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Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ Spirit _ Spirit - 2010 Winter@Troy

Posted by: Astro0 Feb 1 2010, 12:48 AM

Well, with perhaps a few more weeks of tilt-enhancing drives to go and then settling in for the winter, I thought it might be a good time to have a thread dedicated to ideas and observations that will come. It's likely that we won't hear much from Spirit during the coldest part of winter (April-June) possibly longer. There'll hopefully be beeps to tell us that she's still alive.

Already there are plans for radio science and determining the fluidity or otherwise of the Martian core, plus weather observations, surface changes etc.
What else could you think of that Spirit could do? Remember that she's not going anywhere (vonBraun is out) wink.gif

In the meantime, have you sent your postcard to Spirit yet?! It's a great idea from the Mars outreach team.
http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/spiritpostcards
What would you say to Spirit?


Posted by: vikingmars Feb 1 2010, 12:05 PM

smile.gif Now, let's derive some experience from the mission of Viking Lander 1, an active static lander for 6.5 years...

We did :
1. digging trenches (soil analysis AND soil mechanics) ;
2. long-term surface change surveys ;
3. monitoring dust storms (at that time we were not aware of dust devils) ;
4. "Marsquakes" surveys ;
5. sky dynamics surveys (i.e. for opacity and search for clouds) ;
6. Phobos & Deïmos imaging (i.e. also for dust opacity) ;
7. full 360° hi-res panoramic pics taken : early morning (7:30 am), at noon, early afternoon (15:00 pm) and some sections at sunset (i.e. 17:00 pm) ;
8. meteorology (temperature + pressure + wind direction).

I think nearly all the same goals can be met with Spirit as a stationary lander, with :
- wheels and/or the IDD for (1) ;
- the cameras for (2), (3), (5), (6) and (7) ;
- the inertial measurement unit (which provides 3-axis information on position) for (4) if sensitive enough ;
- some heaters consumptions from which an outside temp can be derived for (8) and dust movements on the solar panels for long-term wind directions for (8) also...

Well... still a lot of GOOD SCIENCE to expect from Spirit !

AND.. let's imagine Spirit sending back to Earth spectacular images such as romantic full hi-res 360° sunrise or sunset panoramas with rocks casting long shadows... rolleyes.gif

Now, let's have a "positive Spirit" ! smile.gif

Posted by: Ant103 Feb 1 2010, 03:17 PM

So, I think there is something cool to do about full 360° pan. This is to do a super-res 360° pan, in B&W taken with the L1/R1 filters (so blank) for the super-res and in the same with the full set of filter, and compose a super-res color pan. This will lead to have the biggest pan we ever had of Mars. This will be a pretty hard imagery mission but this is my "little dream" smile.gif.

Posted by: Tesheiner Feb 1 2010, 03:50 PM

I would love to see such a "beast" panorama but I don't see it happening. sad.gif
The reason would be the lack of power / memory space / bandwidth to manage it in a reasonable timeframe.

PS: I suppose you mean L7/R1 filters.

Posted by: elakdawalla Feb 1 2010, 05:50 PM

Maybe they can finally do that rover MI self-portrait though! Though I don't expect she'll have power to before winter sets in. First job is winter survival, then we can have all this stationary science.

Posted by: cbcnasa Feb 1 2010, 06:13 PM

As a permanent station the ability to go back to a specific location over time might be an idea for study to visit several times for more specific study of data found. Is there any time line set up now?

Posted by: Astro0 Feb 1 2010, 10:38 PM

I know that they plan to look at microchanges in soil particle movement over time using the MI.
It'd be interesting if they could brush clean a conveniently located flat rock surface and then watch the dust deposition that occurs and particle movement over time.

Posted by: NW71 Feb 4 2010, 01:30 AM

I don't want to worry anyone but according to the latest report on the official site Spirit is down to 182W! ph34r.gif blink.gif

Posted by: Mixer Feb 4 2010, 01:59 AM

QUOTE (NW71 @ Feb 4 2010, 12:30 PM) *
I don't want to worry anyone but according to the latest report on the official site Spirit is down to 182W! ph34r.gif blink.gif


Got a link?

mad.gif

Posted by: alan Feb 4 2010, 04:00 AM

I guess that explains the absence of new images downloaded from the last few sols.

Posted by: Tesheiner Feb 4 2010, 09:38 AM

Tasks were sequenced to be executed from 2162 up to 2165, including a drive on that latest sol which should be today, but no data has been downlinked since after sol 2161. My interpretation is that they are not making everyday UHF downlink sessions in order to store energy for this latest drive attempt.

RE the report, its an "old one" from a week ago. We may have a new one today or tomorrow.

Posted by: Mixer Feb 4 2010, 11:30 AM

QUOTE (NW71 @ Feb 4 2010, 12:30 PM) *
I don't want to worry anyone but according to the latest report on the official site Spirit is down to 182W! ph34r.gif blink.gif


@Spirit followers.

May I please beg your humble forgiveness from my previous post, I wasn't trying to be agro NW71 I just picked a crappy emoticon to show my concern for our little buddy.

Hope no offense was caused.

Posted by: NW71 Feb 4 2010, 12:22 PM

Mixer, no offence taken!

To be fair, I should have posted the link, but I'm afraid my technical ability is very poor and thus I was unable to do so (I am working on it).

I think we've all slammed the desk or similar at some point recently following our brave Spirit rover! My dog Ben has never had so many walks!

Neil

Posted by: serpens Feb 4 2010, 12:27 PM

QUOTE (NW71 @ Feb 4 2010, 02:30 AM) *
I don't want to worry anyone but according to the latest report on the official site Spirit is down to 182W! ph34r.gif blink.gif

Well deliberately manipulating a 10 degree tilt away from the sun will do that.

Posted by: djellison Feb 4 2010, 12:49 PM

What gives you the idea that they've been intentionally tilting south? Anything other than a norther tilt is an unfortunate and unintentional side effect of extraction, or hope for improved northerly tilt

Posted by: Poolio Feb 4 2010, 04:22 PM

He might have been alluding to Ashley's comment found in the latest http://www.planetary.org/news/2010/0131_Mars_Exploration_Rovers_Update_Robots.html:

QUOTE
"The strategy we have for Spirit getting the tilt better [takes us] through a couple of days of it getting worse before a turn around," Stroupe explained.


Posted by: Tesheiner Feb 4 2010, 05:44 PM

I haven't seen any decrease in northern tilt for the time being.
And again. That 182Wh figure is from a week ago, sol 2158, before the last drive during sol 2161 where we saw an increase of the northern tilt.

Better wait for the next status report.

Posted by: serpens Feb 5 2010, 04:10 AM

Indeed Poolio. From that report quote
'Spirit was slated to drive on 2161 (January 30, 2010) but the results were not available by presstime. The latest data clearly indicate the tilt to the north has degraded or gotten worse. "Before we started driving backwards, we were roughly at 4 degrees southerly tilt. Now, we're roughly in about 10 degrees southerly tilt," Matijevic informed last Friday. But this was expected and should be temporary.'

Posted by: Sunspot Feb 12 2010, 12:05 PM

How low do they expect power levels to drop in terms of watts. Didn't Opportunity drop below 100W during the dust storm a year or so ago?

Posted by: tanjent Feb 12 2010, 12:36 PM

With regard to the liquid/solid core question, that seems like something really fundamental and important that Spirit can accomplish in her remaining days. I'm not clear on all the details, but I understand that if the rover remains absolutely stationary for a long enough period, very precise measurements can be taken of the planet's rate of spin and precession of the spin axis, and from these conclusions can be drawn about what's going on inside. For a better understanding, I'd be interested to hear informed opinions on the following issues:

A. How long is "long enough"? Do I recall having seen an estimate of "six months" somewhere on the web?
B. Within that time period, does the experiment require a series of observations at regular intervals, or just one "before" and one "after" with no rover movement in between?
C. How will the rover's precise position be determined? Optically, with the use of Hi-Rise, or by some triangulation procedure involving the three working orbiters? Or is there some way to do it from Earth?
D. Just how much precision can be obtained with whatever method is to be used? It sounds like probably a resolution of centimeters is required, but even earth-based military grade GPS is not that accurate, is it?
E. Does the rover have to cease all other activities and remain perfectly motionless during the entire observation period for fear of introducing spurious motions into the experiment?
F. If the rover doesn't make it through the winter, can the experiment be concluded passively by a "dead" rover?

(Sorry about that last one everybody, but really, what more could any of us wish for than to be able to continue doing worthwhile work in the afterlife...)


Posted by: djellison Feb 12 2010, 12:51 PM

A - Six months is what I have seen as well
B - A series, I believe.
C - DDOR from the DSN. It's accurate to an extraordinary degree (and is nothing like GPS)
D - Centimetres is what they need, and what they'll get.
E - It's a case of not moving. The arm and camera past can, I presume, still be used.
F - No. It's a case of tracking the radio signal it's transmitting. No transmission, no experiment.

Posted by: tanjent Feb 12 2010, 01:10 PM

I remember in grade school, we learned to spin the Easter Eggs on the table to determine if they were hard-boiled or not. This must be a planetary-scale variant of the same technique. (All you out-reachers take note!)

Posted by: elakdawalla Feb 12 2010, 02:38 PM

One small correction -- I've been told Spirit can actually roll a few centimeters while the experiment is still going on, so there could be motion first thing in spring when power levels start going back up.

Posted by: Poolio Feb 12 2010, 03:25 PM

Spirit had an all time low of 86 whr during the regional dust storm of November 2008. That's an unsustainable level of course, but it only lasted for a few days and Spirit was able to live off her batteries until the situation improved.

I think Opportunity's lowest power level was around 128 whr during the global storm in July 2007.

I don't know how low they expect the power levels to get for Spirit this winter, but I would imagine it doesn't matter that much. Whether the batteries take three days or three weeks to drain, she will still need to endure some lengthy period of being subjected to the unmitigated chill of winter.

Posted by: Poolio Feb 12 2010, 03:55 PM

Thinking about the "hibernation" period for Spirit some more, I have a couple questions. Forgive me if these have been covered before; I don't recall seeing anything...

Once she has "shut down" and is hibernating, is it correct to assume that Spirit will not be consuming any power? If so, wouldn't that mean that what little power the panels do generate each day (whether its 10 whr or 100) would go into charging the batteries? And if that's the case, could we expect Spirit to wake up periodically throughout the winter and try to make contact? (Even though the simple act of waking up may prompt her to trip a low-power fault again.)

During any brief periods of wakefulness, would the computers generate enough heat to provide some warmth to the WEB? And (finally!) would such temperature cycles be helpful or harmful to her chances of long term survival?

Sorry for all the hypotheticals. I know that the hibernation period has been discussed, but I don't recall seeing anything about the possible effects of cyclic sleeping and waking.

Posted by: djellison Feb 12 2010, 05:04 PM

QUOTE (Poolio @ Feb 12 2010, 03:55 PM) *
is it correct to assume that Spirit will not be consuming any power? .......would the computers generate enough heat to provide some warmth to the WEB? And (finally!) would such temperature cycles be helpful or harmful to her chances of long term survival?


Back in the pre-Victoria entry power crisis, but that was nearly 3 years ago, so I'm working off unreliable memories here...

These documents may help :
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/handle/2014/13037
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/handle/2014/13105
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/handle/2014/37750
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/handle/2014/17736

in particular
QUOTE
The response to low batteries or power faults does not use the scheduled communication windows. If the rover is awake when a low battery situation occurs, the flight software has 60 seconds to quickly shut down before the BCB removes the batteries from the power bus. If it is nighttime when the BCB detects a low battery condition, the BCB takes the battery offline and the power bus crashes. Eventually, when the sun rises, the solar array power supports the bus and the BCB. As the batteries charge back up, the BCB puts them back online to support the bus. At the next solar wakeup, the flight software schedules one LGA communication window at a predetermined hour (11:00 LST) to report to Earth. No UHF windows are attempted because these usually occur in the early morning or late afternoon, when the available solar power is low. The vehicle remains in this configuration (with autonomous shutdown mode active, in receive mode via the LGA, performing one DTE window per day) until the operations team reconfigures the vehicle to resume normal operations


As I understand it, the Rover Battery Control Board ( RBCB / BCB ) remains on - managing and measuring the power generated by the arrays and the battery, and issuing wakeup to the main computer based on either a specific power being generated or a timer.

How, exactly, this will tie in to brown outs, low power faults etc, I don't know

Also - there are RHU's within the WEB to generate a certain ammount of heat.

As for thermal cycles, every single day-night cycle is a thermal cycle and every single one runs the risk of a solder fracturing or a wire breaking.

Posted by: fredk Feb 12 2010, 08:32 PM

QUOTE (Sunspot @ Feb 12 2010, 01:05 PM) *
How low do they expect power levels to drop in terms of watts. Didn't Opportunity drop below 100W during the dust storm a year or so ago?

