Mysterious glitch sends Mars orbiter offline

A mysterious glitch cropped up on March 9th, forcing NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) into a temporary “safe mode” as the craft made an impromptu computer swap. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California reports that the cause of the glitch is still under investigation, although the efforts are underway to restore the orbiter to peak operation.

 

MRO’s mission duration has reached eight years and seven months   
“The spacecraft is healthy, in communication and fully powered,” claimed JPL’s Dan Johnston, MRO Project Manager. “We have stepped up the communication data rate, and we plan to have the spacecraft back to full operations within a few days.”

MRO initially launched in August 2005, reaching Mars in March 2006. The $720 million orbiter has since gathered more data than all other interplanetary missions combined, according to NASA. The research gathered from MRO’s six science payloads, including the famous High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) will be offline for the duration of the repairs. Meanwhile, data gathering from NASA’s active Opportunity and Curiosity rovers will be diverted to the Mars Odyssey, a NASA orbiter circling the red planet since October 2001.

The glitch is by no means an isolated event; MRO has experienced four computer swaps and subsequent safe mode activations since its initial 2006 orbit, with the last swap occurring in November 2011. These safe modes are actually built into all robotic space missions as precautionary effects in the event of a computer or electrical malfunction. If one side, side “A”, appears to be failing, then MRO will swap to its “B” side, guaranteeing that a computer is always active. The safe mode is trigger to reduce the chance of permanent damage. Worth noting is that high-energy cosmic rays and other outside phenomenon can also cause the power strikes the initiate a safe mode; glitches do not always result internally.

Unique to March 9th’s swap is the inclusion of a redundant radio transponder, an irregular factor in the orbiter’s back-up tactics. The transponder will remain in a powered-up but inactive state while NASA teams continue to investigate the potential cause.

Story via Space.com