5 downsampled navcam frames from sol 2078 are down. Someone might want to make an animation.
Holy $%@#! Wheels are spinning!
Sol 2072:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/rear_hazcam/2009-11-01/2R310307055EFFB200P1314R0M1.JPG
Sol 2078:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/rear_hazcam/2009-11-07/2R310840313EFFB203P1304R0M1.JPG
Spirit
Go on girl, you can do it...
Yikes! ...ok, keeping fingers crossed!
Here we go...
I guess this is what Maxwell meant by his http://twitter.com/marsroverdriver/status/5484999771
Go Spirit Go
Great to see motion at the first attempt, and hopefully encouraging for the outcome. ISTR at Purgatory progress was glacial for many days. I wonder if/when/how often further MI imaging of the possible contact rock underneath Spirit will be done. Perhaps they might not be needed at all..?
*crosses fingers*
Please... please... get out of that crap!
Edit: What sol are these images from? I'm at http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit.html , and I'm not seeing the images you guys are posting.
Here's a gamma-tweaked animation of the right rear hazcams from 2072 and 2078:
Go, baby, go!!! Good luck, MER team!
Thanks, Sunspot. =)
Yeah, I'm sure they'll image the underneath.
Another momentous moment for the rovers. Good luck to RoverDriver and rest of the team!
I can't help but hear this in my mind while looking at the animated gifs....
http://www.sound-effect.com/track/hot-rod-2-revs-456/
Go Spirit and thanks to the team for all the hard work leading up to these days!
Exciting to see at least some movement. It almost looks like we might be taking the forward option? From the data available it is hard to judge whether it is more probable that we will get out or not, but being an optimist I think we will eventually inch our way out in time to find a wintering place.
May interest some people ....... just posted a version 3 of the Sol 2002 (Aug21st) sunset movie on YouTube with the sun continuously tracking down to give a more realistic effect. Will do some final corrections/colour adjustments on a V4 soon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZtWGy0XcCQ
or type into search:- mars august sunset v3
http://twitter.com/marsroverdriver/status/5517522009 that this move only involved steering, not driving the wheels.
But we're movin'! It's all good!
Yes, she moves ! Happy to see that
I think it miss the FHC anim between Sol 2078 and 2079. Done .
Downward movement when steering only would be expected as that's what happened when it was done previously (before they attempted a turn in place)
I recall roverdriver mentioned testing spinning the wheels while steering was tested to determine if it reduced the downward movement.
So RF and LR wheels were steered on 2078, and now LF and RR wheels steered on 2079. It's really hard to see what's happened with the RR, but if you compare the 2078 and 2079 images:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/rear_hazcam/2009-11-07/2R310840313EFFB203P1304R0M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/rear_hazcam/2009-11-08/2R310928775EFFB204P1314R0M1.JPG
the soil behind the RR has moved quite a bit, perhaps looking as if the RR was actually driven. But my guess is it was just steered like all the others.
This is definitely all good news - finally the extraction has begun!
Given that we're already up near 1100 posts, perhaps time for a new thread to follow this process?
I don't remember seeing any estimates of how far back along her path Spirit needs to move to have all five working wheels on solid ground. Does the thin crust over the bright, dusty material extend further back than the visible piles of powder excavated by the left hand wheels?
And - forgive me if this has been answered, I've searched but not been found it - do we know what the pale material actually is? Silica or sulphate salts, or something else?
(Edit: Found CosmicRocker / Paolo :
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=5999&view=findpost&p=142244"]http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&p=142244
...which doesn't shed much light )
do they have cameras on the practice rovers? it'd be neat to see the p.o.v. of what they're planning to do, and how the view compares with the real deal on Mars.
I'm a bit late, but I saw this continuation thread just now.
I only wanted to say:
It's a little ol' rover from Pa-sa-de-na...
Go Spirit go, Spirit go, Spirit go.
(cfr. Beach Boys mid '60)
Ciao,
Ermanno
Ahh Spirit, you beautiful amazing girl...I want to hug you!
GO!