Another point to always keep in mind is that previous lows during dust storms were during the warm summer, when the heating power requirements were less than during winter. So 100 Whrs for Spirit this winter isn't the same as 100 Whrs for her in the summer.

Posted by: fredk Feb 12 2010, 08:42 PM

Some details in http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/spotlight/20100211a.html It looks like preparations for the winter, and the stationary science campaign have begun:

QUOTE
This week the rover team is uploading schedules to Spirit for when to communicate with Earth or with the orbiting Mars Odyssey during the rest of this year and into 2011. Spirit will use these schedules whenever it has adequate power to wake up. Spirit will take a set of "before" images of surroundings from the parked position this week, for comparison with images in the Martian spring to study effects of wind. Images toward the south will also aid preparations for possible future drives... Other preparations for winter will include putting the robotic arm into a position for studies of atmospheric composition when power is available and changing the stow positions of the high-gain antenna and panoramic camera to minimize shadowing of the solar panels.

Posted by: Stu Feb 12 2010, 09:16 PM

Guess that's it, then; our girl is hunkering down for the long, hard winter. But we'll keep her company here, on UMSF, that's for sure.

The rubbing sound you can hear is the sound of thousands and thousands of fingers around the world being crossed.

Posted by: marsophile Feb 12 2010, 10:40 PM

I assume there is no danger of the flash memory anomaly returning while Spirit is incommunicado?

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Feb 13 2010, 12:06 AM

The flash memory anomaly is now http://www.flightsoftware.org/files/FSW07_Ali_Flash.pdf and there is a lot of easy to find discussion of it.

The short answer is, no. The programming error that caused the flash memory to fill up was fixed on both rovers once the problem was identified. There is no chance of that particular problem of ever recurring.

Posted by: Paolo Feb 13 2010, 01:46 PM

Is there anything published about Spirit's "moment of inertia" experiment? I can't find anything...

Posted by: Poolio Feb 13 2010, 04:48 PM

Wow, Doug, thanks for all the relevant info. I will delve into those documents in my copious free time (!), but the quote you highlighted and your follow-on comments were very illuminating.

So the rover does consume a minimal amount of power and the BCB "stays awake" even during hibernation. This also explains questions I had about how the rover wakes up -- what triggers the event that prompts the comm attempt. This must be different from Phoenix who suffered no sunlight and therefore no power for many months. I assume that if you dropped Spirit into the arctic circle at winter, she would become irrevocably dead.

The excerpt also sheds some light on the latest JPL update that talks about adjusting the comm window for the winter. And somehow I never knew that the rovers had RHU's in their bellies.... So there are 8 RHU's generating 1 W each. Winter temps are expected to reach -40C. Does anyone know what the resulting temperature would be in the WEB given these parameters?

Posted by: imipak Feb 13 2010, 08:20 PM

When I win the lottery, I'm funding a start-up to develop immortal batteries, capable of surviving months of no charge and then recharging. Oh, and electronic components capable of surviving, say, 200 degree thermal cycles indefinitely. Hopefully there'll be enough left over for Doug's pony, too wink.gif

Posted by: briv1016 Feb 14 2010, 06:55 AM

There are 801.9 Mb of imagery data and an unknown amount of spectroscopy and telemetry data stored in flash. Since flash is volatile memory, will it be cleared if a low power fault is tripped?

Posted by: PaulM Feb 14 2010, 09:01 AM

QUOTE (briv1016 @ Feb 14 2010, 06:55 AM) *
There are 801.9 Mb of imagery data and an unknown amount of spectroscopy and telemetry data stored in flash. Since flash is volatile memory, will it be cleared if a low power fault is tripped?

Flash is none-volatile memory. I do not believe that so much data could have built up in Flash if it was volatle. I presume that much of this data predates that last time that Spirit was told to sleep overnight and so would have been cleared if flash was volatile.

I guess that many of these pictures were taken in a search for dust devils and represent frames in which no dust devils were found. dd.gif They may therefore never be returned to Earth.

Posted by: briv1016 Feb 14 2010, 09:28 AM

My bad. For some reason I thought that the flash memory was volatile. rolleyes.gif

Posted by: Explorer1 Feb 14 2010, 08:23 PM

Greetings everyone. Longtime lurker here (since the mer.rlproject.com days!) and I finally have a question that I can't find the answer too. Here goes:

The Viking landers lasted for many years on the Martian surface, immobile. Is there some technical reason their comm. data cannot be used for measurements of Mars's interior, like the long-term plans are for Spirit? I'm just asking because I find it hard to believe that no one would use that 30+ year old data to do the same things we're doing now. There must be some good reason they can't be used.

Thanks, and keep up the good work keeping this place great! smile.gif

Posted by: djellison Feb 14 2010, 08:48 PM

MI Pan now she's parked up. Others will do a far better job of sharpening these images up smile.gif

 

Posted by: sgendreau Feb 14 2010, 09:25 PM

QUOTE (Explorer1 @ Feb 14 2010, 12:23 PM) *
The Viking landers lasted for many years on the Martian surface, immobile. Is there some technical reason their comm. data cannot be used for measurements of Mars's interior, like the long-term plans are for Spirit?


I believe Squyres said in one of his interviews that the Vikings did not collect the appropriate type of data. Sorry, no link.

Posted by: Eluchil Feb 14 2010, 10:14 PM

QUOTE (Explorer1 @ Feb 14 2010, 08:23 PM) *
The Viking landers lasted for many years on the Martian surface, immobile. Is there some technical reason their comm. data cannot be used for measurements of Mars's interior, like the long-term plans are for Spirit?


My understanding of the experiment is that what they will be looking at is the DSN tracking data rather than anything generated on-board Spirit herself. Thus, we'd have to look to upgrades to the DSN or improved knowledge of Earth's rotation and orbit for the explanation. It's a good question though.

Eluchil

Posted by: elakdawalla Feb 14 2010, 10:36 PM

I asked Squyres about past landers during the January press briefing (when prodded to by Doug!). He said that the Viking radio system wasn't the right type to permit the precise tracking required. They had S-band radio, the rovers use X-band. I think that's the reason. They did do tracking with Pathfinder, but the mission didn't last long enough.

--Emily

Posted by: Explorer1 Feb 14 2010, 10:51 PM

Well that explains it. Thanks for the quick reply! Hopefully Spirit will last long enough to be able to do this.

Posted by: ddeerrff Feb 15 2010, 02:59 AM

QUOTE (elakdawalla @ Feb 14 2010, 04:36 PM) *
wasn't the right type to permit the precise tracking required. They had S-band radio, the rovers use X-band.


Are they making some of the new measurement using Doppler? Perhaps the Viking S-band radios didn't have sufficient frequency stability.

Posted by: elakdawalla Feb 15 2010, 03:46 AM

That would make sense. I don't know, though.

Posted by: PDP8E Feb 15 2010, 04:23 AM

Here is the MI images of the final parking spot of Spirit
(as Doug said, others may do a better job of sharpening... mine has brightness discontinuities between images...oh well!)


Posted by: Stu Feb 15 2010, 08:08 AM

Couple of new 3D views here...

http://twitpic.com/13dfni

http://twitpic.com/13dfrz

And a new blog post here: http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/spirit-stops-roving-and-soon-will-sleep

Don't read it if you're not a fully paid up member of the Rover Hugger Club; you'll just upset yourself. wheel.gif

Posted by: Explorer1 Feb 15 2010, 10:04 AM

QUOTE (Stu @ Feb 15 2010, 12:08 AM) *
Don't read it if you're not a fully paid up member of the Rover Hugger Club; you'll just upset yourself. wheel.gif


....Wow!

That sure makes me glad we have two of them!
But I'm hoping some trick of fate will give Spirit a fighting chance, too.

i.e. dd.gif

Posted by: Stu Feb 15 2010, 10:10 AM

It's been said before, and often - Don't bet against Spirit, it's a great way of losing money...

Spirit's adventure is far from over yet, of that I'm sure. smile.gif

Posted by: Paolo Feb 15 2010, 08:29 PM

QUOTE (elakdawalla @ Feb 15 2010, 12:36 AM) *
They had S-band radio, the rovers use X-band. I think that's the reason. They did do tracking with Pathfinder, but the mission didn't last long enough.


Results from Pathfinder were published in http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;278/5344/1749?maxtoshow=&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&volume=278&firstpage=1749&resourcetype=HWCIT

the "superiority" MPF's (and Spirit's) X-band over Viking's S-band is explained in note 8:

QUOTE
The Pathfinder radio system operates at X band (8 GHz) compared with the S-band (2 GHz) radio system used by the Viking landers. The Doppler data noise caused by solar plasma is inversely proportional to the square of the radio frequency. The Pathfinder Doppler data have about 13 times less noise than the Viking lander Doppler data. The Doppler data noise is about 0.05 mm/s for data at 60-s intervals. The solar plasma also affects the round-trip range measurements. Calibrations for the solar plasma for some of the Viking lander data were determined from dual-frequency observations of the Viking orbiters. The Viking ranging data have a residual noise of ~7 m for data with orbiter calibrations and ~12 m for data with no orbiter calibrations. The Pathfinder ranging data taken so far have residuals of ~3 m.

Posted by: briv1016 Feb 19 2010, 11:02 AM

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_spiritAll.html#sol2171

Posted by: MahFL Feb 19 2010, 01:39 PM

I assume they will have time to upload the table before spirit goes "night night" ?

Posted by: serpens Feb 21 2010, 07:01 AM

Anyone know what the final aspect was? How much of a northerly tilt did they end up with?

Posted by: Mixer Feb 21 2010, 10:02 AM

QUOTE (serpens @ Feb 21 2010, 06:01 PM) *
Anyone know what the final aspect was? How much of a northerly tilt did they end up with?


Offhand I think we have a 9 degree tilt to the South, but I'm more than happy to be corrected on that.

Posted by: Hungry4info Feb 21 2010, 01:09 PM

To the south? I thought they were angled north now?

Posted by: redmoon Feb 21 2010, 01:44 PM

No, Spirit is tilted 9 degrees toward the south :
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/spotlight/20100211a.html

Posted by: James Sorenson Feb 22 2010, 06:15 AM

Here is the IDD work volume pan taken between sol's 2163-2176 with L257. Lots of color variations in the soil smile.gif



Posted by: MahFL Feb 22 2010, 01:58 PM

Yes the tilt is South, time, energy and luck ran out for getting Spirit into a Northerly tilt. A bit like what happened to Phoenix, in the end sunlight rules what you can do and cannnot do.

Posted by: djellison Feb 22 2010, 02:27 PM

Spirit is such a drama queen sometimes. I'm reasonably confident of a revival and a cleaning come next spring, but it's going to be a nail biting 2010 for our old gal.

Posted by: abbath Feb 22 2010, 02:49 PM

QUOTE (James Sorenson @ Feb 22 2010, 07:15 AM) *
Here is the IDD work volume pan taken between sol's 2163-2176 with L257. Lots of color variations in the soil smile.gif



The fine lamination of the rock in the center of the pic is quite interesting. seems like a clay deposit (deep water???). I hope there'll be some future detailed analysis of that.

Posted by: fredk Feb 22 2010, 05:20 PM

That rock looks like countless thousands more just to our east on the edge of homeplate.

Posted by: vikingmars Feb 23 2010, 04:14 PM

tau is indeed very low : look at the contrast on the surface, details on the hills, and at the dark sky...
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/n/2175/2N319449738EFFB27MP0703L0M1.JPG

Posted by: MizarKey Feb 24 2010, 02:36 AM

I'm anticipating seeing something we wouldn't have seen if we'd kept moving. Maybe standing still will be a good thing too.

Posted by: Hungry4info Feb 27 2010, 11:41 AM

Physorg is running a story

"Spirit's Journey to the Center of Mars"
http://www.physorg.com/news186415686.html

They're talking about Spirit's science campaign to determine Mars' interior, but ... darn if that isn't ironic considering the recent drives.

Posted by: JayB Mar 1 2010, 07:23 PM

via twitter

@elakdawalla Ray Arvidson: Spirit's last 9 drives did 39 cm, "pretty good for a lander." In spring, a couple weeks of work should get Spirit out. #lpsc

wheel.gif wheel.gif

(only 2 wheel.gif because , well, you know)

Posted by: fredk Mar 1 2010, 09:50 PM

More details in the http://www.planetary.org/news/2010/0228_Mars_Exploration_Rovers_Update_Spirit.html On driving in the spring:

QUOTE
The rover won’t even try to turn wheels again until perhaps August or September... Then, said Arvidson, even though it's got a science campaign laid out, Spirit will probably first start driving again, since it's "almost out” of its sandy snare. With only four fully functioning wheels... “a lot of it will be very difficult,” he admitted. “We're going to have to do a lot of turning about the right hand side, so we're not going to drive far. But we're not necessarily a static lander.”

