{"id":16500,"date":"2015-03-05T21:23:22","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T13:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/engineers-analyzing-short-circuit-on-mars-rover\/"},"modified":"2015-03-05T21:23:22","modified_gmt":"2015-03-05T13:23:22","slug":"engineers-analyzing-short-circuit-on-mars-rover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/engineers-analyzing-short-circuit-on-mars-rover\/","title":{"rendered":"Engineers analyzing short circuit on Mars rover"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Image
Image analysts used dozens of images from Curiosity\u2019s arm-mounted camera to create this \u201cselfie\u201d at the base of Mount Sharp. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A short circuit that halted movement of NASA\u2019s Curiosity Mars rover is not expected to keep the mobile robot stationary for long, but engineers want to know whether the problem will restrict some future science operations.<\/p>\n

The rover\u2019s on-board fault-protection software detected a problem in Curiosity\u2019s electrical circuitry Feb. 27, stopping a procedure to transfer a Martian soil sample between devices on the platform\u2019s robotic arm.<\/p>\n

NASA officials said the software responded to the glitch as designed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are running tests on the vehicle in its present configuration before we move the arm or drive,\u201d said Jim Erickson, Curiosity\u2019s project manager at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a statement released Tuesday. \u201cThis gives us the best opportunity to determine where the short is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curiosity is at the base of a three-mile-high peak named Mount Sharp, where the rover is studying sediments that scientists believe were deposited when Mars was warmer, wetter and habitable by microbial life.<\/p>\n

Since landing on Mars in August 2012, the rover has already achieved its primary mission goals after finding its landing site in Gale crater once contained an ancient river system, where simple organisms could have survived billions of years ago.<\/p>\n

The rover\u2019s drill mounted on the end of the robotic arm collected a sample from a rock last month, and Curiosity was taking initial steps to transfer rock powder from the drill to a miniature laboratory cocooned inside the craft\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

Curiosity collected five samples with the drill earlier in its mission without incident.<\/p>\n

Engineers are performing tests on the rover to determine where the short occurred \u2014 whether it was somewhere inside the drill system or elsewhere on the rover, Erickson told CBS News.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn looking at the initial diagnostics that we are doing and what the possible root causes are, nothing shows up as a show stopper,\u201d Erickson said in an interview with CBS News. \u201cWe could be surprised, and that\u2019s one of the reasons we\u2019re doing more analysis and looking at all the data we\u2019re getting down. We\u2019re going to start out very gentle, so to speak, and very low risk and gradually move to where the data shows us we should be moving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curiosity will stay stationary while engineers complete their analysis of the trigger that halted the rover\u2019s sampling operation last week. Erickson said ground controllers plan to finish preparing the rock powder for delivery to Curiosity\u2019s internal instruments once engineers give the all-clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cA transient short in some systems on the rover would have little effect on rover operations,\u201d NASA said in a press release. \u201cIn others, it could prompt the rover team to restrict use of a mechanism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image analysts used dozens of images from Curiosity\u2019s arm-mounted camera to create this \u201cselfie\u201d at the base of Mount Sharp. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS A short circuit that halted movement of NASA\u2019s Curiosity Mars rover is not expected to keep the mobile robot stationary for long, but engineers want to know whether the problem will restrict some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2927,367],"class_list":["post-16500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-curiosity","tag-mars"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16500"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}