Teleconference to be held on Thursday:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/nov/HQ_M09-214_Spirit_Stuck_telecon.html
Audio stream should be available here:
http://www.nasa.gov/news/media/newsaudio/index.html
Also, the tracking site is back up.
The server is going to lag with all the spinning wheel gifs.
Eppur si muove!
Scott's latest Tweet:
" On Nov 12, there will be a press conference on upcoming Spirit extrication. Expect news stories shortly after, everywhere. :-) "
What time?
What time? NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EST on Thursday, Nov. 12, to discuss attempts to free the Mars rover Spirit from sandy soil where the venerable robot has been stuck for the past six months.
"Expect news stories shortly after, everywhere. :-) "
If it wasn't for the smiley at the end, that statement would make me very nervous.
It's a reasonable expectation that you will see headlines about NASA trying to rescue a "$300M rover" that has been "stuck for six months."
NASA and "problem" draws the press like flies on [a banana].
$400 million.
I would love to know what's behind the "backup plan" in http://twitter.com/marsroverdriver/status/5610436164: Paolo, Ashley, & I talked w/Chris Voorhees, genius designer of MER's mobility system, today. Helped us re-eval one backup plan.
I'm curious, too, though won't be surprised if there are several backup plans. Lots of lessons learned from TeeBee, I'm sure.
MIs following the recent wheel moves.
Animation between sols 2076 and 2081.
Sure hope you're right, Eduardo. If that thing's at all mobile, it shouldn't be a factor in the extraction after all.
Yeah it looks to me like the perspective has changed a bit and everything under the rover has shifted over a bit, with belly rock staying in place relative to everything else. Hard to be sure though.
In terms of the press briefing, I don't think we've heard definitely what the primary extraction plan is. That would be something to listen for.
http://www.nasa.gov/news/media/newsaudio/index.html
Great new topographic map of Scamander Crater at the very bottom of the list of briefing images:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/telecon/tel20091110.html
A synopsis of anything new would be much much appreciated by we who can't access at work.
Go, Spirit, go, Spirit, go Spirit go!
Most single stricking picture of the conf:
Emily's Tweeting it...
"What mired Spirit: left wheels broke through duricrust covering soft-sand-filled crater. Right wheels outside crater. "
Flash was successfully reformatted yesterday; first drive command is Monday/Tuesday.
Spirit MIGHT be stuck here for good...
Monday = drive attempt
Efforts to continue until Feb when there's a review...
Plan = follow tracks back out...
1st drive Mon: plan = 5m worth of wheel turns... commands sent Mon night/Tues a.m, data due back later Tuesday...
"Still a lot of science can be done at this location..."
"Ability to do crude seismometry..."
1st attempt: straighten out the wheels and then drive out in the ruts Spirit made on the drive in; start Late Monday / Early Tuesday (jpl time?), get info back: Tuesday
then take a day to see what is going on and re-plan...
Its going to be really exciting around here over the next week or two!
Cheers
Hmmm. That map of Scamander really says it all. They pretty much have to try backing out. Sliding downslope is not an option, it's a rover-sized sand trap.
Re the wheel slewing: Is this Paolo's "sidewinder mode" (rotating the wheels while moving them from side to side)?
What a Monday on the horizon...
Cross your fingers until you get cramps!
Some very interesting discussion of Belly Rock. One of the big concerns they have, which I hadn't heard before, was that the rock may get caught in one of a couple of notches or depressions on the belly. If it did, then presumably the rover would be stuck, if the rock was firmly embedded in the ground. They said the notches are a few cm in size, and that they are near the front edge of the belly. So that's another reason they want to drive forwards (northwards). If they backed up, the rock could get caught in one of the notches.
They also stressed they'll try to keep Belly Rock away from the rover centre of mass. But they didn't say where their MI imaging says the rock is now - closer to the front or the back. (Obviously near the back would be best.)
Other reasons for driving straight forwards are that going backwards would mean having to break through surface crust, so backtracking avoids that extra work. Also going backwards means climbing uphill.