Meanwhile, the engineers at JPL have already been assessing the drive capabilities with the rover replicate in the In-Situ Instrument Laboratory (ISIL), according to JPL’s Scott Lever, an MER mission manager. “We did some 4-wheel drive testing in the ISIL and did well, surprisingly well,” he said.


About the success of backwards driving:
QUOTE
“[The wheel] wiggles seem to have solved the problem of what's called the rolling resistance, the resistance due to the soil surrounding the wheels and just making the wheels spin in place,” Arvidson said. “The wheels couldn’t go forward because there was so much pressure resisting them. Wiggling creates the space and lowers the pressure and that's why I think we got the 34 centimeters (13.38 inches) in the last 10 drives. We were wiggling as part and parcel of that activity.” The last couple of drives, he added, were shorter, due to declining power, the reason Spirit made less progress than it did during the earlier backwards drives.

The progress made also apparently eliminated the threat of Belly Rock, the pointed rock that had been touching Spirit’s underside. “We think Belly Rock is now out from under the rover,” Laubach said.

Posted by: PaulM Mar 2 2010, 12:48 PM

http://www.planetary.org/news/2010/0228_Mars_Exploration_Rovers_Update_Spirit.html also contains the following quote:

Callas scheduled an ‘all-hands’ meeting at JPL to discuss the engineering realities and to make sure everyone on the team is fully aware of just how tough this winter is going to be for Spirit. The long period of silence, as well as the possibility, though seemingly unlikely at this juncture, that it may stay silent could send team members into a kind of rovershock.

Laubach, who suffered the silence of the Mars Polar Lander back in 1999, has also been talking with her drivers and engineers one on one, bracing for all possibilities.

I wonder if "rovershock" counselling will be available for Rover fans around the World when both MER rovers cease to function. My hope is that Oppy will still be roving when MSL lands and that consequently new rover pictures will be available each day of this decade without interruption.

Posted by: Hungry4info Mar 2 2010, 01:04 PM

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean about MSL. Shortly after NASA declared Spirit a stationary rover, it started to hit me how terribly attached to the MER rovers I was. It hurt a lot that Spirit was permanently stuck. I don't know how I will feel when Spirit and/or Opportunity cease functioning. I dread to think of it.

Phoenix was okay, we all knew it was coming, how and roughly when it would die. Never got the time to really get firmly attached to it. I can't imagine how much it will hurt those who operate the MER rovers once one of them fails. .... ugh that's a dreadful thought too.

Posted by: djellison Mar 2 2010, 01:08 PM

Like all the best funerals (and that's not a construct of words you use very often) it's about celebrating rather than mourning. It will be emotional, it will be frustrating, but it will be a chance to finally look back and appreciate all that has gone before.

Posted by: hendric Mar 2 2010, 02:49 PM

I was just wondering this a few weeks ago. I think if MSL had kept with its original schedule, it would be wheels down on Mars now or very soon? So in my estimation, Spirit and Opportunity already made it to the party, it's MSL that's fashionably late.

Posted by: bugs_ Mar 2 2010, 04:28 PM

Rovershock??? Oh Noez!!! I'll get that!

Posted by: Stu Mar 2 2010, 09:00 PM

Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Together.

In the meantime, here's Spirit's latest view of the Hills...

http://twitpic.com/169cql/full

Posted by: Explorer1 Mar 2 2010, 10:30 PM

Something I've been wondering about for some time, (Mods move this if I'm posting in the wrong topic):
When/where did Spirit last catch a glimpse of the lander? I don't recall it being visible from the top of Husband Hill, due to haze and/or distance, so it must have been much earlier than that, correct? Looking at the panorama, It would be nice to see a sort of 'goodbye' image, like when Oppy left Eagle crater and took some last photos of the place.

Posted by: fredk Mar 2 2010, 11:32 PM

It's been so long since those days, and I don't recall when our last sighting of the lander was. But the reflective heatshield, and the big bright parachute were visible to at least around sol 600, ie the summit of Husband. Check out http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=1476

Posted by: Explorer1 Mar 3 2010, 05:54 AM

QUOTE (fredk @ Mar 2 2010, 03:32 PM) *
Check out http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=1476


Yeah, that's what I was thinking of!
No chance of seeing them from down in the valley though, right?

Posted by: Hungry4info Mar 4 2010, 01:30 PM

Probably not. I think they're on the other side of that mountain.

Posted by: fredk Mar 4 2010, 06:42 PM

I thought about looking for the heatshield (easiest to see) from the last couple of winter haven sites, but never got around to digging through the pancams. Actually, you'd first want to make sure the right azimuth was in view. The landing site was visible from both WH2 and WH3 according to jpl - they've labelled it on these pans:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/panoramas/spirit/2007.html
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/panoramas/spirit/2008.html
But there are errors in those jpl pans (both incorrectly label West Spur), so you'd want to double check the azimuths.

Posted by: djellison Mar 4 2010, 07:05 PM

QUOTE (fredk @ Mar 4 2010, 06:42 PM) *
(both incorrectly label West Spur)


Were I to label any feature on those pans as West Spur - I'd put it in exactly the same place as it is on both those JPL pans. Where would you put it?

Posted by: fredk Mar 4 2010, 07:34 PM

The azimuth is right for West Spur, but West Spur is hidden behind another promontory we used to call "Lookout Point " in the really old days. (IIRC, there was talk before the big climb began of driving up to that point for a view of the inner basin.) Check out http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=44&view=findpost&p=82916

Compare those jpl pans with a hirise view like http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/tm-spirit/images/MERA_A2158_2_br2.jpg What we see, Lookout Point, is just to the west of Eldorado. West Spur is roughly twice as far away to the northwest.

Posted by: djellison Mar 4 2010, 08:10 PM

West Spur, however, is in that direction. 'Lookout Point' formally, is near Larrys Lookout, and I can't find any formal name for that hill. Notice they put it with a line pointing down and stopping at the top of that feature, they've not put the label ON it, like Home Plate and El Dorado. I don't think it's right to call it 'incorrectly labelled'.


Posted by: fredk Mar 4 2010, 08:44 PM

"Lookout Point" was only ever an informal name, as far as I know. http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20040521a.html including the story of the plan that never panned out.

I'd have to say that it seems a bit of a stretch to suppose that they meant to indicate that West Spur was behind "Lookout Point". Anyone who didn't know the geography well would assume that what they were pointing to was West Spur. Maybe the jpl people meant to add a dotted profile of the invisible West Spur but never got round to it.

Posted by: centsworth_II Mar 4 2010, 08:50 PM

http://www.marstoday.com/viewsr.html?pid=12928 shows that before it was decided that Spirit could climb West Spur, one plan was to skirt the base of Husband Hill and climb to "Lookout Point" for a view of the inner basin.



Edit: Scooped by fredk! tongue.gif

Posted by: Lucas Mar 6 2010, 02:28 PM

Lots of Pancam pictures returned on March 3rd, including some of Stu's "lucky horseshoe" crumbling apart as Spirit moved those 39 cm! I'm sure he doesn't mind one bit wink.gif

Looking forward to some color mosaics by the experts!



http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pancam/2010-03-03/2P320875787EFFB27MP2400L5M1.JPG

Posted by: NickF Mar 6 2010, 07:08 PM

Here's an RGB appetiser before the image geniuses get to work



Posted by: alan Mar 8 2010, 03:59 PM

From roverdriver's twitter feed:

QUOTE
Spirit's down to ~ 150 W-hr/sol. We might be right on the edge of losing commandability, possibly for several months. Think warm thoughts. 11:23 PM Mar 6th via web

Posted by: Tesheiner Mar 8 2010, 04:06 PM

The last status report on the project's web page already mentioned the 150Wh figure (153, actually) for sol 2191 (2nd March).

Posted by: Astro0 Mar 11 2010, 03:18 AM

She may be down, but she's not out! wink.gif
Another amazing milestone just a few hours away - Sol 2200!


Rest easy little Spirit and we'll see you in the Spring.

Posted by: Explorer1 Mar 11 2010, 04:42 AM

Spirit 2200: sounds like some sci-fi movie title from the 50's.

Posted by: vikingmars Mar 11 2010, 11:12 AM

wheel.gif wheel.gif wheel.gif wheel.gif YES ! Only 46 more Sols to go before beating Viking Lander 1 record for the longest Mars surface mission !
I.e. Sol 2245 (last transmission received from VL1 with latest images and meteo data from Sol 2238) + 1 Sol = Sol 2246 smile.gif

Posted by: Explorer1 Mar 11 2010, 08:40 PM

I was wondering when they'd beat that old record. Guinness book, here we come! (Crossing fingers)

Posted by: briv1016 Mar 11 2010, 09:24 PM

Odds are we are going to be in "hibernation" (low power fault) during the breaking of the record. We will only know if she made it if we regain radio communication come spring. Scott Maxwell referred to this as "Schrödinger's Rover" on Twitter a few weeks ago. rolleyes.gif

Posted by: briv1016 Mar 12 2010, 12:23 AM

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_spiritAll.html#sol2192

Posted by: Mixer Mar 12 2010, 12:37 AM

QUOTE (briv1016 @ Mar 12 2010, 08:24 AM) *
Odds are we are going to be in "hibernation" (low power fault) during the breaking of the record. We will only know if she made it if we regain radio communication come spring. Scott Maxwell referred to this as "Schrödinger's Rover" on Twitter a few weeks ago. rolleyes.gif


Such wit. I can't believe I feel emotion about Spirit as if she were my own pet. Is it odd?

I realised when I watched a video about Opportunity I don't know ANY of the people involved as I do with Spirit.

Fingers & toes crossed we break the record.

Posted by: Astro0 Mar 12 2010, 12:51 AM

No, you've seen those people too.
Everyone has the same look of fear, angst, concern, joy, pride and satisfaction on their faces.
The names may change but they are the parent's, brothers, sisters and extended family of these twin rovers.
They care about them as much as we 'rover-huggers' do (are you hearing me Stu) wink.gif

Looking forward to the Spring when Spirit returns anew smile.gif


Posted by: Tesheiner Mar 15 2010, 10:19 AM

QUOTE (briv1016 @ Mar 12 2010, 01:23 AM) *
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_spiritAll.html#sol2192


From that report: "The last downlink from the rover was on Sol 2195 (March 7, 2010). The next downlink from the rover is not scheduled yet, but expected to be sequenced for this coming weekend."

AFAIK, no data have been downlinked until now. What I don't know is: Has an UHF session been attempted?

Posted by: fredk Mar 15 2010, 08:10 PM

New images are now down. Most recent are from sol 2202, yestersol.

Posted by: Tesheiner Mar 15 2010, 08:46 PM

Great news! biggrin.gif
Now, if we could have info about the daily power production / consumption...

Posted by: briv1016 Mar 16 2010, 03:23 AM

According to the tracking site, the only onboard images we don't have full copies of are a few dust devil images from sols 2116, 2128 and 2129. dd.gif

Posted by: JayB Mar 19 2010, 12:07 AM

via twitter a few minutes ago

@marsroverdriver Spirit, brave little girl that she is, is still hanging in there at 139 W-hr/sol. Not hibernating yet.


Posted by: brellis Mar 19 2010, 01:45 AM

keep yer chin up, girl! hope those devils clean your wings

Posted by: nprev Mar 19 2010, 02:17 AM

(sigh)...gonna be a long several months. Hang in there, Spirit.

Posted by: Tom Tamlyn Mar 19 2010, 05:25 AM

>>According to the tracking site, the only onboard images we don't have full copies of are a few dust devil images from sols 2116, 2128 and 2129.

Does that mean that we've finally all but cleared Spirit's flash memory? Is this a first?

TTT (hoping that Spring reveals a cat and not just a grin)

Posted by: Stu Mar 19 2010, 06:19 PM

Seems that poor Spirit is having to face a body temperature of -41 deg C...

... and so...

http://twitpic.com/19kl3m (illustrated version)

http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/spirit-shivering (text only version)

New astropoem, hope some of you like it.

Posted by: JayB Mar 19 2010, 07:37 PM

They continue to amaze

@marsroverdriver Brilliant uplink team found way to shave Spirit's energy needs; can get by w/120ish now. Might stave off hibernation another couple weeks!

Posted by: fredk Mar 19 2010, 10:00 PM

With http://twitter.com/marsroverdriver/status/10740899361

QUOTE
Not 100% clear on details, but apparently they found a way to remove one wakeup/sol. Now waking up only for ODY pass.

Posted by: centsworth_II Mar 20 2010, 02:15 AM

QUOTE (Stu @ Mar 19 2010, 01:19 PM) *
Seems that poor Spirit is having to face a body temperature of -41 deg C...

... and so...
Knowing your penchant for amusing images, I expected to see something like this:


But then you have that other penchant, for evocative poetry.

Posted by: Eluchil Mar 20 2010, 06:34 AM

QUOTE (Tom Tamlyn @ Mar 19 2010, 06:25 AM) *
Does that mean that we've finally all but cleared Spirit's flash memory? Is this a first?


