Spirit is still suffering from the inability to access the on-board, non-volatile (flash) memory file system. However, the operations team has developed a strategy to allow science activities to continue.
To ensure that science data collected by Spirit is returned to Earth, the team has been keeping Spirit awake each sol from the morning communication session through the data relay via the Odyssey orbiter.
(Data stored in volatile, random-access memory is not retained when the rover powers down for energy-conserving sleep.)
The engineering team has determined that reformatting the file system portion of flash memory will restore the use of the flash memory for data storage.
The Flash file system has been formatted once before on Spirit on Sol 32. This was part of the recovery from the anomaly experienced on Sol 18. The project intends to re-format the Flash file system shortly.
As of Sol 2076 (Nov. 4, 2009), Spirit’s solar-array energy production is 359 watt-hours, with an atmospheric opacity (tau) of 0.599 and a dust factor of 0.633. Total odometry remains at 7,729.97 meters (4.80 miles).
