NikolaeVarius
Lifer
So, when do we get direct telemetry from the cameras on the ground?
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Mars Phoenix Mission
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hellokeith
Golden Member
😀 :thumbsup:
Here's a 6 pack for the boys and girls at NASA..
:beer: :beer: :beer:
:beer: :beer: :beer:
Modelworks
Lifer
They said they are waiting for the dust to settle before opening the craft.
wouldn't want dust on the solar panels.
wouldn't want dust on the solar panels.
Jeff7
Lifer
Well....some can. Or get close. Japan sort of landed on a comet, and there've been Russian and European landers on various places. Heck, the Russians landed on Venus. If you'd try to land on Venus, you'd melt and bake before you made it to the surface.😉
Now the wait for proper instrument deployment and imagery.
Heh, yeah, they'll get plenty of that in the months to come, and they don't have the luxury of moving the thing to some place where it'd be more likely to catch some cleaning winds.
Modelworks
Lifer
Just flipped over to cnn from science channel to see their coverage.
They got on the elections, go figure.
They got on the elections, go figure.
Jeff7
Lifer
They were expected to get choked out by dust accumulation after 90 sols on Mars (3 months😉). The dust wasn't as bad as expected, and both of them received numerous cleanings thanks to local wind turbulence caused by the landscape.
Now the likely causes of death are either mechanical failure or budget cuts.
Right now, Spirit's got one wheel bad, but is still mobile. For the winter, it's staked out a spot on a nice slope to give it more sunlight - it's not had as much luck with cleaning as Opportunity.
Opportunity remains almost fully mobile. One front wheel no longer steers, but it's not a serious problem. The robotic arm is having some trouble moving though - it's gone through hundreds of extreme thermal cycles, and some of the motor windings are causing trouble. The arm carries along the 4 science instruments, so if it were lost, a great deal of the scientific returns would be lost. However, the arm is deployed now, and may very well remain that way. Every time it would get stowed, there'd be the risk that it'd never come out again, so they just plan to keep it hanging out now.
Additionally, both rovers are now smarter than they were when they landed. Back then, if they needed to go to a target and deploy the instrument arm, they did it in steps, waiting for verification from Earth before putting the instruments on a target. Now it's capable of identifying the target visually, remaining locked on as it travels, and then it will fine-tune its position before deploying the instrument on its own.
They've also got the ability to detect when they're slipping - awhile ago, Opportunity buried its wheels in a sand drift about a foot deep. It was instructed to do a drive of a certain distance, and once its wheels turned the right number of times, it stopped. The sand drifts, which have a crunchy surface, had previously held its weight. Not this one. It took a long time to extract it. Imagine getting stuck in a snow drift, and the only way to get out is to plug it into reverse and lay down on the gas. Now imagine that your maximum speed is only about 1 inch per second.
So to prevent any further incidents like that, the rovers were programmed to detect slip automatically, even if they've been instructed otherwise. So now you can tell them to drive into unsafe terrain, and if they say it's not safe, they'll refuse to do it unless it's specifically overridden.
That happened once before - Opportunity was told to drive up to a cliff ledge to get a good panorama. It saw the cliff edge a few meters away and refused to move any closer. The controllers had to override its protection systems to edge it in a little closer.
NikolaeVarius
Lifer
We were lucky. Storms took off most of the dust on the panels. They're falling part though. ALOT of it has been starting to shut down from dust, overheating joints, and other problems. But, this is the reason why we need to keep funding NASA, so they can keep creating quality rovers that keep doing science long after their time.
Solar Panels deployed!
Modelworks
Lifer
And then there is nothing but blackness.
In the background we hear
"You took off the lens cap, right ?"
"Me, ?, I thought you took it off ?"
hellokeith
Golden Member
Not quite yet.. waiting..
NikolaeVarius
Lifer
The guy said that Panels were deployed 15 minutes ago, unless I heard wrong.
Throckmorton
Lifer
He meant that's when it would have happened. They were still waiting to find out.
To celebrate I'm going to slap a NASA decal, that I've had for like 20 months, on the back of my car 😀
Jeff7
Lifer
I think it's that the panels should have deployed, but they need to wait for one of the orbiters to fly over for confirmation.
Not sure though.
And they seem to have found the flattest damn place on Mars. 0.25° of tilt.
Here's what Spirit is looking at, from its winter haven, tilted up to catch as much sunlight as possible during the winter.
And here's the dust that it's got to deal with.
Not sure though.
And they seem to have found the flattest damn place on Mars. 0.25° of tilt.
Here's what Spirit is looking at, from its winter haven, tilted up to catch as much sunlight as possible during the winter.
And here's the dust that it's got to deal with.
Modelworks
Lifer
If your interested in what it takes for hardware to pass NASA spec, here is the guide:
http://workmanship.nasa.gov/li...%20books/frameset.html
http://workmanship.nasa.gov/li...%20books/frameset.html
Jeff7
Lifer
Oh, on Mars? I'm not sure. I know that a number have tried.
The Russians sent a lot, but plenty of them just outright crashed, or else never even made it out of Earth orbit.
And yes, Europe has tried a few times - the Beagle2 lander was one. It went down and never responded. They don't know what went wrong. It might have landed on a large rock and flipped over, or something might not have deployed properly.
They are helping out now though, as Mars Express sometimes acts as a data relay for our stuff on the surface.
They've also got their own rover, Exomars, in the works. Last I heard though, it's facing budget problems.
Phew, well then, next up: Mars Science Lab, which I think is still set to be launched next year. That's a big thing, too. It won't care about dust either - it's powered by an RTG, so it's limited by the decay rate of plutonium.
NikolaeVarius
Lifer
Woah, awesome, first ship to use thrusters to land on Mars. Too large to use airbags. We may now see heavier things dropping on Mars.
Jeff7
Lifer
MSL - that's going to use a Skycrane sort of thing. It'll drop free-fall style towards the surface, when the Skycrane's thrusters will fire. Then the rover will be lowered down on a tether while the crane hovers above. Once it touches down, the tether will be cut, and the Skycrane will then just fly off and crash somewhere.
Yeah, we're already littering, but I'm sure it's litter that'll end up in a museum in the future. 🙂
Wheel comparison
The MER wheels are around 1' in diameter. MSL is a big sucker.
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