If I'm reading the SOWG documentation right (from the http://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/mer/index.htm} They emptied flash before refilling it on Sols 936 and 937. http://an.rsl.wustl.edu/mer/pages/mera/docs/0936/SWD/1155939097_8308-1_A-Sol-936-937-documentarian.doc This was similarly during a winter low-power situation when they couldn't just order more observations.

Posted by: briv1016 Mar 23 2010, 01:29 AM

According to the tracking site, Spirit had a successful downlink on sol 2210. smile.gif

Posted by: fredk Mar 23 2010, 01:51 AM

The latest images include old DD navcams and tau pancams from as recently as yestersol (2209).

Posted by: Stu Mar 23 2010, 10:41 AM

How Spirit might eventually get free - with a little other-worldly help wink.gif

http://barsoomtales.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/freeing-spirit

(note: this is a just-a-bit-of-fun sci-fi short story. If you're not into that kind of thing, best give it a miss, especially if you don't like blue police boxes... biggrin.gif )

Posted by: fredk Mar 23 2010, 02:28 PM

http://twitter.com/marsroverdriver/status/10906070963

Posted by: fredk Mar 26 2010, 01:55 AM

Cryptic comment in the http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_spiritAll.html#sol2204

QUOTE
A change was noticed on Sol 2203 (March 15, 2010), in the behavior of the battery survival heaters. The implications are not known, but it is being investigated.

Posted by: Tesheiner Mar 31 2010, 06:47 PM

QUOTE
SPIRIT UPDATE: Solar Energy Levels Dropping - sols 2204-2210, March 16-22, 2010:
...
The last downlink from the rover was on Sol 2210 (March 22, 2010) ... The plan for this week is to sequence another seven-sol plan to be uplinked this Friday with a single UHF downlink by early next week.


Spirit is now on the early hours of sol 2219 and AFAIK the last available data is still from that sol 2210. Does anybody knows when the next downlink session is / was planned?

Posted by: tacitus Apr 1 2010, 12:00 AM

Hibernation begins (probably)

QUOTE
PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit skipped a planned communication session on March 30 and, as anticipated from recent power-supply projections, has probably entered a low-power hibernation mode.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-106&rn=news.xml&rst=2540

Posted by: Astro0 Apr 1 2010, 02:17 AM

Sleep tight girl. pancam.gif
We'll keep a light on for you. wink.gif

Posted by: nprev Apr 1 2010, 02:36 AM

wheel.gif pancam.gif

Posted by: Stu Apr 1 2010, 05:33 AM

Enjoy your sleep, little one, you deserve it. Dream of hills climbed and distant peaks seen, and come back to us when you're ready. We'll keep peeking in through the door to make sure you're alright.

Posted by: CosmicRocker Apr 1 2010, 06:10 AM

omg! Can we get real here? As much as we all love Spirit and hope for her well-being, she is a cold-blooded robot. We dream; she doesn't. Let's hope this incredible machine can survive another brutal Martian winter and provide all of us with more, wonderful, planetary exploration come the spring.

This mission has accomplished more than any of us could ever have hoped for. Let's hope it can go a bit further...

Posted by: tacitus Apr 1 2010, 06:49 AM

You have no soul, CosmicRocker smile.gif

Posted by: djellison Apr 1 2010, 10:45 AM

QUOTE (CosmicRocker @ Apr 1 2010, 06:10 AM) *
she is a cold-blooded robot.


OMG Can we get real here. Spirit doesn't have any blood at all.
rolleyes.gif

Posted by: centsworth_II Apr 1 2010, 11:02 AM

And MER A is an it, not a she.

There. Now we've eliminated any trace of anthropomorphism. Is everyone satisfied? laugh.gif

Posted by: climber Apr 1 2010, 11:32 AM

QUOTE (djellison @ Apr 1 2010, 12:45 PM) *
OMG Can we get real here. Spirit doesn't have any blood at all.
rolleyes.gif

Did you twitt that to Scott? blink.gif

Posted by: tedstryk Apr 1 2010, 01:28 PM

Are we going to fight a battle against metaphor? Sheesh!

Posted by: stevesliva Apr 1 2010, 02:18 PM

QUOTE (tedstryk @ Apr 1 2010, 09:28 AM) *
Are we going to fight a battle against metaphor? Sheesh!


Yes. We'll call it tilting at windmills.

Posted by: djellison Apr 1 2010, 02:38 PM

QUOTE (climber @ Apr 1 2010, 11:32 AM) *
Did you twitt that to Scott? blink.gif


I was being sarcastic. CR can't criticise people for personifying Spirit, whilst still ascribing physiological properties and a gender.

After 6 years, we're all grown a little fond of the "400 lbs of thinking metal sent from Earth"*. Ascribing emotion and personifying them is to be expected, and is entirely normal and acceptable for UMSF.


* Scotts words, not mine smile.gif

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Apr 1 2010, 02:40 PM

QUOTE (CosmicRocker @ Apr 1 2010, 06:10 AM) *
she is a cold-blooded robot.


QUOTE (djellison @ Apr 1 2010, 02:45 AM) *
OMG Can we get real here. Spirit doesn't have any blood at all.
rolleyes.gif

Can we get even more real here? Machines don't have genders. rolleyes.gif

Posted by: Stu Apr 1 2010, 02:43 PM

QUOTE (CosmicRocker @ Apr 1 2010, 07:10 AM) *
omg! Can we get real here?


Sigh.

Yes, she's a robot, we all know that, but she's come to represent something bigger, something grander. That's what touches people, not the machine itself.

There's always someone ready to pee on your chips, isn't there? rolleyes.gif


Posted by: ElkGroveDan Apr 1 2010, 02:43 PM

QUOTE (CosmicRocker @ Apr 1 2010, 06:10 AM) *
she is a cold-blooded robot.

I should caution you that Stu is part of the admin team. Even if you won on appeal, once you've been deleted you have to start all over again with a new username. Just sayin...

Posted by: Stu Apr 1 2010, 05:20 PM

Some unashamedly "rover huggy" thoughts on Spirit's hibernation...

http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/spirit-shuts-her-eyes

tongue.gif

Posted by: Sunspot Apr 1 2010, 05:27 PM

It is not uncommon for humans to ascribe human characteristics/emotions to robotic machines. Especially by their creators.

Posted by: Tesheiner Apr 1 2010, 05:55 PM

QUOTE (Stu @ Apr 1 2010, 07:20 PM) *
Some unashamedly "rover huggy" thoughts on Spirit's hibernation...

http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/spirit-shuts-her-eyes

Still reading it, but when I got to this paragraph:

Well, today was that day, and as I sit here now, typing these words, Spirit, our poor, brave rover, is sleeping on Mars, frozen almost to the core, and getting colder. Her pancam, navcam and hazcam eyes – which have shown us so many spectacular and magical views over the past 6 years – probably won’t take any more images now for several months, and, I suppose we have to accept, might actually have taken their final images. We’ll have to wait and see.

I had to check it.
This image below is the last one downlinked (not shot, downlinked) by Spirit ... for the time being. On March 22th, at 23:23UTC.
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/navcam/2010-03-22/2N315364546ESFB2BAP1561L0M1.JPG

Posted by: climber Apr 1 2010, 06:43 PM

This is an absolute very evocative image of what has been done and what is left to explore.
You can easily add in the up right corner Stu (or myself actualy) sat on a rock looking down at the plain at his feet.
Thanks Eduardo.
Thanks Spirit

Posted by: Explorer1 Apr 1 2010, 07:27 PM

The most horrible part is not having an exact date. It's all up to Mars whether we'll hear Spirit again in the spring; if we don't we'll just have to guess when EOM came.... what a charged acronym that is!

And it's not bad, for a potential final image.

Posted by: Stu Apr 1 2010, 07:37 PM

Thanks Tesh, that's Saved.

Posted by: tedstryk Apr 1 2010, 09:05 PM

Seems like quite a bit was downlinked yesterday.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pancam/2010-03-31/

Also, this Navcam sequence with a great dust devil.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/navcam/2010-03-31/

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/navcam/2010-03-31/2N299748282ESFB1E5P1561L0M1.JPG

Posted by: Tesheiner Apr 1 2010, 09:13 PM

Downloaded from the JPL servers to the Exploratorium, yes. Downlinked, no. wink.gif

Posted by: tedstryk Apr 1 2010, 09:23 PM

I always thought the dates listed were the downlink dates.

Posted by: Floyd Apr 1 2010, 09:31 PM

Two dust devils--one near each edge of images.

Posted by: djellison Apr 1 2010, 09:37 PM

There can be (and in this case I guess there MUST be, given the missing comms pass from the 30th, and those files being 31st) burps and knots in the pipeline from downlink to distro. I think this is one of those cases. (I'll know for sure once MMB has finished downloading)

Posted by: brellis Apr 1 2010, 10:47 PM

I cried like a baby this morning, hoping Spirit can survive the Martian winter.

Posted by: stevesliva Apr 1 2010, 11:05 PM

Because Spirit did little more than upload and download data in preparation for sleep, the AJS Rayl rover update for last month is extremely heavy on spacecraft engineering details when discussing Spirit:
http://www.planetary.org/news/2010/0331_Mars_Exploration_Rovers_Update_Spirit.html

An additional little detail about the heater issue being a "tiny deadband" -- the heaters have been cycling at a higher frequency, as well as master clock faults being something to hope doesn't occur and prolong the hibernation.

Posted by: JayB Apr 2 2010, 12:09 AM

I've been fretting about our girl since reading about the WEB being -41c. Yikes that sounded scary.

Then I remembered this

http://bit.ly/85JNar

My 2002 Chrysler started @ -46c on Dec. 15.

We're good to go. See you in spring girl!

Posted by: CosmicRocker Apr 2 2010, 04:30 AM

OK, I will publicly apologize for being an ogre. My intention was only to tease about what appeared to me as overly gushy sentiment. In retrospect, I see that it sounded like criticism or even worse.

QUOTE (djellison @ Apr 1 2010, 09:38 AM) *
... CR can't criticise people for personifying Spirit, whilst still ascribing physiological properties and a gender. ...
I intentionally called Spirit "she" because I always do. Even I am capable of some sentimentality.

QUOTE (Stu @ Apr 1 2010, 09:43 AM) *
... There's always someone ready to pee on your chips, isn't there?
I'm truly sorry it sounded that way, Stu. As I said already and for what it's worth, that wasn't my intention. Before you decide to set my posts to "ignore," I hope you will remember that I was one of your earliest supporters when you first started posting your poetry here. unsure.gif

QUOTE (tacitus @ Apr 1 2010, 01:49 AM) *
You have no soul, CosmicRocker
Apparently not. sad.gif

Posted by: Stu Apr 2 2010, 05:27 AM

Don't worry Cosmic, seriously, no offence taken, it was all good natured joshing! smile.gif We're all rover huggers here, to a degree. And your post did give me inspiration for a post on my own blog, so I should thank you! smile.gif

And yes, I remember your early and continuing support for my poetry, and truly appreciate it. Now, my literary lens flare can be overly sentimental and gushy, but that's the nature of the beast; "Barsoom" is just too good a rhyming word to waste! laugh.gif

Posted by: Stu Apr 2 2010, 06:18 AM

For all those feeling nostalgic, I found a couple of really good YouTube vids following Spirit's journey, one day at a time...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vQQKQhX--M (to Sol 1724)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaaz9A8Pu5k (the rest)

Same treatment for Oppy, too...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWI2WuqhQ2A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2ePuOcPJA8

Posted by: brellis Apr 2 2010, 06:43 AM

I added a soundtrack to Spirit's 343-Sol recap, three years ago

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=4994769

Posted by: nprev Apr 2 2010, 07:48 AM

Anthropomorphistic (whew!) sidenote: Working on a whole bunch of airplanes has utterly convinced me that complex machines individually have something very like personalities. There may be twenty or thirty F-4s, A-10s, C-17s or whatever in a given USAF squadron, each theoretically identical to the last rivet, but any of that squadron's technicians will tell you that tail number XXX is a @#$%, but YYY is a sweetheart, and they all got their own vibes (and in the US all of the planes are female, of course!) rolleyes.gif

It's an emotional relationship between man & machine, always. You'll curse them and coddle them by turns, and it's a core part of the culture. For example, one of the deepest customs/superstitions is that when launching an Air Force plane, the crew chief always ensures that s/he touches her one last time before taxi so she'll perform well & bring the crew home safely. On cargo aircraft like C-5s, you rub the nose as if it were the head of a much-loved dog before walking out to the marshalling spot; on fighters, you jump up & touch the wingtip as it goes by you.

We got two sweethearts on Mars right now, and they were clearly touched before they launched for they've given a million percent & more.

Spirit has to rest now, but she won't let her crew chiefs & specialists down, ever, though I do feel their pain at this time every bit as much as I've felt joy from & taken vicarious pride in their accomplishments. Hang in there, everybody.

