The Mars rover Spiritresumed sending some data to Earth today, allaying fears it had failed after two days of garbled communications and periods of intermittent silence, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said.
JPL, which manages the Mars project for NASA, said in a statement that the flight team received a low-speed data transmission from Spiritstarting at 1326 GMT and continuing for 20 minutes.
"The spacecraft sent limited data in a proper response to a ground command, and we're planning for commanding further communication sessions later today," Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager Mr Pete Theisinger said.
The flight team had sent a signal beforehand from a NASA antenna complex in Spain with commands for Spirit to begin transmitting.
The six-wheeled craft landed on the red planet on January 3rd for a planned three-month mission. Officials had described the loss of communications as a "very serious anomaly".
Yesterday, Spiritradioed a signal indicating it was receiving Earth transmissions, but it did not resume sending data back to Earth. It had been unable to return any science or telemetry data since early Wednesday.
Another rover, dubbed Opportunity, is scheduled to land on the other side of Mars in the early hours of Sunday morning. JPL said that mission is on course.
Earlier today, the European Space Agency said its Mars mission had confirmed the presence of frozen water on the planet's surface.