NASA: Spirit Rover Stops Sending Data
January 22, 2004
NASA’s Spirit rover stopped transmitting data from the surface of Mars for more than 24 hours, mission members said Thursday.
NASA last heard from Spirit early Wednesday. Since then, it has returned just random, meaningless data – and only then sporadically, scientists said. Initially, the scientists said they believed weather problems on Earth caused the glitch. They now said they believe the rover was experiencing hardware or software problems.
“This is a serious problem. This is an extremely serious anomaly,” project manager Pete Theisinger said.
Spirit is one half of a $820 million mission. Its twin, Opportunity, is scheduled to land on Mars on Saturday.