New Horizons Glitch

[The Admiral]

I originally posted this in the wrong "lounge", so I'm re-posting here (Moderators - can you delete my original post please?)

I've just read that Mission Control lost communications with its baby for a few hours yesterday (http://pluto.jhuapl....p?page=20150704). Communications has now been restored but it'll take a few days to rectify, by all accounts.

Fingers crossed that the mission doesn't run into problems at this crucial stage.

Ian

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Ouch, that is worrying!

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Fingers crossed. For the flypast itself New Horizons will go into a special mode where if an error occurs it will continue shooting rather than going through its normal error procedures. I also seem to remember it's programmed to send back some images early in the past in case there is a tenuous ring of debris around Pluto, which would be a collision hazard.

There will be some nervous people back at mission control around the time of the flypass. Curiosity had its "70 minutes of terror" but New Horizons will be out of contact for many hours so it can shoot pictures continuously.

[laudropb]

That is worrying. Let's hope they sort out the problems quickly and the information before and during the fly past gets back to us. There is so high expectations for this mission. Would hate to see it fail.

[barkis]

Worrying?  true, but I'm sure those engineers monitoring and hopefully rectifying the problem will succeed.

I marvel at the auto response actioned by the main computer when the fault was detected. Switching to the backup and placing the craft in safe mode.

Data then sent back to help diagnose the problem. All clever stuff.

A  4 plus billion mile trip for rectification instructions is a bit hairy, so lets hope they get it right first time.

A return signal indicating a fail, would be disastrous possibly, and what a shame that would be.

Some very interesting anomalies have already been seen on Pluto, so we look forward with hope to any

answers on those that transpire.

So here's wishing NH. success.

Ron

[DRT]

Let's hope they didn't need to use this...

The press release says that no data can be gathered during the "several days" it will take to get things back on track. Unfortunately that results in several days of the close approach being lost

It is still quite remarkable that the systems that were designed to trap and mitigate an error like this seem to have kicked in and hopefully saved the mission. Very clever stuff going on up there and in the control room.

[David Smith]

It's probably trying to update Windows

[John]

It's probably trying to update Windows

"There is a new version of Earth-Pluto Comms Expert available. Press F1 to upgrade at a later date or wait 3 seconds for the automatic update....

1

2

3

Your updated software is downloading now. This will take an estimated 10080 minutes so please be patient. Progress so far: 1% "

[The Admiral]

Let's hope its EMU doesn't put the systems into a "limp home mode" and require a visit to the service agent as soon as possible.

Ian

[Laurie61]

Hopefully, having encountered this fault now, they have averted a problem at encounter? At least it re established a link and is still up and running.   

[David Smith]

Seriously though, I hope they get this sorted. I have been watching this mission since planning / concept and it would be a horrible loss if it were to fail now.

[knobby]

On a more positive note ... the animation of Pluto and Charon is pretty amazing, fingers crosse for the flyby

https://pbs.twimg.com/tweet_video/CJAg6WAUEAA2XYL.mp4

[DRT]

On a more positive note ... the animation of Pluto and Charon is pretty amazing, fingers crosse for the flyby

https://pbs.twimg.com/tweet_video/CJAg6WAUEAA2XYL.mp4

Nice one

Positive mental attitude required from here on in - are we there yet?  :icon_bounce: :icon_bounce:

[Stu]

Lovely images, can't wait for the close ups!

Looking at these, my own personal definition of a planet is anything which has enough mass to pull itself into a sphere, or near sphere.

[DRT]

Lovely images, can't wait for the close ups!

Looking at these, my own personal definition of a planet is anything which has enough mass to pull itself into a sphere, or near sphere.

On that definition I think I'm only a few pints and a pork pie away from qualification

[knobby]

' It's a planet ' 

It was a planet when New Horizons launched !

So it's still a planet as far as I'm concerned

[barkis]

I have a gut feeling there are surprises awaiting us at Pluto.

But then, I've been taking daily  Bisodol tablets for a belly ache, so belay

the Pluto surprise, it could be a false alarm, I've been eating too many Figs lately  .

Ron. 

[The Admiral]

Seriously though, I hope they get this sorted. I have been watching this mission since planning / concept and it would be a horrible loss if it were to fail now.

It's just a bit of gallows humour I'm afraid . I can't imagine anyone wanting this to fail at the 11.99999th hour. It would be such a tragedy having come this far, and with such tantalising glimpses of these remarkable worlds. At my ripe old age I can't afford any screw-ups 'cos there'll be no chance of seeing another attempt!

Ian

[Alien 13]

Of all the recent missions this is the one that has realy caught my imagination it also proves how remarkable the old voyager missions where.

Alan

[niallk]

Of all the recent missions this is the one that has realy caught my imagination it also proves how remarkable the old voyager missions where.

Alan

So true!!

[Mrbloke]

Of all the recent missions this is the one that has realy caught my imagination it also proves how remarkable the old voyager missions where.

Alan

And they are still going, so not 'were', but 'are'!

[jnb]

' It's a planet ' 

It was a planet when New Horizons launched !

So it's still a planet as far as I'm concerned

If Pluto is a planet then I am a species

[jnb]

Realistically the anomaly and safe mode is not that worrying. These things happen quite regularly with spacecraft which is why safe mode is there, so that they can fall back to a known state and recover. The timing is unfortunate but the incident is probably not that serious a problem.

[Highburymark]

Of course it would be incredible disappointing if these problems threatened the mission, but if the most recent pictures are the best we see, New Horizons would still not be a failure. Having said that, the mission has been so meticulously planned I'm sure they are going to deliver the close fly-by pics we're all so excited about.

[The Admiral]

The latest news is as follows (from the original link):

"The investigation into the anomaly that caused New Horizons to enter “safe mode” on July 4 has concluded that no hardware or software fault occurred on the spacecraft. The underlying cause of the incident was a hard-to-detect timing flaw in the spacecraft command sequence that occurred during an operation to prepare for the close flyby. No similar operations are planned for the remainder of the Pluto encounter.

“I’m pleased that our mission team quickly identified the problem and assured the health of the spacecraft,” said Jim Green, NASA’s Director of Planetary Science. “Now – with Pluto in our sights – we’re on the verge of returning to normal operations and going for the gold.”

Preparations are ongoing to resume the originally planned science operations on July 7 and to conduct the entire close flyby sequence as planned. The mission science team and principal investigator have concluded that the science observations lost during the anomaly recovery do not affect any primary objectives of the mission, with a minimal effect on lesser objectives. “In terms of science, it won’t change an A-plus even into an A,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder. "

Phew, that's a relief

Ian