Mars Rover Problems
NASA said today that the Mars rover “Spirit“ was online and recovering from its earlier problems. They said they had narrowed the problems down to the Flash memory unit and the file system that manages it. A Microsoft Representative directed JPL personnel to KB Article 743382 - “File Access Causes System Reboot on Windows Mobile 2003 - Interplanetary Rover Edition”. The KB article calls for the rover operator to bypass the Flash memory and access the RAM directly by playing Timothy Busfueld's violin solo from “Revenge of the Nerds“ backwards while holding down the “Ctrl“, “Ins“, “F9“ and “Esc” keys simultaneously.
Open source advocates argue that, had JPL used Linux instead of Windows, the repair process would have created jobs for 40 balding middle-aged sofware hobbyists, bolstering the economy by 300%. Sun President and CEO Scott McNealy used the opportunity to highlight the capabilities of the Sun Java Desktop System, only to be reduced to insessant babbling about how much cooler he is than Homestar Runner.
NASA officials ruled out infection from the MSBlaster virus, although the rover rebooted over 130 times before engineers got it under control. Technicians hope to have “Spirit” fully operational again soon. Currently they are working to install Windows Server 2003 Software Update Services to prevent future problems. Microsoft has had a patch out for several months now, but the MER team forgot to ask the Deep Space Network team to open up port 195 on the Intergalactic Firewall.
More news as it becomes available.