Posted by: brellis Apr 2 2010, 03:40 PM

My GF must be a machine laugh.gif

Posted by: Stu Apr 2 2010, 04:04 PM

You live in a different world to me re airplanes etc, Nick, but I can absolutely identify with the feelings those air crews have. There's something in us that makes us want to have physical contact with the machines we use and rely on, and, yes, love. Yet again, I'm reminded of that wonderful scene in "Star Trek: First Contact" when a wide-eyed Picard reaches out and tenderly touches the hull of the "Phoenix", the first warp-capable starship, down in that silo. I watched that and suddenly had something in my eye...

I'm sure many of us have been to museums, galleries and places like that to see something special to us, and have felt an urge to ignore the "Do Not Touch!" sings and just reach out and touch it. I would love to visit the Air and Space Museum one day, to see all those legendary machines from the history of flight and spaceflight, but I'll probably get thrown out because there'll be something in me that will desperately want to touch the exhibits, just to, I don't know, bond with them, if that makes sense?

Ok, just me then... laugh.gif

Posted by: Phil Stooke Apr 2 2010, 04:25 PM

" "Barsoom" is just too good a rhyming word to waste! "

Moon... June... Barsoom... yes, I see what you mean.

Phil

Posted by: Stu Apr 2 2010, 04:45 PM

A reader has posted a lovely comment on my blog, which I thought some of my fellow rover huggers might find quite touching...

http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/spirit-shuts-her-eyes/#comments

smile.gif

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Apr 2 2010, 06:33 PM

She cried? Um....OK.

Posted by: stevesliva Apr 2 2010, 07:02 PM

QUOTE (nprev @ Apr 2 2010, 03:48 AM) *
There may be twenty or thirty F-4s, A-10s, C-17s or whatever in a given USAF squadron, each theoretically identical to the last rivet, but any of that squadron's technicians will tell you that tail number XXX is a @#$%, but YYY is a sweetheart, and they all got their own vibes (and in the US all of the planes are female, of course!) rolleyes.gif


I've been amused by the maintainer's comments over on airliners.net about which C-5 tail numbers to retire. They are so praying that the low hour planes don't get upgraded to C-5M, because they're total dogs. They are surely not the same at all.

Of course, all the C-5's are kind of dogs, which goes to show you that when something that just blows reliability expectations away, like the -135s or the MERs, you just do grow to love them more than seems healthy. Incidentally the UK just signed a contract to buy three RC-135s for a billion bucks. For airframes that popped off the line in the early sixties! (And probably have like 5 cycles because the USAF just doesn't use them much, but still..) Nothing like being 50 years new when they enter service with the RAF.

Posted by: Stu Apr 2 2010, 09:08 PM

QUOTE (ElkGroveDan @ Apr 2 2010, 07:33 PM) *
She cried? Um....OK.


Nothing wrong with a little bit of artistic licence smile.gif

Posted by: Stu Apr 3 2010, 08:45 AM

Couple of colourisations from the latest set of Spirit pancams to hit Exploratorium...

Have to say, I love - and am a little intrigued by - the misty look of the lower part of this first one...



... and what might be Spirit's last self-portrait for a while...




Posted by: Stu Apr 3 2010, 09:25 AM

...with the top section added...



Sorry, I seem to have something in my eye... laugh.gif

Posted by: djellison Apr 3 2010, 03:50 PM

That 'mist' is just when the sun is directly falling onto the lens of a camera, or some other similar effect - we've seen it a lot, and it's just an optics thing

Posted by: Stu Apr 3 2010, 04:50 PM

Yeah, thought so (see blog: http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2010/04/03/some-pictures-from-spirit ), but just for a moment there I had a beautiful vision of Spirit actually catching a DD waltzing past her... laugh.gif

Posted by: Tom Gwilym Apr 3 2010, 05:20 PM

QUOTE (Stu @ Apr 2 2010, 09:45 AM) *
A reader has posted a lovely comment on my blog, which I thought some of my fellow rover huggers might find quite touching...

http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/spirit-shuts-her-eyes/#comments

smile.gif


I'm the "Tom" that posted the first comment. I agree with you, Spirit is a SHE!


Tom "rover hugger" smile.gif

Posted by: Gonzz Apr 3 2010, 05:46 PM

Don't quite know why, but when someone mentioned Spirit dreaming, this v-clip by Múm as what imediately came to my mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHTFmJk7fH0

Dream through the winter and see you next spring Spirit


Posted by: Tom Gwilym Apr 3 2010, 06:10 PM

QUOTE (Stu @ Apr 2 2010, 08:45 AM) *
A reader has posted a lovely comment on my blog, which I thought some of my fellow rover huggers might find quite touching...

http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/spirit-shuts-her-eyes/#comments

smile.gif


Stu, I hope you don't mind that I sometimes use your photos on my blog site, they are just so good!
I always give full credit.

Tom
http://eas-astroblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/spirit-finally-sleeps.html

Posted by: Stu Apr 3 2010, 10:11 PM

No problem, Tom; always happy and a little bit honoured when someone wants to use one of my pics.

Looking at your (great!) blog tho, you need to change your caption re the self portrait pic: as I say in my blog, that pic was taken some time ago (June 2009), not recently.

Posted by: Tom Gwilym Apr 4 2010, 07:25 AM

Yeah, I did see that wasn't a very new image. Just started writing stuff about her sleeping and lost track of dates while commenting. I'll update that. Thanks!

Tom

Posted by: climber Apr 6 2010, 07:20 PM

Can somebody tell me why exploratorium has been updated yesterday? http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/

Posted by: alan Apr 6 2010, 08:00 PM

Pipeline was broken over the weekend, as often happens over the holidays, hence no new images from Oppy for a few days. Webmaster comes back after long weekend, 'kicks the server' to unclog backlog and a few Spirit images come out along with the Oppy images.

Posted by: Tesheiner Apr 6 2010, 09:15 PM

Another reason may be (and this is my personal hypothesis) that images are downloaded to the exploratorium not only when they are new (i.e. downlinked from ODY) but also when they are updated by any kind of internal process done at JPL. It may explain some spurious updates not associated to a recent downlink session like those multiple instances of an image with a filename ending on M2, M3, M4 and so on.

Posted by: Astro0 May 13 2010, 10:06 PM

Winter Solstice today - mars.gif

Things will start looking brighter for Spirit from now on wink.gif
Hang in there!

LATE EDIT: The Canberra DSN's tracking schedule today included a 2 hour 'listening' period for MER2-Spirit.
Weird, given that today is Winter Solstice and I would have thought it a most unlikely day to be hearing any 'beep' from her.

Posted by: MahFL May 14 2010, 02:14 PM

When was the last signal recived from Spirit ?

Posted by: Poolio May 14 2010, 04:09 PM

http://marsrover.nasa.gov/mission/status_spiritAll.html#sol2211 (March 22).

I would think that, since Spirit began hibernating about 50 sols prior to solstice, that she wouldn't have enough power to wake up until about 50 sols past the solstice.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 14 2010, 04:12 PM

QUOTE (MahFL @ May 14 2010, 06:14 AM) *
When was the last signal recived from Spirit ?

Post #114 in this very discussion has the information.

Posted by: MahFL May 14 2010, 05:20 PM

So March 30th then......... rolleyes.gif

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 14 2010, 06:12 PM

March 22th was the last communication:

QUOTE
Spirit had been communicating on a once-per-week schedule in recent weeks. During the designated time for the rover to communicate with NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter passing overhead on March 30, Odyssey heard nothing from the rover.

"We are checking other less-likely possibilities for the missed communication, but this probably means that Spirit tripped a low-power fault sometime between the last downlink on March 22 and yesterday," Callas said. "The recent downlinks had indicated that the battery state of charge was decreasing, getting close to the level that would put Spirit into this hibernation."


http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-106&rn=news.xml&rst=2540

March 30th was the first MISSED communication.

Posted by: MahFL May 14 2010, 06:16 PM

22 is my lucky number, so all will be well ! biggrin.gif

Posted by: Astro0 May 21 2010, 03:42 AM

The flurry of images that showed up on Exploratorium a few days ago, turned up some really nice sequences.
Here's a section from a late afternoon observation taken on Sol 1994 at about 1740 local time.



This is a scaled down version. I'll put the full res version on my blog later.
I'm working on a few others.

EDIT: Full size version now on my http://astro0.wordpress.com/spirit-views/.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 21 2010, 04:31 AM

ooooh nice....good catch Astro0.

Posted by: Astro0 May 21 2010, 05:33 AM

The start of a brand new day.



Enjoy

EDIT: Full size version now on my http://astro0.wordpress.com/spirit-views/.

Posted by: Stu May 21 2010, 05:44 AM

Beautiful pix, Astro0! I must admit I never thought to look at the Spirit pix after seeing the massive data dumps on the Oppy side. Will have to take a look later; might be some good 3D views waiting to be made...

And well done for having the patience to wade through all the images!

Posted by: Sunspot May 21 2010, 08:13 AM

QUOTE (Astro0 @ May 21 2010, 06:33 AM) *
The start of a brand new day.

Enjoy


It looks like she drove through another small crater just before she turned. ???

Posted by: Astro0 May 21 2010, 01:37 PM

Here's a nice animation sequence of images depicting sunrise.
I've used images taken over a few sols and put them in 'time of day' sequence (but not sol sequence) starting with Sol1976 at about 5.26am local time and finishing with Sol1974 at 8.26am. Added a few transition frames to smooth the animation.



Full size version http://astro0.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/sunrise.gif. Warning 7.9mb!

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 21 2010, 02:00 PM

Really impressive 'Nought. Nice job with the transition images too.

Posted by: Juramike May 21 2010, 02:23 PM

WOW!

Beautiful job, Astro0! That set of images and animations are beautiful and inspiring!

Posted by: climber May 21 2010, 02:50 PM

I second that! Lot of work for you, lot of inspiration for us...thanks

Posted by: mhoward May 21 2010, 03:35 PM

Very nicely done on the panorama. However, the images aren't new to the public. In fact I posted http://mmb.unmannedspaceflight.com/MERA1984.mov (2.3 MB) of it back in August of last year.

Posted by: Astro0 May 22 2010, 07:23 AM

Ah OK? This is a bit strange.
It would seem that Exploratorium is repeating images then.

Here's the file string...

/mars/spirit/navcam/2009-08-18/2N301760114EFFB1E5P1947L0M1.JPG
/mars/spirit/navcam/2010-05-16/2N301760114EFFB1E5P1947L0M1.JPG

I wonder how many other images on Exploratorium are repeated?

Would MMB pick this up?

Posted by: briv1016 May 22 2010, 07:40 AM

MMB picks it up as "Local copy has same file size."

Posted by: fredk May 22 2010, 03:03 PM

QUOTE (Astro0 @ May 22 2010, 08:23 AM) *
Ah OK? This is a bit strange.
It would seem that Exploratorium is repeating images then.

They've done this before.

It would've been extremely odd if we had received images from Spirit that we hadn't seen before, since she's asleep and there's never been any indication before that exploratorium has missed even one single image taken by either rover.

Posted by: Sunspot Jun 21 2010, 08:54 AM

With the solstice long behind us, how much power could or should Spirit be getting now?

Posted by: alan Jun 21 2010, 11:48 AM

If you are only using a calendar to guess when Spirit will phone home around July 4 would be the earliest you could expect to hear from her. That's roughly an equal number of sols after solstice as the last signal was before the solstice.

IIRC it's expected to take longer though because the heaters are used more during autonomous recovery so it will may be months before the batteries are charged enough to send a signal to earth.

Posted by: helvick Jun 21 2010, 04:48 PM

If I remember correctly the combination of Mars' orbit and Spirit's location means that the date when there is the lowest overall insolation (and energy from the panels) is about 7 Sols prior to the Solstice although the actual lowest energy point will vary hugely in response to the amount of dust in the atmosphere, dust on the rover's solar panels and the orientation of the panels. The positive thing to remember is that the amount of additional dust deposited at this time of the year has been very low over the past few Martian years although that starts to change as spring rolls in and the atmosphere becomes more energetic again.

I don't expect that we'll hear from her much sooner than the end of July but one good breeze could change all that so here's hoping I'm wrong.

Posted by: Sunspot Jul 9 2010, 02:10 PM

Are there video cameras of any kind in the control rooms for the rovers? I'm hoping we might see the operators reaction if and when Spirit phones home. smile.gif

Posted by: JayB Jul 14 2010, 08:49 PM

four notable tweets from Scott @marsroverdriver yesterday for those that don't twitter


# In meeting, learning how we plan to locate Spirit if she's had a Mission Clock fault and doesn't know how to talk to us. Complicated. :-/

# According to power models, the very earliest we could *possibly* hear from Spirit would be late next week.

# Even if Spirit's waking up (soon), we'll have a hard time catching her during one of her wakeups. This will take some luck as well as skill.

