NASA Declares Mars Spirit Rover ‘Cured’

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) – NASA’s Spirit rover was declared cured Friday after repair of a problem with its computer’s flash memory system that stalled the wheeled robot for two weeks and threatened its mission to search for geologic evidence that Mars was once wetter and hospitable to life.

“I think I can say this morning with as much certainty as we can say anything here that our patient is healed,” Spirit mission manager Jennifer Trosper told a Jet Propulsion Laboratory news conference.

The rover, which was described as being in critical condition when it abruptly stopped sending science data to Earth, this week underwent a delicate process of deleting files and reformatting the flash memory.

“Of course it was a nerve-wracking being 200 million miles away and reformatting our flash but in the end the spacecraft did exactly what we wanted it to do, and it performed perfectly and it’s in great health right now,” Trosper said.

Spirit was able to resume science work on Thursday, she said.

Halfway around the planet, Spirit’s twin, Opportunity, was continuing to work well, scientists said.

NASA on Thursday sent Opportunity on a roll across a pebbly patch of Mars, moving the rover closer to a rock outcrop that scientists want it to spend several days studying in detail.

The 11-foot drive put the wheeled rover within striking distance of the rocky portion of the rim of the 72-foot wide crater in which it landed late last month. The move was Opportunity’s first since it rolled off its lander Saturday.

Opportunity needed to roll at least five more feet to put the slabs of bedrock within reach of its robotic arm, and a final “scoot” might be necessary to move the rover even closer, said scientist Larry Soderblom, of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Scientists skipped plans for the rover to dig into and analyze the martian soil on the way, opting instead to reach as quickly as possible a feature on the outcrop they have nicknamed “Snout.”

“Once we get there, we are going to do some pretty heavy remote sensing. It will be our first really good look at the outcrop,” said the mission’s main scientist, Cornell University astronomer Steve Squyres.

Opportunity’s keen-eyed cameras have already revealed fine-scaled layering in the rock formation, which could have been laid down in water. Its instruments should shed further light on the origin of the layers. NASA sent Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, on the $820 million mission to find geologic evidence of past water activity on Mars.

Spirit could begin rolling again by the weekend, moving toward a crater 800 feet away that could take a month to reach.

Scientists planned for Opportunity to spend several days at “Snout” and several more cruising alongside the band of rocks, Soderblom said.

Then Opportunity may turn its attention to the martian soil, spinning one of its front wheels to dig into a spot rich in the iron-bearing mineral hematite. Opportunity previously looked at a patch of soil elsewhere in its crater that contained very little of the iron oxide, which typically forms in liquid water.

Once done, Opportunity may turn back to the outcrop and re-examine select spots in further detail, Soderblom said.

“This is a very dynamic process,” Squyres said.

NASA also has pinpointed where Opportunity landed late last month, Theisinger said. The rover sits inside a shallow depression about 2,300 feet west of a larger crater, he said.

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On the Net: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov