Will Conduct Reboot Operation Next Week
The team operating NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter plans a
complicated reboot operation of the spacecraft's computer next
week, to address a long-known, potential vulnerability of
accumulated memory corruption.
"This is not a risk-free event," the agency notes, "but the
Odyssey team and NASA have carefully weighed the risks of
performing a cold reboot compared with the risk of doing nothing,
and determined that the proper course of action is to proceed with
the reboot."
The chief concern about the potential memory vulnerability stems
from the length of time the spacecraft has been exposed to the
accumulated effects of the space radiation environment since the
last reboot, which occurred on October 31, 2003. As an additional
benefit, the cold-reboot procedure will demonstrate whether
Odyssey's onboard backup systems will be available should they ever
be required.
"We have lost no functionality, but there would be advantages to
knowing whether the B side is available," said Odyssey Mission
Manager Gaylon McSmith of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, CA. "We have developed a careful plan for attempting to
determine that."
In the years since its April 7,
2001, launch, Odyssey has not needed to use its set of spare
components. The spares are called the spacecraft's "B side," which
includes an identical set of a computer processor, navigation
sensors, relay radio and other subsystems. To use any of them,
Odyssey would have to shift to all of them at once from its primary
set of components, called the "A side."
On March 21, 2007, the B-side spare of an electronic component
for managing the distribution of power, called the high-efficiency
power supply, became inoperable. If it is permanently disabled,
then none of the B side is available for use. Engineers have
investigated the inoperability of the B-side high-efficiency power
supply. They concluded that the component can probably be made to
work properly again by rebooting the orbiter's computer, although
the memory-vulnerability issue that is the current concern is not
directly related to the March 2007 event that affected the power
supply.
Odyssey is in the third two-year extension of its mission at
Mars. Some A-side components, such as the UHF radio used for
communications with spacecraft on the surface of Mars, have worked
as long as they were designed to last.
In addition to its own major scientific discoveries and
continuing studies of the planet, the Odyssey mission has played
important roles in supporting the missions of the Mars rovers
Spirit and Opportunity and the Phoenix Mars Lander.
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