NASA's Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter has unexpectedly rebooted its main computer and entered
a protective safe mode after being hit by stray cosmic ray or solar particle as
while circling the red planet.
The event occurred
Wednesday night at 9:10 p.m. EDT (0110 June 4 GMT) and appears similar to a
glitch that stalled the powerful Mars
orbiter's science work in February, mission managers said.
"The flight
team is cautiously bringing the orbiter back to normal operations," orbiter
project manager Jim Erickson at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif., said in a statement released Thursday. "We should be resuming our exploration of Mars by
next week."
Erickson
said flight controllers are in contact with the beleaguered Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter, which is beaming home data and is otherwise in good shape.
The orbiter
has entered the so-called safe mode six times since it launched toward Mars in
2005. The mode is a safety precaution that allows the spacecraft to hunker down
and await instructions from Earth when it detects a condition that it does not
have a specific response for, mission managers said.
The Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter last entered safe mode on Feb. 23, when it detected a
power spike that ultimately turned out to be a false reading. Engineers later determined
that the erroneous
signal was most likely caused by a cosmic ray or solar particle hitting the
orbiter's sensitive electronics.
A similar event
is suspected in this week's malfunction, mission managers said.
The $720
million Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrived at the red planet in October 2006
and successfully completed its initial two-year mission in 2008. The probe's Mars
survey has since been extended through at least 2010.
The Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter is not the only ailing spacecraft currently at the red
planet. Down on the planet's surface, NASA's Mars
rover Spirit is stuck up to its hubcaps after snaring its six wheels in
deep Martian sand.
The rover recently
used a camera on its robotic arm to take a snapshot
of its belly so engineers can get a better look at its sandy quagmire. Engineers
are hopeful they can free the long-lived Spirit rover so that it can continue
its exploration of a region on Mars that scientists have dubbed "Home Plate."
Spirit and
its robotic twin Opportunity, which is working fine and recently passed the
10-mile mark in its own Martian
travels, have been exploring the red planet since 2004.
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