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Mars-Bound Spaceship Experiencing Technical Issues

posted by Fnord666 on Friday July 31 2020, @06:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-nominal dept.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

Mars-bound spaceship experiencing technical issues: NASA:

Mars 2020, the spaceship carrying NASA's new rover Perseverance to the Red Planet, is experiencing technical difficulties and is running on essential systems only, the agency said Thursday.

"Data indicate the spacecraft had entered a state known as safe mode, likely because a part of the spacecraft was a little colder than expected while Mars 2020 was in Earth's shadow," NASA said.

The spaceship has left Earth's shadow and the temperatures are now normal.

[...] Matt Wallace, the mission's deputy project manager, said that the fact that the spaceship had entered safe mode was not overly concerning.

"That's perfectly fine, the spacecraft is happy there," he said. "The team is working through that telemetry, they're going to look through the rest of the spacecraft health. "So far, everything I've seen looks good, so we'll know more in a little bit."

Related:
Perseverance, Ingenuity begin seven month journey to Mars
Atlas 5 launches Mars 2020 mission

Previously:
Mars 2020 Rover to Include a Mars Helicopter
Mars Helicopter Enters Final Testing
Mars Mission Readies Tiny Chopper for Red Planet Flight
NASA Reveals the New Wavy Martian Wheels it Thinks Can Crush the Red Planet
Three Missions to Mars Happening this Month

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by KritonK on Friday July 31 2020, @07:31PM (1 child)

    by KritonK (465) on Friday July 31 2020, @07:31PM (#1029462)

    How's that possible? That indicates the thermal profile digital model of of the craft was wrong to begin with.

    From https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=41005.msg2113511#msg2113511 [nasaspaceflight.com]

    Modeling by the team predicted something like this could happen during eclipse – the time when the spacecraft is in Earth’s shadow – but we could not create this exact environment for tests prior to launch. Nor did we have flight data from Curiosity, because its trajectory had no eclipse. We set the limits for the temperature differential conservatively tight for triggering a safe mode. The philosophy is that it is far better to trigger a safe mode event when not required, than miss one that is. Safe mode is a stable and acceptable mode for the spacecraft, and triggering safe mode during this transitional phase is not problematic for Mars 2020.

    In other words, everything worked as planned for this eventuality.

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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by fustakrakich on Friday July 31 2020, @08:04PM

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Friday July 31 2020, @08:04PM (#1029476) Journal

    everything worked as planned

    Now, be ready to die! BWAAHAHAHAHAAA!

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..