# If our predictions/models are good, we have a very, very good chance of hearing from Spirit by ~ mid-November. #FreeSpirit, baby.

Posted by: Sunspot Jul 14 2010, 08:58 PM

wow..... November huh.gif

Posted by: JayB Jul 14 2010, 09:06 PM

or late next week smile.gif


Posted by: Hungry4info Jul 14 2010, 09:15 PM

Or never. Won't know until after November.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Jul 14 2010, 09:35 PM

It is not accurate to state that we won't know until after November. Read Scott's remarks again. We could know as early as late next week or ANY TIME between now and November.

Posted by: briv1016 Jul 14 2010, 10:07 PM

November 13th is the spring equinox.

Posted by: Hungry4info Jul 15 2010, 01:56 PM

QUOTE (ElkGroveDan @ Jul 14 2010, 03:35 PM) *
We could know as early as late next week or ANY TIME between now and November.


Yes. I meant to imply we won't know if Spirit is not going to contact us at all until after November. I worded it poorly.

Posted by: marsophile Jul 30 2010, 03:04 PM

Since Opportunity is experiencing strong cleaning events, one must wonder if Spirit is also. Perhaps some MRO hirise images could determine whether there is an increase in visible dust devil trails, which might be an indicator of increasing wind activity. The knowledge of strong or weak wind activity might be relevant to the recovery strategy.

Posted by: Deimos Jul 30 2010, 03:46 PM

Winds are likely picking up. Small storms come in 3 weeks or so. I'd guess that sustained and truly strong winds are anti-correlated with dust devils, but not necessarily cleaning. Strong wind = strong wind shear = hard to maintain a DD (?). I think we know more about the seasonality of the weather than we'd be able to guess from a single image (or from a couple) at one time of day. But the next few weeks present a good chance for cleaning (although a bit early) and a local maximum in power before the storms knock it down and summer brings it back up.

Posted by: Sunspot Jul 30 2010, 06:07 PM

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/jul/HQ_10-182_Spirit_Hibernation.html


Posted by: JayB Jul 30 2010, 07:13 PM

"NASA's Hibernating Mars Rover May Not Call Home"

bah - for all anyone knows we might as well say

NASA's Hibernating Mars Rover Might Call Home Today

Silly NASA - Remember Sol 18?

Our girl will call home when she's ready. Never count her out.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Jul 30 2010, 07:28 PM

QUOTE (Sunspot @ Jul 30 2010, 11:07 AM) *
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/jul/HQ_10-182_Spirit_Hibernation.html

There's nothing new in that release. It's just a P.R. game of lowered expectations. And based on the way the sensational media treats UMSF-type stories I have no problem with that kind of posturing. No one wants to see the headline "NASA Loses $300 Million Mars Rover" "Bad decisions over a year ago were the beginning of the end for costly robot that got stuck in a pile of sand." Better to have a headline that says "No Response from Dead Rover" "After much listening, spacecraft that quit working last year, really is gone."

Meanwhile back in the world of reality, nothing has changed and we have a very real chance of hearing from Spirit in the coming months.

Posted by: PDP8E Aug 15 2010, 05:08 AM

Here is an image that Spirit took on Sol 2181 (a few sols before she went to sleep)
Spirit took 14 images with 6 filters in less than 3 minutes.
It is looking at Scamander crater, (front view) as it was trying to back out.
I have reduced the JPG artifacts (a lot) and sharpened the image (a little)
It is the best I can do with out color and radiometric calibration ... your mileage may vary (too much green? ... but it was 6 filters!)



Let's hope she phones home soon...

Posted by: CosmicRocker Aug 18 2010, 05:15 AM

Nice work, PDP8E. I enjoyed seeing the soil and those layered rocks in subtle colors. smile.gif

Posted by: djellison Aug 18 2010, 05:38 AM

in 3 days time, we get the calibrated stuff up to Sol 2160 on the PDS.

Posted by: Stu Aug 24 2010, 11:13 AM

While we wait for Spirit to wake up, yawning, from her sleep, isn't it amazing to think that it's 5 years since she stood on the top of Husband Hill and we all drooled over those first clear images of Homeplate... ohmy.gif

New astropoem for anyone who wants to read it:

http://twitpic.com/2hq1li (image)

http://astropoetry.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/when-spirit-was-free (text only)

Posted by: jamescanvin Aug 24 2010, 11:51 AM

For those that want to reminisce, as well as http://marsandme.blogspot.com/2010/08/opportunity-sol-562-spirit-sol-583.html there is the UMSF thread from 5 years ago:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=1301

Those we incredible times. smile.gif It was around that time that I first started to dabble in processing the raw images as well. pancam.gif

Posted by: James Sorenson Aug 24 2010, 12:19 PM

Here is the Calypso Panorama with the rover deck that I'm putting together. I'm almost done, but this is what I have so far smile.gif. I'll finish it up later today.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43581439@N08/4924866679/

*Updated: Finished! smile.gif

Posted by: briv1016 Sep 16 2010, 10:36 PM

I'm not sure exactly when this was posted, but the Pancam team's version of the Scamander Plains Panorama is now available.

http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_instrument/scamander.html

Posted by: Ipparchus Nov 13 2010, 10:45 AM

I just read this interesting but pessimistic article: http://is.gd/gYU8L. "On 20 September, Mars rover team leader Steven Squyres of Cornell University said, "I firmly believe that in the next 4 to 6 weeks, we're going to hear from that vehicle." That was 8 weeks ago". "There's a good possibility it died, and we'll never hear from it again" Squyres now says". "Spirit might still pipe up, he says. "So we listen, [but] it could be a long wait." sad.gif

Posted by: Tom Gwilym Nov 13 2010, 06:21 PM

Ugh! I wonder when they will give up and give us all the bad news?
WAKE UP SPIRIT!!

Posted by: djellison Nov 13 2010, 06:24 PM

The situation lives under a bell curve, defined by several parameter that we don't have a good grasp of.

Whilst prospects get less positive over time, the sun continues to climb each day.

This story is a long way from being over, whatever the outcome.

Posted by: briv1016 Nov 14 2010, 01:06 AM

Today is the Spring Equinox. Summer Solstice is not until April 9th 2011. I'd be highly skeptical of anyone pronouncing Spirit dead before then.

Posted by: brellis Nov 14 2010, 01:24 AM

A very long time from now, a DD might sweep her panels clean. How far do her chances diminish if she doesn't wake up this spring/summer?

Posted by: hendric Nov 14 2010, 04:57 AM

I don't think the primary problem is lack of power from the cells. The issue is whether or not her electronics survived the winter cold. Without power, she was unable to keep her WEB (warm electronics box),er, warm. So potentially components could have gotten cold enough that their differential contraction caused a failure, ie the circuit board vs the chips on it, or the batteries themselves (but I think there was confirmation the batteries could survive that temp that long, electrolytes in the capacitors frozen out, etc.

I still feel that Spirit's story isn't done quite yet. I will light a candle for her tonight.

Posted by: marsophile Nov 20 2010, 01:10 AM

The WEB has radio-isotope heater units (RHUs) so that is less of an issue than other parts of Spiirit outside the WEB.

Coming out of the last Martian winter, Spiirit did not get a cleaning event until Feb 2009.

http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/mission/status_spiritAll_2009.html#sol1810

That was about 1.5 months after the southern Spring equinox in Dec 26, 2008, so iif history is any guide, we might hope for a cleaning by Christmas this year.

Posted by: eoincampbell Nov 20 2010, 06:20 AM

"If you wish upon a star..."
Sun and wind, c'mon Spirit, send us some beeps,
would love to hear from you...

Posted by: CosmicRocker Nov 21 2010, 05:03 AM

Can we read anything positive from this report from the PDTI? huh.gif unsure.gif blink.gif
One of those images showed up at Exploratorium yesterday.

1. What new EDRs from ANY sol were received on sol 2445?

Number of EDRs received by sol, sequence number, and image type:

Sol Seq.Ver ETH ESF EDN EFF ERP Tot Description
----- -------- --- --- --- --- --- ---- -----------
02080 p2104.10 1 0 0 0 0 1 pancam_mtes_cal_target_L267
02081 p2535.24 0 0 0 1 0 1 pancam_scamander_plains27redo_L234567Rall
02128 p1561.09 0 0 0 0 0 1 Unexpected sequence!!!!
Total 1 0 0 1 0 2

Posted by: briv1016 Nov 21 2010, 06:47 AM

This is the F (11th) version of this image. My guess is that it's just stuck somewhere in the pipeline and keeps trying to come through.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pancam/2010-11-19/2P311106873EFFB204P2535L2MF.JPG

Posted by: Hungry4info Nov 21 2010, 06:51 AM

The timestamp on the latest image is the same as the image uploaded to the Exploratorium on Sep 15.

Posted by: CosmicRocker Nov 21 2010, 07:40 AM

Well, the time stamp would have to remain the same as the time the image was captured, but that is a good point that this image has attempted to come down multiple times over the past months. It does look like a pipeline issue. ...what a bummer.

Posted by: HughFromAlice Dec 7 2010, 04:12 AM

30th Nov update at http://marsrover.nasa.gov/mission/status.html#spirit

Sol 2457 ........ Spirit remains silent .... also conducting a paging technique called "Sweep & Beep" to stimulate the rover in the case of a mission-clock fault...... peak solar insolation is not until mid-March 2011. So Spirit has plenty of occasion to respond.

Beep - Beep - there's still hope!!! rolleyes.gif

Posted by: marsophile Dec 9 2010, 12:58 AM

Is it considered likely at this point that the rover is in a mission clock fault state, if it has survived? Otherwise we would more likely than not have heard from her by now?

Posted by: Astro0 Dec 9 2010, 01:45 AM

There are many possible scenarios, and as Scott and others have said in the past, "Never bet against Spirit!" wink.gif

Posted by: nprev Dec 9 2010, 01:47 AM

Damn Facebook...I actually looked for the "like" button for Astro0's comment! tongue.gif

Posted by: fredk Dec 10 2010, 05:19 AM

Spirit map update for sol 2458. How sad.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/tm-spirit/spirit-sol2458.html

Posted by: PaulM Dec 17 2010, 08:54 PM

I understand that when contact was lost with Viking 1, it entered a mode in which it tried to communicate with Earth at randon times of the day similar to the mission-clock fault mode that Spirit may currently be enduring.

I would like to know whether if the level of effort currently being employed to talk to Spirit had been tried on Viking 1 then contact could have been re-established with Viking 1? Were the two problems essentially the same? Given that Viking 1's RTGs kept its electronics really warm, how long might Viking 1 have continued to try to phone home? Could Viking 1 still be trying to phone home today? rolleyes.gif

Posted by: PDP8E Dec 17 2010, 09:09 PM

Spirit's winter solstice was May 13,2010
We lost contact on May 22
She entered Spring in middle November 2010
Summer Solstice will be mid April 2011
And Fall arrives in late September 2011 (all times approximate)

...so Spirit is one month into Spring (which is like 2 weeks of spring on Earth)
If she is in one piece we should hearing from her anytime now...

Posted by: brellis Dec 17 2010, 09:40 PM

Hoping for a dust angel to wipe her plates clean! smile.gif

Posted by: vikingmars Jan 5 2011, 08:11 AM

Happy New Year 2011 dear Spirit
with all our wishes for your good recovery
(just to help you and this topic roll into 2011)
wheel.gif wheel.gif wheel.gif wheel.gif wheel.gif wheel.gif

Posted by: ilbasso Jan 5 2011, 03:58 PM

QUOTE (brellis @ Dec 17 2010, 04:40 PM) *
Hoping for a dust angel to wipe her plates clean! smile.gif


...and hopefully not "angel dust", as that will REALLY cause problems for her!

Posted by: Ipparchus Jan 8 2011, 11:22 AM

I`d like you to help me understand something. I have read in the September 30, 2010 Planetary Society MER Update that: "When there is enough power to wake-up, Spirit will get up for between five and 10 minutes, long enough to power things up and check for a signal called solar groovy, which essentially means the rover has 1.1 amps of power coming off its solar array. " and "...so eventually it will be waking up in the time period when its gets a solar array wake-up, another signal from the solar array indicating that the rover has 2 amps of power coming off it. “That, in turn, signals an autonomous wake-up to the CPU,” Nelson pointed out. " How many watt-hours are the 1.1 and 2 amps? huh.gif

Posted by: mars loon Jan 8 2011, 03:01 PM

hop for the best

Posted by: tedstryk Jan 8 2011, 03:35 PM

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20110104b.html Claiming to be the author of about 75% of what you publish is a little disingenuous, don't you think?

