Mars rover: senile, or just teenaged? - January 29, 2009
NASA’s Mars rover Spirit is playing up on the Red Planet.
On Sunday Spirit received driving commands but failed to move, according to a statement from the rover-wranglers. In addition the rover did not record what it actually got up to on Sunday in its “non-volatile memory” which is supposed to work even when power is off.
“We don't have a good explanation yet for the way Spirit has been acting for the past few days,” says Sharon Laubach, who heads the team that writes and checks commands for the rovers. “Our next steps will be diagnostic activities.”
As Spirit has spent 1,800 days on Mars – on what was allegedly a 90 day mission – some news sources are accusing it of “growing senile” and suggesting the problem is due to its “aging”.
However, as NASA points out, what actually happened was Spirit “did not report some of its weekend activities” and is “having some behavior issues”.
Maybe the rover is just entering that difficult teenage phase. Maybe it’s growing tired of being told what to do all the time. “Sweep up this dirt, go over there, find me a glass of water.” Can you blame it if it wants a lie in on a Sunday? Give the poor thing some freedom.
Image: latest photo from Spirit, if you look carefully you can see the rover has written ‘no one understands me’ in the dust / NASA.
