full working order.

[GioFX]

Reconstructing Spirit's hopeful road to recovery

BY SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: January 26, 2004

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit appeared to be teetering on the brink of failure last week when ground controllers lost contact with the craft sitting in Gusev Crater, its arm extended to a rock as the scientific adventure was beginning. Now, engineers are cautiously hopeful that Spirit will soon be restored to full working order.

"Spirit is doing better. It is kind of like we have a patient in re-hab here, and we are nursing her back to health," Jennifer Trosper, rover mission manager, said Monday.


http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/images/040126trosper.jpg

It is now believed that the rover's flash memory had become so full of files that the craft couldn't manage all of the information stored aboard. Spirit bogged down because it didn't have enough random access memory, or RAM, to handle the current amount of files in the flash -- including data recorded during its cruise from Earth to Mars and the 18 days of operations on the red planet's surface.

"I think we just found an issue with the number of files that eventually were on the spacecraft at this time in the mission that we were unaware of because of the accumulation that happened over the course of cruise and the 18 sols on the surface," Trosper said.

Flash memory is used in electronics, such as digital cameras, because it retains stored information even when the power is turned off. The rover also has random access memory, which doesn't keep stored data when the rover goes to sleep each night.

Controllers are preparing to delete hundreds of cruise files in hopes of lessening the burden.

"We don't know yet whether Spirit will be perfect again. Our current theory is one in which software would fix the problem," Trosper said. "There are other health checks that we have to do with the flash, the high-gain antenna, the Pancam Mast Assembly and the motor control board to make sure our current theory fully checks out."

Some triggering event, not yet fully pinpointed, caused the rover's computer brain to begin a continuous series of resets until engineers on Earth were able to regain control of the craft late last week.

"You have to keep in mind that the problem we've had actually is associated with our ability to collect and maintain recorded data (on the rover). So the flash memory where we store this data that would tell us what had happened over the past days actually is part of the problem we are seeing. So we don't have a lot of information," Trosper told reporters at the daily spacecraft status briefing Monday.

"Let me go back to Sol 18 and tell you a little bit about what we think happened -- to try and reconstruct it. As we get more data, I guarantee you that some of these things will change, but let me tell you what we think today," Trosper said, launching into a detailed explanation that begins last Wednesday.

"Sol 18 we had some weather problems at the (Earth communications) station, and about 10 minutes early for the morning antenna pass we lost the signal. It wasn't clear whether that was the result of a spacecraft problem or a station problem.

"We've done some tracking of that, it's still not completely clear, but it's entirely possible that was a spacecraft problem at that time. We believe that was possibly a reset on the spacecraft that would've caused our signal to be lost when...the software would reset and come up and power off all of the loads and put itself into a safe state.

"Due to the reset, we have actually confirmed that the morning activities that we were trying to do that morning did not complete. So if you recall, we were moving the IDD (science arm), getting ready to (use the Rock Abrasion Tool). The IDD, the arm, position is actually in the same position it was on Sol 18 before we attempted to do that move.


This image from last week shows Spirit probing its first target rock, Adirondack. The rover's arm remains extended while controllers try to restore the craft to normal operations. Credit: NASA/JPL

"Some time the morning, early afternoon of Sol 18 (Wednesday) we encountered the problem. That problem, initially, was most likely a reset. We don't understand exactly where that reset came from but we have some ideas. It caused us to get into this belief that the flash system was corrupted in a way that we got into continuous reset loops.

"Then in the afternoon, we actually sent a command sequence to the vehicle with a little bleep in it to tell us that the sequence got there. We sent that sequence and got the bleep with no problems.

"Twenty minutes after that we expected to see a session from the vehicle on the high-gain antenna communicating with us. We had been on the high-gain antenna since Sol 2. We didn't see that communications session. That, in addition to the 10 minute drop out early in the morning, that was one of the early indications that there was something wrong.

"In the afternoon Odyssey pass we did not see any data from the vehicle. The early Sol 19 (Thursday) morning MGS (Mars Global Surveyor) pass, we only saw two minutes of data from vehicle and it wasn't really data from the vehicle -- it was 'the UHF radio was on and nobody was home' kind of data. And then the morning Odyssey pass we received no data.

"On Sol 20 (Friday) in the morning we attempted to command the rover at the nominal uplink rate where it should be if everything is fine, and we received no data. We have pre-loaded communications windows when the rover should attempt to communicate with us and those windows did not execute on the morning of Sol 20.

"One of the things that the vehicle will do if it encounters a system-level fault is change the rate at it will accept commands, and that is for the vehicle's protection as well as for our knowledge. And so in the afternoon we sent a command at a different rate for the vehicle to send us a beep, and we actually got that beep back. The rate we sent it at was a rate that the software would have autonomously put us in if it had some sort of system-level fault. So we knew at that point that there were about four scenarios that would put us at that rate and we started to go down that path of those four scenarios.

