The little robot that could, the Phoenix Mars Probe, is most likely dead, according to NASA officials.  As of the 2nd of November it has failed to communicate back.  And the boffins at NASA figure that it isn’t likely to, for Autumn has set upon the red planet, and with it comes shorter daylight and dustier/cloudier skies, two enemies of the solar energy that powers the Mars lander.

Still, it was a good run.  It performed remarkably better than expected.  It lasted longer than anyone thought that it would.  It was able to sample all sorts of yummy Martian soil.  It even proved that water, in the form of ice, lay dormant in the ground.  And it snapped more than 25,000 pictures, of which were near-atomic level shots from an atomic force microscope.  Some even say that it took pictures of snow falling just before it died.  The data that it collected will no doubt keep scientists enthused for years and years.

So rest in peace, little Phoenix.  You did good.

A couple of weeks ago the Hubble Space Telescope stopped communicating with the world.  Its Control Unit/Science Data Formatter (CU/SDF) went down, rendering it unable to communicate back to NASA.

Fortunately the Redundancy Department of Redundancy built a backup system into the Hubble satellite.  Side A, the systems active since launch, had broken.  But Side B, unused all that time, were at least theoretically there to solve this very kind of problem.  In reality though, Side B hadn’t been active in almost two decades.  Would it really just power up and smoothly transition?  There were doubts.

And those doubts, apparently, were justified.  NASA bravely tried to convince the Hubble to switch over to Side B a week ago.  And ran into some problems.  While the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, Near Infrared Camera, and Multi Object Spectrometer all happily transferred over from safe to operate modes now using Side B, the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) was not so successful.  NASA explained that on the 16th of October, “an anomaly occurred during the last steps of the commanding to the ACS.  When the low voltage power supply to the ACS Solar Blind Channel was commanded on, software running in a microprocessor in ACS detected an incorrect voltage level in the Solar Blind Channel and suspended ACS.“  This in turn caused the the safety systems to throw everything back into safe mode to prevent damage.

NASA further explained that, “the anomaly was because of a limit-checking algorithm that triggered before the data that it was checking was valid. A commanding change on the instrument will eliminate this condition and both teams expect a nominal low voltage power supply turn-on when it is commanded on next week.” And that, “three separate events occurring with near-simultaneity were responses to a single triggering event,” which was, “most likely caused by a self-clearing short-circuit, or a transient open-circuit, in the SIC&DH system.  One or more such events would not be highly improbable in hardware inactive since 1990, and will not harm the telescope, although it could cause another interruption of science operations.”

To which pretty much anyone would have to agree.  That Side B could be made to work at all is amazing.  Space is not exactly an environment friendly to electronics, and a computer system down for so many years, to just bring back up by remote communications alone?  It’s pretty amazing.

Of course, like any good doctor, NASA is going to, “monitor it for about 24-hours to assess its operations“.  But as sure as they can be, they’re pretty sure that the transfer of operations to Side B is licked, and that the Hubble will be back to full operation.  And hopefully stay that way until someone can actually go up there and really fix it.  Because when you put things up in space, it kind of makes it difficult to schedule house calls.

Earlier I mentioned how India was set to launch Chandrayaan-1, their unmanned mission to the moon, on the 22nd of October.

Guess what day it is.

And guess what went off without a hitch.

That’s right!  Reports are already in.  The launch was a success!  I’m sure there’s much celebration going on in India.  If for no other reason than maybe now the government can get back to spending money on its people instead of on a space race.  But the point is, they did it.  They got an unmanned moon probe up past our gravitational pull.  And now India too can get all sorts of neat lunar scientific experiments going.

Computer security is as vitally important today as it ever was.  And you might have all of your passwords locked up safe inside of your head with a vow to never tell another soul, but sleep fitfully, for your computer’s keyboard has no such qualms.

No, I’m not talking about keylogging software.  Though that certainly is something to fear too, a good security sweep will keep nasty programs like that at bay.  I’m talking about the simple electromagnetic eminations over the wires that connect your wired keyboard to your computer.  (And no, wireless is most definitely not better.  By definition wireless broadcasts your keyboard’s activity.)  Be it PS/2, USB, or even your notebook computer, the data has to travel over wires to get from the keys to the computer.  And for people who know just how to listen in, your data is far from secure.

So say Martin Vuagnoux and Sylvain Pasini of the Security and Cryptography Laboratory (LASEC) at the School of Computer and Communication Sciences (I&C) at the EPFL.  (Say that five times fast.  Better yet, say it in French.)

They found four different ways to wirelessly snoop your keyboard’s activities, from a distance of up to 20 meters (65 feet) away, even through walls.  No keyboard was safe from these researchers.

And it’s not just computer security at risk.  Any key or number entry pad potentially poses the same security risk, including ATMs.

Now, while scary, this is certainly not an attack you can expect the common criminal to attempt.  For one, you need a big antenna.  John Q. Public standing next to an ATM with a huge antenna might be a bit suspect.

But professional corporate espionage is certainly game.  That white van parked in your parking lot?  That office across the street?  The apartment next door to yours?  It’s not just your wireless ethernet (and other devices) that you have to worry about anymore.  Now you have to worry about your computer itself.

Which, actually, has pretty much always been true anyway.  The only safe computer has no wireless devices, is disconnected from the internet, is running tons of security software, from a non-admin account, is unplugged, and buried twenty feet in the ground.

Or, in other words, simply the act of using a computer makes your data unsafe.  There is no such thing as a completely secure computer.

Still, there are plenty of things that one can do to keep a computer relatively safe.  And surely I’ve gone over them all before.  But there’s also a new one emerging.  It started with the advent of wireless technology, and is no doubt growing in importance day by day.  And that is blocking electromagnetic radiation.  There are more and more technologies like EM shielding paint that can be used to EM secure a room or building.  And if your data is of the utmost importance, perhaps it’s time that you looked into seperating your PC’s room (or building) from the rest of the EM world.

Well, sort of.

On the 22 of October, India’s first unmanned moon mission, the Chandrayaan-1, is set to launch.  It will probe the moon’s surface with cameras, lasers, and x-rays.  It will even drop off a lander probe.  This is all pretty big stuff for anyone to accomplish with a budding space program.

Of course, that has been one of the noteworthy comments made.  India, a country still lacking in standard of living for many, is aiming awfully high and spending a considerable amount to aim at their jaunt into the space race.  They have also already pushed back the launch from April to October because of technical issues.  They have a lot riding on this mission.  Let’s hope that they at least manage to pull it off without a hitch.