NASA says it is ready to reactivate the Cassini space probe orbiting Saturn after it switched to a "safe mode" on Nov. 2 and stopped sending science data.
Cassini mission controllers plan to reawaken the spacecraft Wednesday out of its protective standby mode, caused by an ill-timed flip of a data bit in Cassini's command and data system computer, SPACE.com reported.
"The bit flip happened in exactly the wrong location; almost anyplace else would have merely resulted in a rejected command, but the spacecraft responded exactly as programmed," Cassini program manager Bob Mitchell, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said.
"Cassini is in excellent shape, and we are looking forward to the next seven years of this mission," he said.
This was the sixth time since Cassini's launch in 1997 the spacecraft put itself into safe mode.
While in safe mode, the probe beams engineering and spacecraft health data to its mission operations center at JPL, but cannot perform scientific observations.
Cassini engineers commanded the probe to reboot its computer to fix the bit flip problem.
Scientific instruments have also been reactivated and mission managers hope to recover data lost during the switch into safe mode, JPL officials said.
"Playback from the computer's memory is enabling engineers to extract science data collected before the spacecraft entered safe mode," they said.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
