An instrument on the Mars rover Opportunity is malfunctioning and has been temporarily disabled, NASA announced on Tuesday.
Mission officials turned the miniature thermal emission spectrometer (Mini-TES) off to try to find the source of its problem but say it could still return useful data even in a semi-functioning state.
The Mini-TES sits high on the rover鈥檚 mast and scouts out the infrared light from distant rocks, which give information on their composition. Since Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, landed on the planet in January 2004, Opportunity鈥檚 Mini-TES has spied the first meteorite ever seen on Mars and made the first geological map of the surface of another planet.
Advertisement
But on 3 and 4 March, Opportunity transmitted incomplete data sets from Mini-TES, and now engineers are working to solve the problem. They think it may have arisen from a broken switch that should tell a mirror inside Mini-TES to start moving 鈥� which could be fixed using a backup switch 鈥� or from the mirror moving at an inconstant speed.
Worst-case scenario
But even if no solution is found, the instrument could still transmit some data, say mission managers. And in a worst-case scenario 鈥� in which Mini-TES is lost completely 鈥� Opportunity could rely on its two other spectrometers, which sit on the rover鈥檚 robotic arm and operate at a shorter range.
NASA had risked losing the Mini-TES 10 months ago by turning off the rover鈥檚 overnight heaters. That was meant to conserve power during the Martian winter, when the rover received less sunlight on its solar panels. But the instrument was not harmed during the frigid months, and mission managers say the current problem appears unrelated to cold temperatures.
鈥淥pportunity鈥檚 other instruments are healthy and providing excellent science, and Spirit鈥檚 entire instrument suite is working well and being kept busy by the science team,鈥� says Jim Erickson, project manager for the rovers at NASA鈥檚 Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, US.
In fact, Spirit鈥檚 power supply doubled on 9 March 鈥� apparently because wind blew the accumulated Martian dust from its solar panels.