One more bit of info (which also appeared in a new http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427344.700-mars-rover-battles-for-its-life.html, was that with current dust levels, Spirit might just be able to survive another winter stuck in Troy. So another dust storm without any cleaning could do her in. Another good reason to get mobile.
Good briefing, lots of new details.
I liked the description of Spirit sitting right on a boundary between the highest sulfate level material found by either rover under the left wheel and basaltic material under the right wheel. The sulfur material being the soft, light material on the crater (down slope) side of the rover. Also the vertical changes from the surface of the duricrust to lower in the crust to beneath the crust showing water processes that occurred since volcanic activity in the area ceased.
I don't remember the danger of the belly rock being caught in a engineering depression in the underbelly being brought up before. One reason for driving forward rather than backward. I think that depression is visible in the underbelly images to the left of the belly rock's tip.
The detailed description of what occurred in the last days before halting driving operations was interesting. I found it encouraging that the (middle?) wheel stall seems to have not reoccurred when that wheel was tested. Also, the extraction maneuver, straight forward, is a maneuver that was not previously tried when the rover first became mired. A fresh maneuver leaves room for fresh hope... for me. Also good is the rover was still making progress when the driving was halted and was not just spinning its wheels. The progress was, however, in the down slope direction which is no longer considered a good idea, which is why the wheels were straightened for a straight forward drive.
edit: To clarify, the rover was going backwards toward Von Brun when it stopped. So a forward drive will be heading back in the direction it came from.
My fantasy: The wheels catch traction on some buried rocks and Tuesday morning images show the rover popped out and looking back at Belly Rock.
Stories hitting Google News now; here's the Associated Press http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ilnj4NBQUmLXrtkuExcD8Uurx0DgD9BU74AG1, which usually serves as the root for derivative articles.
Nasa comment regarding DM1 picture of today release was not much better (ok, probaly tiping mistakes)
"The red line tracks the 18.8 kilometers (11.7 miles) that NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity traveled from where it landed in January 2004 to its position 2,955 Martian days, or sols, later, on Nov. 4, 2009. The rover landed inside Eagle Crater and spent about half of its first year examining layers inside Victoria Crater before embarking on a long trek to the larger Victoria Crater, which is explored for two years."
Now that we have these great maps of Scamander Crater, I went back and had a look for it in some old anaglyphs posted on this forum. And bingo: there, in Ant's sol 1869 pancam anaglyph mosaic from http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=5901&view=findpost&p=138830 it is. Here's a crop with Scamander circled in white. Also I've circled in black the "rock garden" where we're currently sitting, with one side hanging over into the crater.
Why not flap the solar panels and fly away??
I'm wondering if the dark rectangle indicated by the arrow is the depression in Spirit's underbelly that they are concerned may catch on Belly Rock's tip. The forward drive, toward us as we view this image, is supposed to eliminate this possibility.
Not to be denser than usual, but is anyone else getting terribly confused by the forward/back distinctions when talking about the extraction?
I propose establishing four standard reference terms: "rover-front", "rover-back", "rover-left", and "rover-right". Rover-front is the normal lead end of the vehicle where the IDD is mounted, and rover-back is obvious. Rover-left is the left side of the vehicle as viewed from above referenced to rover-front. Examples of useage: "Today Spirit moved 2m rover-back", "This MI image has rover-front facing the point of view", "Spirit experienced some slight rover-left slippage during today's drive".
Just a proposal, and in all probability there's already a perfectly good reference system that I'm not aware of.
nprev, I know what you mean, but inevitably someone will abbreviate rover-front to RF and then were confused with wheel references like RF (right front) etc.
Spirit has been mostly driving 'backwards' for the past 3 years, so backwards is rear facing and forwards is front of vehicle (IDD end).
I just love acronyms of course, but I'd be happier if Spirit just G-O (got out!)
Good point, Astro0, and I actually thought about that after posting. How about MER-xxx? Then we'd have MF, MB, ML, & MR.
(Boy; I have no life, do I?)
I like the fact that avoiding confusion forces the use of more descriptive language when describing a rover move.
