NASA officials say that they will try again later today to regain contact with a robot vehicle on the planet Mars. Engineers lost contact with the robot named Spirit just as its mission on the red planet was starting. From NASA headquarters in Pasadena,
David Willis reports:
NASA is currently hoping that orbiting spacecraft will be able to wake the rover up. At the moment it's neither obeying commands nor sending data - 'a very serious anomaly', in the words of one NASA scientist.
Ground control won't actually be able to communicate directly with the robot for several hours, until day breaks on the red planet and Mars is visible from the earth.
Officials say they intend to proceed gingerly; they don't want to send the robot too many commands and potentially worsen the situation. But they must first identify whether it's a software or hardware problem that has caused the robot to fall silent.
They point out there is a precedent for this - the Pathfinder mission was delayed six years ago when communication was lost for a period.
David Willis, BBC News, Pasadena
wake the rover up
"despierte", logre que el robot responda a las señales enviadas desde la Tierra
los centros de control de la NASA en la Tierra
software or hardware
programas o la máquina
en este caso, dejar de emitir señales
there is a precedent