NASA's Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter has bounced back from a phantom power surge that stalled
its science operations at the red planet last week.
The
spacecraft, NASA's youngest
orbiter at Mars, resumed its red planet reconnaissance duties on Tuesday
after engineers sent commands to power up its eight science instruments.
"We have proceeded cautiously, checking the health and performance of the
spacecraft at each step as we brought it back to full, normal operations,"
said Dan Johnston, mission manager for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.
The Mars
probe's maladies began on Feb. 23, when the spacecraft reported a voltage
spike that triggered a computer reboot and forced the orbiter to enter a protective
"safe mode" to avoid further damage. But the voltage reading was apparently
false, and may have been sparked by high-energy cosmic ray striking the Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter.
After a
series of ground-based tests and simulations, NASA engineers ordered the
orbiter to shift out of its "safe mode" on Saturday, then sent commands on
Monday to restore science operations. The spacecraft resumed scanning Mars with
its camera eyes and other instruments.
Launched in
August 2005, the $720 million Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
has been circling the red planet since 2006 and successfully completed its initial
two-year mission last December. The spacecraft is now in the midst of a
two-year extension to continue mapping the Martian surface through 2010.
With the
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter problem solved, JPL engineers are preparing to
tackle a long-standing vulnerability with another red planet probe - the Mars Odyssey
orbiter. Engineers are planning a risky
computer reboot for the aging Mars Odyssey next week to eliminate a known vulnerability
memory in the spacecraft's memory system. Odyssey's mission began in April
2001, with the spacecraft currently in its third two-year extension.
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