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American Morning
NASA Will Spend Day Trying to Solve Software Problem With Spirit Rover
Aired January 23, 2004 - 08:10 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.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, there is word this morning from the European Space Agency that its Mars orbiter has detected ice at the Red Planet's south pole. This is not the first time that ice has been found on Mars. NASA first detected it at Mars' north pole in 2002. Meanwhile, NASA says its best chance to receive actual data from the Mars Spirit rover is between now and noon Eastern time. Spirit has not sent anything meaningful from the Martian surface since Wednesday.
Space correspondent Miles O'Brien has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A new day is dawning on the Spirit rover on the surface of Mars, and engineers here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are hoping it will bring better news for them as they try to awaken the spacecraft. Instead of getting back the typical data stream that they would like to see, images and scientific information, they got simply a beep tone. And that beep tone was indicative of big trouble on the Spirit rover.
But what sort of trouble? They don't know the answer to that just yet because they haven't had an opportunity to ask Spirit to send back crucial information on the engineering status of the rover. That is part of what will happen on this day, as the engineers begin the process of trying to communicate directly with Spirit in the hopes that they can revive it and try to diagnose the problem.
Of course, there is no good time for a problem like this to happen on any sort of spacecraft, particularly something on the surface of Mars. But in this case, the team is really stretched thin because we're now just a day away from the arrival of its twin, the Opportunity rover, set to land on the other side of Mars on Saturday night local time.
The team here is trying to focus on both the problem on Spirit and a safe landing for Opportunity. It's a big juggling act here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Miles O'Brien, CNN, Pasadena, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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Spirit Rover>
Aired January 23, 2004 - 08:10 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, there is word this morning from the European Space Agency that its Mars orbiter has detected ice at the Red Planet's south pole. This is not the first time that ice has been found on Mars. NASA first detected it at Mars' north pole in 2002. Meanwhile, NASA says its best chance to receive actual data from the Mars Spirit rover is between now and noon Eastern time. Spirit has not sent anything meaningful from the Martian surface since Wednesday.
Space correspondent Miles O'Brien has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A new day is dawning on the Spirit rover on the surface of Mars, and engineers here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are hoping it will bring better news for them as they try to awaken the spacecraft. Instead of getting back the typical data stream that they would like to see, images and scientific information, they got simply a beep tone. And that beep tone was indicative of big trouble on the Spirit rover.
But what sort of trouble? They don't know the answer to that just yet because they haven't had an opportunity to ask Spirit to send back crucial information on the engineering status of the rover. That is part of what will happen on this day, as the engineers begin the process of trying to communicate directly with Spirit in the hopes that they can revive it and try to diagnose the problem.
Of course, there is no good time for a problem like this to happen on any sort of spacecraft, particularly something on the surface of Mars. But in this case, the team is really stretched thin because we're now just a day away from the arrival of its twin, the Opportunity rover, set to land on the other side of Mars on Saturday night local time.
The team here is trying to focus on both the problem on Spirit and a safe landing for Opportunity. It's a big juggling act here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Miles O'Brien, CNN, Pasadena, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Spirit Rover>
