NASA Mars Rover Spirit Update: Spirit Remains Silent at Troy

Spirit Status for sol 2546-2552

No communication has been received from Spirit since Sol 2210 (March 22, 2010).

Deep Space Network X-band listening and “Sweep & Beep” commanding continue. The project has been systematically conducting the Sweep & Beep commanding over a range of frequency reference offsets and over a range of local solar times on Mars. This covers the possibility that the rover’s receiver has degraded and/or the clock has drifted significantly since March of 2010.

Shortly, the project will command the use of the backup transmitter (in case the primary transmitter has failed), and will command extra-long ultra-high frequency (UHF) passes to account for possible timing drift of the relay passes, and to make the rover responsive to UHF relay (if it is has experienced a mission-clock fault). Normally, only X-band communication is possible under mission-clock fault.

Total odometry is unchanged at 7,730.50 meters (4.80 miles).