Posted by: helvick Jan 9 2011, 08:35 PM

I'm assuming that this refers to current available on the bus rather than what is coming off the arrays themselves before it gets into the power management and distribution system. The power bus on the MER's is nominally 28V so 1.1A would be just over 30Watts and 2A would be 56Watts. Those are instantaneous numbers. Assuming those are peak values at noon then a (very rough) approximation of the daily power available in watt Hours would be about 3x that number so 1.1A would be around 90 watt hours and 2A would be 168 watt hours. That range seems about right given that Spirit went silent when the daily power numbers dropped below about 130watt hours per sol.

I'm making a lot of assumptions there though so you can take those with a fairly large grain of salt.

Posted by: vikingmars Jan 10 2011, 08:45 AM

QUOTE (PaulM @ Dec 17 2010, 09:54 PM) *
rolleyes.gif

Dear Paul M, here are my answers, if I may :

Q/ I understand that when contact was lost with Viking 1, it entered a mode in which it tried to communicate with Earth at randon times of the day similar to the mission-clock fault mode that Spirit may currently be enduring
A/ Unfortunately no (see why herebelow), contact was lost when some instructions were sent from Earth to VL1 on November 19, 1982, for renewing its long-term scientific program : i.e. including the taking of 300° panoramic pictures and the management of its batteries after February 1990 and until 1996 (!). On January 1982, VL1 was already re-programmed with an "help" mode to ensure a minimal telecom mode to Earth should there is an incident (i.e. call back home on an automatic basis). A new programmation sequence was decided late August 1982 and inside those instructions, were sent some erroneous commands (un-tested before their sending by lack of budget) that erased the position of Earth in the Martian sky (that were already in its memory until December 1994)...

Q/ I would like to know whether if the level of effort currently being employed to talk to Spirit had been tried on Viking 1 then contact could have been re-established with Viking 1 ?
A/ A few days after the incident (end of November 1982), the bad antenna pointing was identified and a decision was taken to send new commands at maximum DSN power, hoping that they would even bounce off the Martian surface close to the Lander in case the antenna was pointing towards the ground... No answers were received, unfortunately

Q/ Were the two problems essentially the same?
A/ No, because they were NO more active orbiters around Mars at this time to help sending commands to VL1. Only a direct link from Earth to VL1 (through its hi-gain antenna) was available, and only once per day because of the DSN being busy at this time. Spirit is in a better position to regain contact with us : there is still a direct link available from Earth PLUS several daily telecom links opportunities available from orbiters around Mars

Q/Given that Viking 1's RTGs kept its electronics really warm, how long might Viking 1 have continued to try to phone home?
A/ Until December 1994 at least, with hopes that the RTGs would give enough power until 1996

Q/Could Viking 1 still be trying to phone home today ?
A/ Unfortunately no : I think its batteries are long dead and its antenna is stuck sad.gif

Posted by: vikingmars Jan 11 2011, 10:17 PM

QUOTE (Astro0 @ May 21 2010, 06:33 AM) *
The start of a brand new day. Enjoy

Astro0, thanks to your nice "sunrise" and "sunset" visions, I had the idea of extracting the colors (just the colors themselves, not the contrast) of the Pancam noon pics (the pics taken to build the 'Calypso' Panorama) and paste those colors on the b&w pics (which gave the contrast) taken at sols 2001 -sunrise- and sol 2002 -sunset-.
Here are the results from these merges (as a reduced version to save space on the Forum).
Now you can enjoy the nice real colors seen (i) at sunrise, (ii) at early afternoon (in fact, a segment that could be part of the 'Calypso' Panorama) and (iii) at sunset over Von Braun...
It's a calm vision on Mars to be enjoyed listening to Mozart or Bach concerti...
And dedicated to all the contributors to this nice UMSF Forum and the Planetary Society Members (not forgetting the PanCam team members : thanks to them we have pictures from Mars !). Enjoy smile.gif


Posted by: ngunn Jan 11 2011, 11:09 PM

I just want to applaud. smile.gif That's a beautiful piece of work.
(On my ridiculously bright monitor the first one looks best.)

Posted by: climber Jan 11 2011, 11:51 PM

Very inspiring indeed Olivier, may Spirit ear you call...
Come on baby, wake up! Give us more of these.

Posted by: Astro0 Jan 12 2011, 03:50 AM

QUOTE (vikingmars @ Jan 12 2011, 09:17 AM) *
Astro0, thanks to your nice "sunrise" and "sunset" visions, ...

I can't take all the credit for that, if you read back further, mhoward had done a fantastic QTVR months earlier.

Nonetheless, brilliant job vikingmars. the place feels 'alive' from the colours you've introduced.
A fitting tribute to our (currently) absent friend smile.gif

Posted by: MerAB Jan 14 2011, 11:25 AM

It's Sol 2500 for Spirit! smile.gif

Posted by: Astro0 Jan 14 2011, 11:41 AM

2500 Sols....no one could have ever imagined it.

Seems like only yestersol since we arrived! wink.gif


Posted by: machi Jan 14 2011, 12:12 PM

QUOTE (vikingmars @ Jan 11 2011, 11:17 PM) *
Astro0, thanks to your nice "sunrise" and "sunset" visions, I had the idea of extracting the colors of Pancam noon pics (the ones that were taken to build the 'Calypso' Panorama) and paste them on the b&w pics taken at sols 2001 (sunrise) and sol 2002 (sunset). Here are the results (reduced version to save space on the Forum).
Now you can enjoy the nice colors seen at sunrise, at early afternoon and at sunset over Von Braun...
A calm vision on Mars to be enjoyed listening to Mozart or Bach concerti...
And dedicated to all the contributors to this nice UMSF Forum and the Planetary Society Members (not forgetting the PanCam team members : thanks to them we have pictures from Mars !). Enjoy smile.gif



Beautiful images indeed. Look on these images is really spiritual experience rolleyes.gif .

Posted by: PDP8E Jan 14 2011, 06:01 PM

Wow Spirit! 2500 sols on mars! (Jan 14, 2011)



Posted by: serpens Jan 18 2011, 02:47 AM

QUOTE (PDP8E @ Jan 14 2011, 06:01 PM) *
Wow Spirit! 2500 sols on mars! (Jan 14, 2011)

Not sure what the 2500 sol milestone means if Spirit doesn't phone home. Mars 3 has the record of the oldest lander on Mars (that operated after touchdown). Coming up to 40 Earth years. If Spirit doesn't come back on line then Opportunity holds the record for the lander that operated for the longest time.

Posted by: Astro0 Jan 18 2011, 05:59 AM

I think that the milestone is just that "2500 Sols on Mars". Humans like round numbers smile.gif
Of course we don't know Spirit's condition. She may or may not be operational.
Until someone, probably SS says to the contrary, then I'm sure we'll continue to note these 'round numbers'.

Opportunity of course carries the torch for now. smile.gif

Posted by: ustrax Jan 18 2011, 11:23 AM

Tonight I dreamt Spirit had woken up.
It was...nice. smile.gif

Posted by: Hungry4info Jan 18 2011, 02:43 PM

I've done that at least twice.

Posted by: PaulM Jan 18 2011, 07:56 PM

I dreamt that I went for a walk around Home Plate and thought to myself that it was a pity that Spirit was not currently working because when I got home I wouldnt have any holiday snaps.

Posted by: Explorer1 Jan 25 2011, 05:31 AM

I didn't want to make a new thread so I might as well ask here:
What if Spirit were to make contact during conjunction? It can still send messages, but it won't be able to receive; and of course there's no relay system beyond LEO, or the previous conjunctions wouldn't be issues at all. (though that's quite an idea for a new mission!)
Would they just have to wait for conjunction to end like normal? That seems rather tense! Yes, I agree that the chances are low but it's not impossible.

Posted by: djellison Jan 25 2011, 06:30 AM

The rules are fairly clear - you don't command during conjunction ( because you never know what that inconvenient ball of plasma will do to the signal at the far end )

Opportunity will be in touch with Odyssey during conjunction, it's not out of the question that Spirit might attempt that as well, assuming listening windows were uplinked to Odyssey ahead of time.

Posted by: Zeke4ther Feb 20 2011, 02:32 AM

New Update from JPL:

SPIRIT UPDATE: Spirit Remains Silent at Troy
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status.html#spirit

Hang in there little buddy unsure.gif

Posted by: PDP8E Mar 12 2011, 06:22 PM

The sun is now favorable at your tilt and bathing your solar arrays ... Come on Spirit .... you must be at 'solar groovy' by now ... charge that battery ... boot up ... send out that beep!

Posted by: Tesheiner Mar 12 2011, 06:49 PM

I'm pretty sure most of UMSFers follow or at least know about Scott Maxwell's blog on the rovers. Just want to highlight that his notes are right now just a few days/sols before the RF wheel stopped working, exactly when they were rushing to reach McCool Hill and its northern tilt.

http://marsandme.blogspot.com/

(this is perhaps not the best thread to post it, but it's the only active one so I'm doing it here anyway)

Posted by: fredk Mar 19 2011, 03:27 PM

It's now almost a year since we lost contact. According to http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20110318a.html, available solar energy was estimated to peak around March 10th. And this sad statement:

QUOTE
If no signal is heard from Spirit in the next month or two, the team at [JPL] will shift to single-rover operations, continuing to operate Spirit's active twin, Opportunity.
sad.gif

I'm a bit surprized about the March 10th figure, since solstice isn't for another few weeks yet (April 9th). Does anyone recall the final north-south tilt of the arrays? I thought it was pretty small, so not enough to push maximum energy to March 10th. Maybe the March 10th figure includes modelling of dust deposition? If that's the case, then that date would have to be very uncertain.

Posted by: Deimos Mar 19 2011, 06:11 PM

I don't know about the March 10 statement, or the numbers that went into it. But the daily flux onto a level surface through a dust-free atmosphere peaks well before solstice. The tropical location (Sun is highest at specific times before and after solstice) and elliptical orbit (Mars is farther from the Sun at or after solstice than it is before) both come into play. However, factoring in dust loads in the atmosphere, peak solar flux onto the surface has always been after solstice. This year may not follow the pattern, though, and things like cleaning events matter more than the details of when the predicted peak is.

Posted by: fredk Mar 19 2011, 07:23 PM

That's it, of course - my mind's stuck at temperate latitudes. A quick estimate says that the Sun's overhead at Spirit's 14.6 degrees south at around 100 days before the solstice. But that'll be very sensitive to the rover tilt - a tilt of just 5 degrees to the south means the Sun would hit the panels perpendicularly at noon only 70 days before solstice. So this could easily account for the March 10th figure.

But if the Sun hits the panels perpendicularly a month before solstice, it'd also do that a month after solstice. So we might expect a 2nd maximum of power in early May. But perihelion is before solstice, so the 2nd maximum wouldn't be as large as the first.

Of course all this talk of the precise dates of maximum isn't actually very critical, since the energy available would very smoothly and gradually peak, remaining high for weeks around maximum.

Posted by: tanjent Mar 20 2011, 05:03 AM

I think we need to distinguish between maximum noonday sun angle and maximum daily insolation. I don't know which is more important to Spirit's chances of waking up. It is correct that there are two times when the sun is overhead at noon from Spirit's 14-degree-south position, one before the solstice and one after. But during the time in between, the sun should overshoot the zenith at noon and describe a circle around it, so if Spirit's panels were pointed straight up, the average insolation per day should continue to increase until the solstice. I think that's the case anyway, but I admit I can't produce the trigonometry to prove it. Any ship's captains in the audience? It also seems to me that the fact that the panels actually point a few degrees south probably accentuates the solstice peaking of daily insolation even further.

But as far as the likelihood of Spirit's getting back in touch, the problem is far from symmetric. Each sol of increased insolation that goes by without a signal basically reduces the likelihood that Spirit's silence is due to insufficient sunlight. As you slide back down the autumnal side of the solstice, you know that you have have visited these intensity levels once already and they have not proved sufficient to solve the problem. (Yes there could be cumulative charging of the battery going on, but my practical experience with batteries here on earth kind of argues against that.)

Posted by: helvick Mar 20 2011, 10:24 AM

This relatively old chart shows http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03607 for the two rover locations, assuming zero tilt, over a period of a couple of mars years from the start of the mission. The peak preceeds the solstice by a fairly small amount for Spirit, with a slightly larger variance for Opportunity but there is still just one peak. The effect of Martian orbital eccentricity reinforces the peak in the Southern Hemisphere but there are some Northern Hemisphere latitudes where an actual double peak will happen because the eccentricity works to (slightly) counter the seasonal effect from obliquity but I suspect that other factors (tilt, dust loading) would generally mask that since the effect would be small.

Posted by: marsophile Mar 21 2011, 07:31 PM

Of course, the daily duration of daylight is maximum at the solstice, independently of changes in the angle of illumination. Probably not a large effect in this case, though it might affect the amount of nightime heating.

Posted by: kenny Mar 24 2011, 09:43 PM

May I be controversial and say "forget it ... it's gone... dead " ?

