火星の2機目のローバーに電力低下【ロイター】

ミッション・マネージャーのジム・エリクソンによれば、常時稼働して夜に入ってもNASAからの命令なしで稼働させるための加熱ユニットの一つに電力低下が見られる。これによって不調のサーモスタットがローバーのオーバーヒートを引き起こすとは考えられないが、これが長引くとどうなるかや故障が回復できるかどうかは、いまのところわからないと述べた。

オポチュニティーはメリディアニ平原に問題なく着陸してから4日めの夜明けを迎えたところだった。

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=4222733

NASA Says Second Mars Rover Experiencing Problems
Tue January 27, 2004 06:47 PM ET
(Page 1 of 2)
By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - As NASA scientists pored over striking new photos from Mars revealing finely layered formations of ancient bedrock, engineers labored on Tuesday to diagnose problems with two robotic rovers on opposite sides of the Red Planet.

Besides a serious malfunction that has idled the first rover, Spirit, since last Wednesday, mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said they are now contending with a power drain on Spirit's newly arrived twin, Opportunity.

Mission manager Jim Erickson told reporters said the power loss appeared to be from one of the craft's heating units that keeps turning itself on and running overnight without receiving commands from NASA to do so.

While engineers do not believe the faulty thermostat will overheat the vehicle, the long-term consequences of the glitch and whether it can be fixed are not yet known, Erickson said.

"I'd like to have a little more information on what we're seeing from the vehicle before we make any judgments there," he said.

Otherwise, the rover was "in pretty good shape" as a new martian day, its fourth, dawned over Opportunity's landing site on a wide, flat plain known as the Meridiani Planum.

The area is of interest to scientists because it is believed to contain large deposits of an iron-bearing crystalline mineral called hematite, which on Earth usually forms in the presence of liquid water.

Both Opportunity and Spirit are equipped with a mobile laboratory of geologic tools designed to search for evidence that the barren martian surface was once wetter, and possibly more hospitable to life, than it is now.

ROCK LAYERS

The first three-dimensional, panoramic images beamed back from Opportunity showed an intriguing outcrop of exposed bedrock "in exquisite detail," said principal science investigator Steve Squyres of Cornell University.

The nearby bedrock formation, the first ever found on Mars, consists of fine layers, some no thicker than a finger, that are believed to be billions of years old, Squyres said. Also visible is a feature believed to be cross-bedding, in which the mineral layers lie at angles to the horizontal stack, which can form from cyclical patterns of sediments that build up, then partially erode away, then rebuild again. Continued ...
1| 2 Next
ｩ Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.

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フォローアップ:

• 火星探査車のプログラム復旧に奮闘する技術者にインタビュー（wired） エンセン 2004/2/03 17:28:49 (0)
• 火星探査車・オポチュニティーの画像 エンセン 2004/1/29 12:23:34 (0)

　

　

　

　

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