Powerful Mars Orbiter Recovers From Glitch

by Tariq Malik, Senior Editor

Date: 09 June 2009 Time: 02:36 PM ET

Hello Mars, Meet 'MR. O': The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter passes over the planet's south polar region in this artist's concept illustration. The orbiter's shallow radar experiment, one of six science instruments on board, is designed to probe the internal structure of Mars' polar ice caps, as well as to gather information planet-wide about underground layers of ice, rock and, perhaps, liquid water that might be accessible from the surface. Phobos, one of Mars' two moons, appears in the upper left corner of the illustration. Image
CREDIT: NASA/JPL/Corby Waste

NASA has successfully revived its powerful Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter from a protective slumber following a glitch that silenced its science observations last week.

The spacecraft, which has been orbiting Mars since 2006, resumed its work to map and observe the red planet on Tuesday after days of hibernating in a precautionary safe mode.

?Engineers brought the spacecraft out of the standby mode on June 6,? said mission managers at NASA?s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in a statement. ?Cameras and other scientific instruments resumed operation June 9."

The Mars orbiter went on standby on June 3 after suddenly rebooting its main computer in a malfunction engineers suspect was caused by a hit from a stray cosmic ray or solar particle.

It was the sixth time the orbiter has entered safe mode, which is a self-defense mechanism that allows the spacecraft to essentially shut down and await instructions from Earth when a situation arises that its autonomous functions do not have a specific response for, mission managers said.

NASA engineers initially thought the culprit behind the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter?s recent computer malfunction was similar to the source of a Feb. 23 glitch, which they attributed to a cosmic ray or solar particle hitting the spacecraft?s sensitive electronics and causing a false power spike reading. But now they are not so sure.

?Engineers are re-investigating possible root causes for both events,? mission managers said. ?The new investigation includes reconsidering the likelihood of erroneous voltage readings resulting from cosmic rays or solar particles hitting an electronic component.?

NASA?s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launched in 2005 and arrived at the red planet a year later. It is the youngest orbiter currently circling the planet and has beamed home more data about Mars than all other Mars missions combined, NASA officials said.

The $720 million orbiter completed its initial two-year mission in 2008 and is currently in the midst of an extended mission that runs through 2010. In addition to mapping and observing Mars, the orbiter?s high-powered main camera has been hunting for potential landing sites for NASA?s next big mission, the nuclear-powered Curiosity rover, which is slated to launch in 2011.

While engineers worked to recover the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, another team is drawing plans to haul the waylaid Mars rover Spirit out of a deep sand dune on the planet?s surface.

Spirit has been stuck up to its six hubcaps in deep sand for more than a month, though its robotic twin Opportunity is currently doing well on the other side of Mars. Both long-lived rovers have been exploring Mars since they landed on the planet in 2004.

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