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PASADENA, Calif. -- Mars Rover officials at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced Thursday that "a serious anomaly" occurred onboard the robot Spirit Wednesday, stopping the transmission of direct data for almost 24 hours.

Peter Theisinger, Mars Exploration Rover project manager, began Thursday's press conference by telling reporters that they had not received contact from Spirit, either through relays from the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor or Mars Odyssey spacecraft.

However, Jennifer Trosper, mission manager of surface operations, interrupted the press briefing to announce that a signal had been received from the rover via its direct link to Earth. That said, no direct data had yet to be received from the robotic geologist.

6:00 a.m. EST.

Power positive

Getting tones from Spirit means a number of important things on the rover are in working order. Spirit is in what engineers call "power positive mode" and is maintaining proper temperatures in the frigid air of Mars. It continues to generate power from the Sun with its solar panels, said deputy project manager Richard Cook.

The command from Earth requested Spirit to react if it did hear a signal. That response came in the form of a beep, lasting for five minutes. It heard the command and acted upon it.

The rover was operating in the day when the problem cropped up. Engineers always worry about the issue of "thermal cycling" -- hardware that must survive repeated day-to-night temperature swings.

Theisinger told SPACE.com that this concern can’t be discounted. "Yes something could break…something could fail." But the likelihood of that being the problem is now low on the list of probabilities, he said.

Wednesday hump

A communiqué released late afternoon Wednesday from JPL indicated an unresolved issue with the status of the rover.

According to the statement, ground controllers were able to send commands to Spirit early Wednesday and received a simple signal acknowledging that the rover heard them.

However, ground controllers here did not receive expected scientific and engineering data from Spirit during scheduled communication passes during the rest of that Martian day.

Officials said weather problems Wednesday at the Australian Deep Space Network receiver, which disrupted communicatins, were not related to Spirit's current quietude.

FULL DETAIL HERE

Spirit.jpg

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