Hold a little hope if you wish, but I suspect most of us now feel that Spirit is finished, after a tremendously vailant service to science.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Mar 24 2011, 10:07 PM

QUOTE (kenny @ Mar 24 2011, 01:43 PM) *
May I be controversial

No.

Posted by: djellison Mar 24 2011, 10:41 PM

QUOTE (kenny @ Mar 24 2011, 01:43 PM) *
May I be controversial and say "forget it ... it's gone... dead " ?


On what basis do you make that absolute assertion?

(The answer is 'none' by the way)

Currently - we simply don't know. Moreover, given that DSN and orbital assets are being commanded, daily, for Mars ops - the overheads in continuing to ping and listen for Spirit are negligible.

It would be foolish to give up while there remains reasonable doubt to its demise.



Posted by: Stu Mar 24 2011, 11:09 PM

QUOTE (kenny @ Mar 24 2011, 09:43 PM) *
May I be controversial and say "forget it ... it's gone... dead " ?


You can if you like, but I think you'd be jumping the gun Big Time. If the men and women at JPL aren't prepared to give up on Spirit, then we shoudn't be either. To be clear, and honest, I personally fear the worst, but I'm nowhere near ready to put coins on Spirit's eyes and pull the blanket up over her. Any day - any day - we could log on to UMSF and hear wonderful news.

As the great man has said, many times, "Don't bet against the rovers - it's a sure way to lose money..." smile.gif

Posted by: stevesliva Mar 24 2011, 11:28 PM

Spirit is Schrödinger's cat.

Posted by: SFJCody Mar 24 2011, 11:47 PM

QUOTE (kenny @ Mar 25 2011, 07:43 AM) *
May I be controversial and say "forget it ... it's gone... dead " ?



That's what I imagine many of us suspect to be the case. However, while hope still remains, let's support the continued effort to hear back from good old Spirit. smile.gif

Posted by: ilbasso Mar 24 2011, 11:55 PM

It's easier to prove the spacecraft is "alive" than it is to prove it is dead. There's no absolute proof that the Viking Landers, Pathfinder, or Sojourner are absolutely, unequivocally dead either. It's highly improbable, but there is a non-zero chance that they could phone home someday. Short of going up there and "checking for a pulse" by tapping into the spacecraft's electronics, you can't prove from Earth that any of those spacecraft are completely gone.

Posted by: fredk Mar 25 2011, 12:20 AM

Indeed - isn't it possible that Spirit is already awake and well for the most part, except that it can't communicate for some reason? Of course in that case if we couldn't regain contact, then we'll never know. But maybe an alive and aware, but unable to communicate, Spirit is a more pleasant alternative to a dead Spirit? Maybe Spirit lives on...

Posted by: nprev Mar 25 2011, 01:58 AM

Happy thought: Really, any truly surprising news we can hear about Spirit now can only be objectively good.

Perhaps small comfort...but I follow the advice of the smart money. wink.gif

Posted by: Phil Stooke Mar 25 2011, 02:04 AM

We can all hope for a signal... but I'm with Kenny on this. Not an absolute assertion, just what I think is most likely.

Phil

Posted by: SFJCody Mar 25 2011, 02:23 AM

Let's not get diSpirited!

Posted by: Explorer1 Mar 25 2011, 02:27 AM

What matters is the state of the antennas, the rover could be in perfect shape but if something catastrophic happened to them... it's EOM (or is that when both rovers go?).
It will be another generation that finds out what happened in the end, until then it's just another mystery.

And of course MRO will continue to tantalize...

Posted by: eoincampbell Mar 25 2011, 03:29 AM

"until."
Ain't over yet!
pancam.gif
Like, Spirit had some unfinished business or something... smile.gif

Posted by: brellis Mar 25 2011, 06:36 AM

A cleaning event could come along at any time -- how 'bout really soon? smile.gif

Posted by: djellison Mar 25 2011, 06:57 AM

QUOTE (Explorer1 @ Mar 24 2011, 06:27 PM) *
What matters is the state of the antennas.....


And the state of the battery. And the avionics. And the battery control board. And the clock. And the transmitters. And the solar arrays. And, indeed, many many single-point failure places within the MER design.

Phil - you're right - things are very very grim. But it's still wrong to state, with certainty, that Spirit is dead. Quite simply, we do not know.


Posted by: tanjent Mar 25 2011, 07:28 AM

Some people here may have influence over when the funding gets turned off, but most of us might bear in mind that it doesn't really make any difference whether we "give up" on Spirit or not. I admit that my hopes and my expectations now run in two completely different directions, but the eventual outcome will be happily independent of both. Not a very romantic point of view, but those members who adopt it may find that it makes the waiting easier to bear. rolleyes.gif

Posted by: Stu Mar 25 2011, 08:54 AM

QUOTE (tanjent @ Mar 25 2011, 07:28 AM) *
Some people here may have influence over when the funding gets turned off, but most of us might bear in mind that it doesn't really make any difference whether we "give up" on Spirit or not.


None of us think we can have any influence at all, and we're not sat inside a stone circle, with joined hands and flowers in our hair, chanting and sending Spirit 'positive energy'. But we do feel it's important to be supportive of the MER team. And personally I just feel better for not washing my hands of her when there's still a chance, even a vanishingly-remote one, that she might yet phone home. smile.gif

But we'll see. We'll see.

Posted by: vikingmars Mar 25 2011, 09:17 AM

QUOTE (ilbasso @ Mar 25 2011, 12:55 AM) *
...There's no absolute proof that the Viking Landers, Pathfinder, or Sojourner are absolutely, unequivocally dead either

huh.gif Trust me : unfortunately they are. And there are piles of technical doc at JPL telling you why... As said above, you can pick among many proven failures : batteries, clock, softwares, transmitters.... For VL1 there is even a visual proof that its antenna is stuck and no longer following the Earth in the Martian sky
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=4508&view=findpost&p=97403 (a pixel ovelap pic done with two MRO images).
The shadow seen for its high-gain antenna mast and for its antenna itself is narrow on MRO's images, implying that the disk-shaped antenna is not facing the Sun when the images were taken, meaning that the high-gain antenna is pointing either towards the north or towards the south...
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=4508&view=findpost&p=97418

Posted by: Stu Mar 25 2011, 10:07 AM

QUOTE (Stu @ Mar 25 2011, 08:54 AM) *
we're not sat inside a stone circle, with joined hands and flowers in our hair, chanting and sending Spirit 'positive energy'.


...of course, if anyone else here wants to try that... wink.gif

Posted by: centsworth_II Mar 25 2011, 01:14 PM


Posted by: hendric Mar 25 2011, 02:12 PM

VikingMars,
Your comment is in line with something I was thinking. For future situations such as these, maybe we could use non-radio methods of determining if the craft is alive. For example, with MRO we could monitor the antennas as you said for VL. My idea was to monitor the shadow of the camera mast, and put into the "wake from deep sleep" code a command to rotate the camera mast, say 45 degrees on each wakeup. Then if she can't communicate back to us, we can at least watch her shadow for changes in the size. That would be a hell of a motivator for trying different communication options.

Posted by: vikingmars Mar 25 2011, 03:05 PM

QUOTE (hendric @ Mar 25 2011, 03:12 PM) *
Then if she can't communicate back to us, we can at least watch her shadow for changes in the size. That would be a hell of a motivator for trying different communication options.

Yes ! I agree : it's a good idea Hendric ! smile.gif

Posted by: kenny Mar 25 2011, 05:32 PM

Sorry to fire off an unpopular loose cannon, guys.... it certainly showed there is plenty of "spirit" left in the forum, anyway!

Posted by: brellis Mar 26 2011, 05:43 AM

Has staff already been reduced on a temporary basis until communications are reestablished? Dang, I really didn't want to ask such a question, but flexible or reduced staff levels could have a bearing on recovering Spirit, both positive and negative.

IIRC, some or many of the MER staff work on both rovers at different times, so if they have the full team right now, Opportunity will be getting lots of attention on the home stretch to Endeavour!

Posted by: Bobby Mar 26 2011, 05:45 AM

If The Mer Team does go to a one rover operation. Will they keep one computer on that will alert them if they here a Signal from Spirit??? Just curious is all. unsure.gif

Posted by: Hungry4info Mar 26 2011, 06:12 AM

As I recall, they'll continue to listen, but not devote as much resources to it. At least until winter. If it's not awake by winter, then it's probably not going to awaken.

Posted by: briv1016 Mar 26 2011, 06:46 AM

This is from last months Mars Exploration Rovers Update,

"Longer term, we will probably continue with the sweep-and-beep activity, but will probably go from seven times a week, as we are now, to maybe just one or two times a week," Callas continued. "Further, we did program onto the rover before she went to sleep, back in March 2010, one UHF pass per week for the rest of calendar 2011. So we will probably continue to ask the relay orbiters to listen to that one pass a week for the rest of 2011." That means the team will be listeing and reaching out, at least a low level – once a week sweep and beep and once a week UHF – for the rest of the calendar year.

http://www.planetary.org/news/2011/0228_Mars_Exploration_Rovers_Update_Efforts.html

Posted by: PaulM Mar 26 2011, 07:57 AM

QUOTE (brellis @ Mar 25 2011, 06:36 AM) *
A cleaning event could come along at any time -- how 'bout really soon? smile.gif

I do not think that Spirit is short of power given that its solar panels are perpendicular to the Sun's rays this week and given that any significant dust storm over the last year would have been noticed from orbit.

It is possible that Spirit is now getting so much electrical power that its circuits have been damaged. mad.gif One Martian year ago Spirit was being given astronomy to do at night to stop it from overheating.

Posted by: Stu Mar 26 2011, 08:12 AM

As a wise man once said:

"...as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

smile.gif

Posted by: marsophile Mar 27 2011, 04:19 AM

This may be a little fanciful but suppose the transmitters are not working, but a receiver is. That might mean we could command Spirit. Following up on Viking Mars' suggestion, is there any command we could send that would produce a result visible from orbit? A drive of course, but anything short of that?

Posted by: Hungry4info Mar 27 2011, 05:25 AM

The link briv1016 posted talked specifically about that.

"In addition, the engineers are considering sending other more aggressive commands to the rover, because perhaps Spirit is hearing the signals from Earth, but can't respond for whatever reason, because of more than one failure. "We're going to be sending commands to the rover to try and change the configuration on the vehicle to account for some of these possibilities," Callas said. "But it's a complex thing. When you send commands to change the state of the rover, you don't know if the commands got in and changed the state, so anything you do after that, you have to consider now two possibilities – either they got in or didn't.""

Posted by: djellison Mar 27 2011, 11:36 PM

In that context, the 'configuration' of the rover means things like different transmitters etc, not changing it's orientation etc etc. that might be visible from orbit.

Just about the only thing that would be visible from orbit would be driving (but you need to get it out of power fault safe mode first, which you can't do with any confidence without proper downlink) or folding up solar arrays ( motors that have not been actuated in >7 year, and would likely compromise the power situation of the rover, and the power-fault safe mode caveat still applies

Posted by: stevesliva Mar 28 2011, 12:08 AM

QUOTE
Revised commanding began March 15, including instructions for the rover to be receptive over UHF relay to hailing from the Mars orbiters for extended periods of time and to use a backup transmitter on the rover.


They're telling it to listen more often in case the clock has drifted a ton, and to use a different transmitter in case the primary is dead.

Posted by: MahFL Mar 29 2011, 01:22 PM

I sadly think Spirit is dead.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Mar 29 2011, 01:36 PM

It would be interesting if Spirit could receive but not transmit. (If that is even possible...?) In that case, right before closing the casket they might send the instructions to continue that "swimming" extraction routine that seemed to be working at the very end, and afterward also extend the arm perpendicular to the mid-day sun for a HIRISE image.

Posted by: marsophile Mar 29 2011, 03:56 PM

I'm wondering if the heat generated by Spirit is visible at night by the TES instrument on Mars Odyssey? In that case, it might be possible to manipulate that to send a signal. It's a pity the poor rover does not have some laser instrument that could be pointed upwards at night; perhaps that would be visible to HIRISE. One lesson the Mars probes have taught us is the more means of communication, the better.

Posted by: djellison Mar 29 2011, 04:31 PM

THEMIS-IR images are 100m/pixel. A rover warm electronics box that's less than a metre in any dimension will be contributing to 1/10,000'th of a pixel.

And HiRISE doesn't image at night.

MER has three communication pathways. For the rover to be functional in a usefull way, one of those would have to work anyway.

Posted by: ustrax Mar 29 2011, 08:57 PM

QUOTE (Stu @ Mar 25 2011, 10:07 AM) *
...of course, if anyone else here wants to try that... wink.gif


Hey, I'm waiting, where did everybody go?

Posted by: hendric Mar 29 2011, 09:21 PM

I did a cleaning event here at home, but still didn't see any response. sad.gif


Posted by: ilbasso Apr 1 2011, 01:42 AM

When I do a cleaning event at home, the response I get is, "It's about freakin' time." (from my wife)

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