MER 2003/Athena Update – Week Ending May 11, 2002

Good news and bad news on the cameras this week. The good news is
that we finally seem to have our electronics boards built. This has
been an epic struggle, with one set of boards after another having
some kind of problem that has made it impossible for us to fly them.
We’ve finally got a good set of boards now — ones that are good
enough to go to Mars.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that we’re still having little
problems with the electronics. They’re not serious problems, or at
least they don’t seem to be. In fact, we’re pretty sure we could fly
things just as they are, and still take some very good pictures. But
things still aren’t quite right, and "not quite right" is not where
we want to be for something as important as our cameras.

The problem now isn’t the boards. The problem is somewhere in all the
dozens of little electronics parts that go on the boards. We’re going
to find it, probably within the next few days. But we’re going to
feel an awful lot lot better if we can find it, and fix it, sooner
rather than later.