{"id":16607,"date":"2015-02-03T23:18:26","date_gmt":"2015-02-03T15:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/aging-mars-rover-could-be-shut-down\/"},"modified":"2015-02-03T23:18:26","modified_gmt":"2015-02-03T15:18:26","slug":"aging-mars-rover-could-be-shut-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/aging-mars-rover-could-be-shut-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Aging Mars rover could be shut down"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The
The Opportunity Mars acquired images for this self-portrait mosaic in March 2014. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/Cornell Univ.\/Arizona State Univ.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASA\u2019s Opportunity Mars rover and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, working well past their expected lifetimes, could be shut down in fiscal year 2016 as the agency tries to balance funding for older missions and development of modernized new space probes, officials said Monday.<\/p>\n

Facing bouts of trouble with its flash memory drive, the six-wheeled Opportunity rover marked 11 years on Mars on Jan. 24. The mission was designed to last three months.<\/p>\n

The spending proposal released by the Obama administration Monday requests no money for the Opportunity rover in fiscal year 2016, which begins Sept. 30.<\/p>\n

Opportunity\u2019s line was also zero in the White House\u2019s budget request last year, but NASA found funding and the mission received a two-year extension after a recommendation from an independent scientific review board.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s true that the \u201916 request does zero out funding for Mars Opportunity in 2016 and assumes that it ceases operations,\u201d said David Radzanowski, NASA\u2019s chief financial officer. \u201cWe will assess on-going Opportunity operations this summer in 2015 and potentially identify funds for the potential continuation of operations for Opportunity. This is not a guarantee that we will do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rover has showed signs of aging in recent months, and ground controllers briefly lost contact with Opportunity in December. The craft\u2019s non-volatile flash memory, which stores data when the rover goes to sleep at night, is wearing out after more than a decade on the red planet.<\/p>\n

There are limits to how many times controllers can write and erase data on the flash memory system, and engineers at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are coaxing the rover along while they work on a potential long-term fix.<\/p>\n

The mission\u2019s operations team has \u201cadopted a tactic of avoiding use of the flash memory, while they prepare a software remedy to restore its capability,\u201d JPL said in a press release issued in January.<\/p>\n

The software solution would block off the portion of the memory causing problems, allowing the rover to again use the rest of the flash system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout the use of the onboard memory, it cannot store images or other data overnight,\u201d the press release said. \u201cWhile operating in a no-flash mode, the mission is downloading each day\u2019s data before beginning the overnight sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fix for the flash memory requires a change to the rover\u2019s flight software, so we are conducting extensive testing to be sure it will not lead to any unintended consequences for rover operations,\u201d said John Callas, project manager for Opportunity at JPL.<\/p>\n

\"A
A view from the top of \u201cCape Tribulation\u201d by the Opportunity Mars rover. The craft arrived at the summit of the ridge in early January. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/Cornell Univ.\/Arizona State Univ.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If Opportunity is healthy and still generating worthy science results, the mission could get a reprieve.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will look at continuing operations of those activities and finding ways to fund them if, in fact, they actually are operational by 2016, and the science value does make sense,\u201d Radzanowski said.<\/p>\n

Opportunity reached a high vista on the rim of the 14-mile-wide Endeavour Crater on Jan. 6, completing the drive without the use of the rover\u2019s flash memory. Its next stop is a region named \u201cMarathon Valley\u201d where observations from orbiting satellites show signs of minerals that may have been exposed to water long ago.<\/p>\n

The rover has logged nearly 26 miles of driving since it landed on Mars in January 2004, farther than any craft has traveled on another world. The Marathon Valley site got its name because Opportunity will have driven the equivalent distance of a marathon on Mars by the time it arrives.<\/p>\n

Opportunity has sent back more than 200,000 images from the surface of Mars.<\/p>\n

NASA last heard from its twin rover Spirit in 2010 after it got stuck in a sand pit with its power-generating solar panels tilted away from the sun. It lost power in the Martian winter, and cold temperatures may have damaged sensitive components on the rover.<\/p>\n

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is also under the budget ax. The spacecraft launched in June 2009 and mapped the moon in greater detail than any mission before.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt some point, we\u2019ll look at its operations and identify whether we will be able to continue (operating it) in 2016,\u201d Radzanowski told reporters Monday.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Mars Odyssey orbiter, the longest-lived mission ever to visit the red planet, is slated to receive funding in fiscal year 2016, but its budget could be cut to zero in 2017.<\/p>\n

Radzanowski said NASA must decide whether to pour resources into aging missions or pay for construction of new spacecraft capable of more innovative scientific research.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you\u2019re looking at is tension you have in any activity that has operations and development,\u201d Radzanowski said. \u201cYou have to make trades between funding new activities and new development of missions that bring new cutting edge science versus taking advantage of something that\u2019s operating well and also providing good science.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Spitzer infrared observatory was singled out for cancellation in 2014 after receiving a relatively low ranking by a review panel that recommends which operating missions the space agency should keep going.<\/p>\n

But NASA officials said two months later they found money to continue Spitzer\u2019s mission despite worries it would end.<\/p>\n

\"Artist's
Artist\u2019s concept of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Credit: NASA\/GSFC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhether we will continue that modus operandi for some of these lower cost operating missions going forward \u2014 zeroing them out and finding funding for them in the future \u2014 I don\u2019t know,\u201d Radzanowski said. \u201cBut it\u2019s a reflection of trying to balance development versus future operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opportunity\u2019s budget for fiscal year 2014 was $14 million. LRO received $12.4 million for mission operations last year. The White House budget request would give NASA\u2019s planetary science division, which includes Opportunity and LRO, nearly $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cCould somebody else, a university, a private entity, etc., operate these missions? \u2026 I\u2019m not saying that today we are looking at those types of options or models for LRO or on Opportunity going forward,\u201d Radzanowski said. \u201cAt the same time, the agency \u2014 I think \u2014 is open for new ways. When from an agency standpoint, we no longer have a science requirement to keep them operating, if somebody out there does want to provide funding and come to the table and continue operating, we might consider that.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASA has signed agreements for external groups to take over aging or decommissioned spacecraft before. The California Institute of Technology, which manages JPL for NASA, assumed responsibility for funding NASA\u2019s Galaxy Evolution Explorer, or GALEX, ultraviolet space telescope from May 2012 to April 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not guaranteeing that we would do it, but we would consider it,\u201d Radzanowski said.<\/p>\n

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

The Opportunity Mars acquired images for this self-portrait mosaic in March 2014. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/Cornell Univ.\/Arizona State Univ. NASA\u2019s Opportunity Mars rover and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, working well past their expected lifetimes, could be shut down in fiscal year 2016 as the agency tries to balance funding for older missions and development of modernized new space […]<\/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":[631,4165,367,4166,2721],"class_list":["post-16607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-budget","tag-lro","tag-mars","tag-mars-odyssey","tag-opportunity"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16607"}],"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=16607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16607\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}