"Then we didn't receive data in the overnight UHF passes that night.

"On Sol 21 (Saturday) we were actually trying to establish the same commandability we had the previous day -- we now knew that there was a system-level fault, we didn't know if it was a power issue, if it was a thermal issue, if it was an X-band communications issue. So we sent, essentially, the same command to get a beep on the morning of Sol 21 and we didn't get the beep.

"Then, as we were getting ready to send the next beep command, the vehicle decided to communicate with us in one of its nominal communications windows at which point we got a little bit of data that had very little information in it. In fact, originally we started to decode it and it was from the year 2053 and we thought 'this is not good!' Eventually we found out the data was corrupted, and we were all cheering at that point because there weren't a lot of scenarios that would put us in 2053 on Mars.

"That signal actually dropped out nine minutes or 10 minutes after we got it. And that was at 10 bits per second, so there was very little data and the data we got was corrupted.

"We sent another command to the spacecraft to give us a 30-minute communications session at 120 bits per second. And that command was received and we got the signal on the ground -- we got one frame of data, which told us that it was sending us data. Then it stopped. And that session then ended about 10 minutes early.

"We tried the same thing again and we modified some of the parameters in the command to try and get a different set of data. That different set of data actually gave us a very limited state of the current state of the vehicle -- some channelized telemetry. It told us how many flight software resets happened over the course of those two nights and that's where the big 77 numbers came from, and we realized we had a reset problem, that certain tasks were failing and it was keeping us from doing the communications that we intended to do.

"As a result of that knowledge, we also realized the vehicle may not have shut down because the reset could be associated with the shutdown of the vehicle. So we attempted to shut the vehicle down, and then we send a beep after shutdown to make sure it has shut down. [The rover would not reply with a beep if it was asleep.]

"It's sort of like feast or famine -- we didn't hear from it for a day-and-a-half and then we shut it down and we send a beep and we get the beep, then we shut it down again and send a beep and we get the beep, and then we shut it down again and send a beep and we get the beep. The vehicle was clearly not able to shut itself down and the reset was causing a problem with the shutdown.

"We knew that the power system was struggling, the battery wasn't charged as much as we expected it to be or wanted it to be. So we deleted our overnight UHF passes in case the vehicle decided to do them -- or attempted to. In the same way the reset cycle had caused those commands not to get in and so we got the first Odyssey UHF pass when we had hoped not to hear from the vehicle because we did want it to be asleep and charge the batteries.

"We asked Odyssey and MGS to turn off their radio beacons so (Spirit) didn't use that energy during the night to transmit because we were getting close to entering our low-power mode. Low-power mode is the mode that will safe the vehicle, take the batteries off-line and sit there, basically, and bask in the sun until the voltage gets high enough for the vehicle to wake up.

"So we woke up the morning of Sol 21 (Saturday) on solar array wake up and saw that we had indeed entered low-power mode and the fault protection had worked exactly as designed. In the low-power mode we don't get our morning communications session until about 11 a.m. because that is when the sun is nice and high, the Earth is nice and high (in the sky) and you can get good data rates and transmit.

"And in that we realized that we had this reset problem. Based on just kind of the hunch of our lead software architect, he believed that the problem was probably associated with the mounting of flash and initialization. There is a hardware command that we can send that bypasses the software where we can actually tell the hardware to not allow us to mount flash on initialization. When we the next day actually sent the command to do that, software initialized normally and was behaving like the software that we had always known. It was a fantastic moment.

"Once we got into the mode where we could command the vehicle to get into a software state that we understood, then we were able to collect data. That is the path that we are on right now.

"Right now, our most likely candidate for the issue has been narrowed down a little bit. It is really an issue with the file system in flash. Essentially, the amount of space required in RAM to manage all of the files we have in flash is apparently more than we initially anticipated.

"We have been collecting data and collecting data thanks to (the science team) and we have lots and lots of files on the spacecraft. That's good -- we intended to have lots and lots of files on the spacecraft. This is a new problem that we encountered based on having many files.

"We are currently in a much more specific debugging activity. Today (Monday), we started to dump out some of flash. We are actually loading a script that we get kind of the task trace on the software and identify exactly where the problem was in the code so we can make sure that our hunch is correct.

"Tomorrow, we are might try to access flash and do a little bit of a health check on it. The next day we might try to delete some files to see if our hunch is correct that it's really due to the number of files that we are trying to manage on the flash file system.

"And in parallel we are trying to work a less likely scenario that something happened with the high-gain antenna and the motor control board when we were doing this engineering checkout of the Mini-TES elevation actuator (Wednesday morning). We are still working that as well to make sure that we can get back on the high-gain antenna in a very cautious way.

