I wish I had something more cheerful for my first post...

JPL News Release

"On March 3 and 4, Opportunity transmitted data sets for 17 successful readings by its miniature thermal emission spectrometer but also reported that eight other attempted readings yielded incomplete data sets. "

"Researchers are considering several possible root causes for the spectrometer-data problem. One possibility is malfunctioning of an optical switch that tells a mirror in the instrument when to begin moving. Another is that the mirror is not properly moving at a constant velocity. "If it is the optical switch, we could use a redundant one built into the instrument," said Dr. Phil Christensen of Arizona State University, Tempe, lead scientist for the miniature thermal emission spectrometers on both rovers. He added that, if the root cause cannot be remedied, scientists could still get useful data from the instrument in its currently impaired condition."

Doesn't sound like a major failure yet. I hope they can find a fix. If not, we'll have to rely on the great redundancy the designers built into these rovers.

I have seen an animation of the MiniTES and it has a mirror like thing at the back of the Pancam Mast top bar. Is it this mirror they are unable to move and thus still can get data, but not point it up or down?

No - I think it's something actually inside the mini-tes hardware in the WEB

Doug

But how could they still get useful data from the instrument in its currently impaired condition then?

You've never had a button on a calculator you had to press just right to get it to work only for it to be fine for a week Or a strange banging in the plumbing that starts for no reason then vanishes for no reason

It might well be something sticking in there. It's not just died, it's just working from time to time.

Doug

Be patient... The crew is on the other side of the planet at the moment, having just finished cleaning up Spirit's solar panels.
It will take them a while, but they'll get back at Meridiani soon.

Jeez, I thought they had more than one martian service station

With two MSLs in 2011, a network of service stations on Mars would be a good bussiness opportunity (pun intended)

That's the SPIRIT!