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Mars Rover Rebound?

Aired January 23, 2004 - 15:04   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, signs of life from the surface of Mars. The rover Spirit back in communication, but only briefly. The folks at NASA hoping they'll hear some more.
Standing by live with more details in Pasadena, our Miles O'Brien.

Hi, Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, Kyra.

Each time they speak with Spirit, they get a little more information and they get a little more data per second. The bandwidth increases. That's the technical term. But, essentially, what that means is, slowly but surely, kind of turning up the rheostat on a full communication with Spirit. Each time they get a little more information, they become just a little more mystified, however, as to what's going on there.

Spirit, over the past 24 hours, has gone through about 60 resets, kind of a computer reboot analogy. Every time it tries to spool up its software, which controls what it does on the surface of Mars, something kind of trips it up along the way. But what mystifies engineers here is, it doesn't seem to be the same thing every time.

But what that does lead them to believe is, there's a piece of hardware there that is causing a problem, very difficult to fix hardware when you're 100 million miles away. If you want to use a medical analogy on this one, the patient is in critical condition.

Listen to Pete Theisinger, one of the main players here. All right, we'll try to listen to Pete Theisinger some other time. What he does say is that the patient's in critical condition. And to sum it all up, his sense of where things are, the chances of Spirit coming back to perfection, as it was for its first 17 days on the surface of Mars, slim. The chances of it being completely dead, also slim.

So somewhere in the middle is where the Spirit mission is headed. But what is good news is, Spirit is in a stable condition now as the team prepares for the landing of its twin, Opportunity. That's going to happen tomorrow night, Eastern time.

They released a few images of the Spirit landing. I just want to share them with you quickly, if we can go to live pictures here through our Telestrator and you know how it bounced. As you know, Spirit came down inside a big inflatable bag. And, as it came down, it did a multiple bounce pattern, with one bounce that happened right in the midst of this crater. And that was a bounce that really could have taken it out. It certainly put a little bit of English on it, if you will.

A couple of other interesting shots that they released of that image. On the right of your screen is an image from an orbiting satellite. This comes from the Mars Global Surveyor about 200 miles above the surface. This is a self-portrait of Spirit before it left its landing pad. You can see the similarities in shape. They're actually able to see the lander from the orbiter, which helps them, of course, know exactly how to chart out their plan.

There's some more of those orbiting pictures. And just to give you the big picture, lower part of your screen, that's the lander/rover there. Upper part of the screen there, there's the parachute. And over here is where the heat shield landed. This helps the team, because this gives them an opportunity to figure out what direction they're going to go in by figuring out precisely where Spirit is and what the lay of the land is.

It's not as simple, of course, as just getting out a map when you're on a place that is uncharted -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Speaking of uncharted, I think it will be a first for all of us, including our viewers, grabbing the 3-D glasses and seeing some pretty special pictures tonight, Miles.

O'BRIEN: We are. We are. As a matter of fact, I'm going to reach down here. And here they are.

PHILLIPS: Imagine that. You have them with you.

O'BRIEN: The 3-D glasses. And I look at you now and just see a

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIPS: Do you see me reaching out and grabbing you?

(LAUGHTER)

O'BRIEN: Yes. This is it.

In any case, we are attempting -- this is, as far as we know, a television first -- to bring Mars to viewers fully in 3-D. And we, quite frankly, don't know if it's going to work. But if these guys are willing to try landing a robot on Mars 100 million miles away, what the heck. We can try this, right?

In any case, that will be at 10:00 p.m. Eastern tonight. "NEWSNIGHT WITH AARON BROWN" is the program. And I can tell you this. We have done everything humanly possible to make this work.

PHILLIPS: To make this work.

O'BRIEN: And you will have to watch and judge for yourself, Kyra. I'm sure I will hear from you.

PHILLIPS: Oh, you know you will. We'll be watching.

Thank you, Miles.