"In summary, I would like to say that -- as it has always been -- it's humbling to work with a team of such excellent people. I just want to tell you the folks who are working on the details of this problem are the best of the best in the world that we have. Everyday when I come into work, their innovation, their persistence, their talent and their hard work has almost overwhelmed me and certainly humbles me. But that is what has got us where we are today and that's what is going to get us to having a healthy rover on the surface shortly."

[gpc]

"Then, as we were getting ready to send the next beep command, the vehicle decided to communicate with us in one of its nominal communications windows at which point we got a little bit of data that had very little information in it. In fact, originally we started to decode it and it was from the year 2053 and we thought 'this is not good!' Eventually we found out the data was corrupted, and we were all cheering at that point because there weren't a lot of scenarios that would put us in 2053 on Mars. "

ahahahahah

[Oaichehai]

Originariamente inviato da gpc
ahahahahah

se qualcuno (GioFX? ) mi fa la traduzione di tutto, magari partecipo pure io alle risate

[gpc]

Originariamente inviato da Oaichehai
se qualcuno (GioFX? ) mi fa la traduzione di tutto, magari partecipo pure io alle risate

"Then, as we were getting ready to send the next beep command, the vehicle decided to communicate with us in one of its nominal communications windows at which point we got a little bit of data that had very little information in it. In fact, originally we started to decode it and it was from the year 2053 and we thought 'this is not good!' Eventually we found out the data was corrupted, and we were all cheering at that point because there weren't a lot of scenarios that would put us in 2053 on Mars. "

Quindi, quando eravamo pronti a mandare il successimo comando "beep", il veicolo ha deciso di comunicare con noi in una delle sue finestre nominali di comunicazione, e a quel punto abbiamo ricevuto qualche bit di informazione con veramente poche informazioni all'interno. In effetti, all'inizio abbiamo iniziato a decodificarle ed e' risultato che arrivavano dall'anno 2053 e abbiamo pensato "questo non e' buono" ( NdT). Sucessivamente abbiamo determinato che i dati erano corrotti, e stavamo tutti sorridendo a quel punto, perche' non c'erano molti scenari (di guasti possibili, intendo io) che ci avrebbe fatto stare nel 2053 su marte ( ri NdT)"

[Oaichehai]

grazie, ora posso ridere pure io

[GioFX]

Martian landmarks dedicated to Apollo 1 crew

NASA ANNOUNCEMENT
Posted: January 27, 2004

NASA memorialized the Apollo 1 crew -- Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee -- by dedicating the hills surrounding the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit's landing site to the astronauts. The crew of Apollo 1 perished in flash fire during a launch pad test of their Apollo spacecraft 37 years ago today.


The hills named for Chaffee and Grissom as seen by Spirit's panoramic camera. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell

"Through recorded history explorers have had both the honor and responsibility of naming significant landmarks," said NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe. "Gus, Ed and Roger's contributions, as much as their sacrifice, helped make our giant leap for mankind possible. Today, as America strides towards our next giant leap, NASA and the Mars Exploration Rover team created a fitting tribute to these brave explorers and their legacy."

Newly christened "Grissom Hill" is located 7.5 kilometers (4.7 miles) to the southwest of Spirit's position. "White Hill" is 11.2 kilometers (7 miles) northwest of its position and "Chaffee Hill" is 14.3 kilometers (8.9 miles) south-southwest of rover's position.

Lt. Colonel Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom was a U.S. Air Force test pilot when he was selected in 1959 as one of NASA's Original Seven Mercury Astronauts. On July 21, 1961, Grissom became the second American and third human in space when he piloted Liberty Bell 7 on a 15 minute sub-orbital flight. On March 23, 1965 he became the first human to make the voyage to space twice when he commanded the first manned flight of the Gemini space program, Gemini 3. Selected as commander of the first manned Apollo mission, Grissom perished along with White and Chaffee in the Apollo 1 fire. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Va.


The hill dedicated to White as seen by Spirit's panoramic camera. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell

Captain Edward White was a US Air Force test pilot when selected in 1962 as a member of the "Next Nine," NASA's second astronaut selection. On June 3, 1965, White became the first American to walk in space during the flight of Gemini 4. Selected as senior pilot for the first manned Apollo mission, White perished along with Grissom and Chaffee in the Apollo 1 fire. He is buried at his alma mater, the United States Military Academy, West Point, N.Y.

Selected in 1963 as a member of NASA's third astronaut class, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Roger Chaffee worked as a Gemini capsule communicator. He also researched flight control communications systems, instrumentation systems, and attitude and translation control systems for the Apollo Branch of the Astronaut office. On March 21, 1966, he was selected as pilot for the first 3-man Apollo flight. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Va.


http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/images/040127apollohills.jpg

[gpc]

Ma hai postato uguale nei due thread?

Ci sono notizie sullo stato dello Spirit? Io non ne ho trovate...

[gpc]

maledetti doppi post...