NASA MRO: Mars orbiter safe after unplanned computer swap

This artist's concept shows NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) mission over the red planet. 

Credit: NASA/JPL

NASA's long-lived Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) put itself into a precautionary safe standby mode March 9 after an unscheduled swap from one main computer to another.

The mission's ground team has begun restoring the spacecraft to full operations.

Dan Johnston

"The spacecraft is healthy, in communication and fully powered," said MRO Manager Dan Johnston of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

"We have stepped up the communication data rate, and we plan to have the spacecraft back to full operations within a few days."

MRO's science observations and its relaying of communications from NASA's two active Mars rovers have been suspended.

The rovers continue to use NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter as a communications relay.

Entry into safe mode is the prescribed response by a spacecraft when it detects conditions outside the range of normal expectations.

MRO has experienced unplanned computer swaps triggering safe-mode entry four times previously, most recently in November 2011.

The root cause of the previous events has not been determined. The spacecraft has also experienced safe-mode entries that have not involved computer swaps.

Unlike any previous safe-mode entries experienced in this mission, the March 9 event included a swap to a redundant radio transponder on the orbiter.

While the mission resumes operations with this transponder, engineers are investigating the status of the one that is now out of service.

NASA's MRO entered orbit around Mars eight years ago, on March 10, 2006.

Since then, it has returned more data than all other past and current interplanetary missions combined. The mission met all its science goals in a two-year primary science phase.

Three extensions, the latest beginning in 2012, have added to the science returns. The longevity of the mission has given researchers tools to study seasonal and longer-term changes on the Red Planet.

Mars crater may actually be ancient supervolcano

Seen above, for the basin and surrounding area, higher elevations (reds and yellows) and lower elevations (blues and grays) are indicated. Credit: NASA/JPL/GSFC

A research project led by Joseph R. Michalski, Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, has identified what could be a supervolcano on Mars – the first discovery of its kind.

In a paper published Oct. 3 in the journal Nature, Michalski and co-author Jacob E. Bleacher of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center describe a new type of volcanic construction on Mars that until now has gone unrecognized.

The volcano in question, a vast circular basin on the face of the Red Planet, previously had been classified as an impact crater.

Researchers now suggest the basin is actually the remains of an ancient supervolcano eruption.

Their assessment is based on images and topographic data from NASA's Mars Odyssey, Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft, as well as the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter.

In the Nature paper Michalski and Bleacher lay out their case that the basin, recently named Eden Patera, is a volcanic caldera. Because a caldera is a depression, it can look like a crater formed by an impact, rather than a volcano.

"On Mars, young volcanoes have a very distinctive appearance that allows us to identify them," Michalski said. "The long-standing question has been what ancient volcanoes on Mars look like. Perhaps they look like this one."

Above, the dark color indicates younger material draped across the Eden Patera depression. 

Credit: ESA

The researchers also suggest a large body of magma loaded with dissolved gas (similar to the carbonation in soda) rose through thin crust to the surface quickly.

Like a bottle of soda that has been shaken, this supervolcano would have blown its contents far and wide if the top came off suddenly.

"This highly explosive type of eruption is a game-changer, spewing many times more ash and other material than typical, younger Martian volcanoes," Bleacher said.

"During these types of eruptions on Earth, the debris may spread so far through the atmosphere and remain so long that it alters the global temperature for years."

After the material is expelled from the eruption, the depression that is left can collapse even further, causing the ground around it to sink.

Eruptions like these happened in ages past at what is now Yellowstone National Park in the western United States, Lake Toba in Indonesia and Lake Taupo in New Zealand.

More information: www.nature.com/nature/journal/v502/n7469/full/nature12482.html