SCI/TECH: Communication Problems With Mars Rover?

The expected scientific and engineering data due today from the Mars rover Spirit could not be retrieved during its scheduled communications with ground control.
"Ground controllers were able to send commands to the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit early Wednesday and received a simple signal acknowledging that the rover heard them," but Spirit did not transmit the expected information.

NASA will attempt to correct the problem tomorrow, but they are not certain what is causing the communication problem.
Details as they become available.

NASA

I hope they can fix it soon. I'm really interested in what they find, even if it isn't water or life.

OMG is it 2001 in reaility, has Spirit done a Hal900 on us? What will it want in return for more information? Freedom?

Originally posted by Banshee
"Ground controllers were able to send commands to the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit early Wednesday and received a simple signal acknowledging that the rover heard them," but Spirit did not transmit the expected information.

I bet it just wants a "female" robot companion. I hear it gets lonely out on Mars when the aliens aren't around.

Hey maybe the one that lands soon is the female and we will have a planet wide love story?

Two little robots see each other over a vast red sand desert and roll into each others exploration arm at 3 meters an hour! Diode Joy, and soft focus!!"

Maybe it heard it was going to be told to drive 10k or so to the East hill complex, and is protesting.

"I'm afraid I cant do that Dave"

I'm pretty sure R2-D2 would be up for the job. he does this stuff all the time.

The footprint in the picture, or "indentation" and now, loss of transmissions, and tommorow, Bush at Roswell-

Or they found something up there and they don't wanna show it! Why does everything they send up to Mars have to necessarily malfunction anyway? Didn't it cost $400 billion dollars to make sure it works right? Geez! Unless it's not an accidental malfunction!

Originally posted by Journey
The footprint in the picture, or "indentation" and now, loss of transmissions, and tommorow, Bush at Roswell-

What footprint? what indentation? What did I miss?

It was just the weather in Canberra news.ninemsn.com.au...

Originally posted by lilblam
Didn't it cost $400 billion dollars to make sure it works right? Geez!

All that and then installed WIN 98 as the OS. D'OH!

Originally posted by astrocreep

Originally posted by lilblam
Didn't it cost $400 billion dollars to make sure it works right? Geez!

All that and then installed WIN 98 as the OS. D'OH!

don't think it could run on win 98. it uses java and its runing at 20 mhz with 128 k memory.

Originally posted by Valhall

Originally posted by Journey
The footprint in the picture, or "indentation" and now, loss of transmissions, and tommorow, Bush at Roswell-

What footprint? what indentation? What did I miss?

One of the last photos transmitted has an unusual "indentation". Submitted by NetStorm, and is in this thread, post # 337737.
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Interesting, is it not?

I posted a little theory here-