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Thu, Apr 17, 2003

Next Mars Rover Launch Delayed

'Guillotine' Could Short Boards

'In case of trouble, cut wires.' That's the mandate of a little 'guillotine-like' device that's built into the two Mars Rovers, that are scheduled to launch this Spring and Summer. The problem with guillotines is... they can cut things.

In the case of the Rovers, there is an obscure failure mode in which the blades could short out surrounding circuitry, effectively blowing the brains out of the expensive little vehicles as they approach the Red Planet's surface, with expected (catastrophically negative) results.

NASA is taking both Rovers apart to correct the problem; that R&R will delay the first Rover's launch a bit more than a week. The new launch date can be no earlier than June 8. (The second machine's launch, scheduled for the June 25~July 15 window, is unaffected.)

The last two Mars missions, in 1999, didn't work well: one was doomed by a premature shutdown of the retrorockets on landing; the other's calculations were done in both metric and English units -- and the overseers didn't catch the mixup until... poof happened.

FMI: www.nasa.gov

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