O'BRIEN: OK. All right.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired January 23, 2004 - 15:04   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, signs of life from the surface of Mars. The rover Spirit back in communication, but only briefly. The folks at NASA hoping they'll hear some more.
Standing by live with more details in Pasadena, our Miles O'Brien.

Hi, Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, Kyra.

Each time they speak with Spirit, they get a little more information and they get a little more data per second. The bandwidth increases. That's the technical term. But, essentially, what that means is, slowly but surely, kind of turning up the rheostat on a full communication with Spirit. Each time they get a little more information, they become just a little more mystified, however, as to what's going on there.

Spirit, over the past 24 hours, has gone through about 60 resets, kind of a computer reboot analogy. Every time it tries to spool up its software, which controls what it does on the surface of Mars, something kind of trips it up along the way. But what mystifies engineers here is, it doesn't seem to be the same thing every time.

But what that does lead them to believe is, there's a piece of hardware there that is causing a problem, very difficult to fix hardware when you're 100 million miles away. If you want to use a medical analogy on this one, the patient is in critical condition.

Listen to Pete Theisinger, one of the main players here. All right, we'll try to listen to Pete Theisinger some other time. What he does say is that the patient's in critical condition. And to sum it all up, his sense of where things are, the chances of Spirit coming back to perfection, as it was for its first 17 days on the surface of Mars, slim. The chances of it being completely dead, also slim.

So somewhere in the middle is where the Spirit mission is headed. But what is good news is, Spirit is in a stable condition now as the team prepares for the landing of its twin, Opportunity. That's going to happen tomorrow night, Eastern time.

They released a few images of the Spirit landing. I just want to share them with you quickly, if we can go to live pictures here through our Telestrator and you know how it bounced. As you know, Spirit came down inside a big inflatable bag. And, as it came down, it did a multiple bounce pattern, with one bounce that happened right in the midst of this crater. And that was a bounce that really could have taken it out. It certainly put a little bit of English on it, if you will.

A couple of other interesting shots that they released of that image. On the right of your screen is an image from an orbiting satellite. This comes from the Mars Global Surveyor about 200 miles above the surface. This is a self-portrait of Spirit before it left its landing pad. You can see the similarities in shape. They're actually able to see the lander from the orbiter, which helps them, of course, know exactly how to chart out their plan.

There's some more of those orbiting pictures. And just to give you the big picture, lower part of your screen, that's the lander/rover there. Upper part of the screen there, there's the parachute. And over here is where the heat shield landed. This helps the team, because this gives them an opportunity to figure out what direction they're going to go in by figuring out precisely where Spirit is and what the lay of the land is.

It's not as simple, of course, as just getting out a map when you're on a place that is uncharted -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Speaking of uncharted, I think it will be a first for all of us, including our viewers, grabbing the 3-D glasses and seeing some pretty special pictures tonight, Miles.

O'BRIEN: We are. We are. As a matter of fact, I'm going to reach down here. And here they are.

PHILLIPS: Imagine that. You have them with you.

O'BRIEN: The 3-D glasses. And I look at you now and just see a

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIPS: Do you see me reaching out and grabbing you?

(LAUGHTER)

O'BRIEN: Yes. This is it.

In any case, we are attempting -- this is, as far as we know, a television first -- to bring Mars to viewers fully in 3-D. And we, quite frankly, don't know if it's going to work. But if these guys are willing to try landing a robot on Mars 100 million miles away, what the heck. We can try this, right?

In any case, that will be at 10:00 p.m. Eastern tonight. "NEWSNIGHT WITH AARON BROWN" is the program. And I can tell you this. We have done everything humanly possible to make this work.

PHILLIPS: To make this work.

O'BRIEN: And you will have to watch and judge for yourself, Kyra. I'm sure I will hear from you.

PHILLIPS: Oh, you know you will. We'll be watching.

Thank you, Miles.

O'BRIEN: OK. All right.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com