Consider this a backlash against text message/tweeter speak.
I'll suggest arm-ward as the rover forward direction. I'll let someone else suggest a description for the other direction.
Armward ho!
This situation does have a "Back to the Future" vibe, or in this case, Forward to the Past.
RF has a lot of traction here whatever RF means...
That's a fascinating anaglyph Fred - you can almost convince yourself you can see the crater as a depression, can't you?
I guess it could have been a lot worse; if Spirit had driven further in, and not just sank in on one side, I think the game would already be over.
Yeah, thought about nautical terminology as well, and that'd be fine, too.
Anything would be fine as long as there was a consensus & consistent application.
Does anyone know where I can find an mp3 file of the Nov 12 teleconference?
"@marsroverdriver Showtime! #FreeSpirit 3 minutes ago from Twitterrific"
We might see the first images at exploratorium in the next hour then.
IIRC at the press briefing they said the commands would be executed late Monday evening, Pasadena time -- or maybe that was when the downlink would happen. Perhaps "Showtime" referred to the uplink? Mars24 tells me it's now only 08:20 at Gusev, so they wouldn't be driving yet, right?
Edit: Blerg, I misread Mar24. As I write this it is indeed late evening Spirit time, 19:42. Sorry to add to the confusion.
confused
Juggling 3 different time zones here
Sorry to have added to the confusion. It's now late evening Spirit time as centsworth pointed out; driving action can be expected at noon give or take a few hours Mars time, which is some time in the wee hours of the morning California time. Unconfused yet?
I imagine 'Showtime' meant the commands were transmitted. As for expected movement, I think they'll be happy to see a fraction of a centimeter and no drift in a bad direction.
According to the http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/telecon/trans20091112.html last week, the plan was (presumably California time):
This thread started when briv1016 noticed that the wheels had moved and the hazcam images changed. Tesheiner made the 5 image movie and we were off.
I think it would be great to have a thread--like the map thread--where just images are posted. We could all go there and see how Spirit has moved since starting the wheel turns. As lots of images may come come down with each drive day, the total number of hazcam & other images could get really large. So maybe one movie where only the final frame of each day's effort gets added to the end of the movie.
Since I don't have image/movie skills, I am not not the one to start the new thread: Spirit Escape--the Movie. But maybe someone who could make such movies could start such a thread.
This thread should definitely continue for all of its great discussions (and images).
Like the extrication process is going to be, a movie will be painstakingly SLOW .
I'm sure that someone will do a movie, but a long way into the process/progress. Not really worth a new thread, just occasional updates here.
Are there hazcam pics from the test rovers going thru the planned maneuvers?
Small blurb about the upcoming drive:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/spotlight/20091116a.html
Also, the tracking site has the planned imaging sequence for sol 2088.
Edit: Thanks Astro.
I hadn't seen these mentioned elsewhere in this thread.
Check out this from http://www.youtube.com/user/JPLraw video on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WEcMC6LGtY.
The 7min38sec NASA B-roll video contains:
Video of JPL engineers in MER testbed and in a meeting discussing the extrication tests
Various images showing where Spirit is stuck, underbelly view and local terrain
Some interesting interview segments with Ashley Stroupe
Extra images and animation of Spirit's journey, current location, maps etc.
brellis asked: Are there hazcam pics from the test rovers going thru the planned maneuvers?
There's a very quick shot from TeeBee's FrontHazcam showing some 'downhill' movement.
All-in-all some interesting stuff to watch while we wait for new images from Spirit.
I'll see about building a movie over time as this whole thing unfolds.
Can anyone suggest a way to convert .gif files into something usable by YouTube? (.flv)
Flash would seem to be the best way to import gifs and export flv. Adobe do a free thirty-day trial if you want to experiment.
Andy
Youtube will actually take almost anything, and convert it itself. Perhaps Quicktime Pro ( load an anim gif, export to H264 .mob - then upload to youtube)
next bit isn't aimed at you directly.
This is a warning. Progress today may be negligible, it may be significant, it may be entirely invisible and non existent.
DO NOT attempt to draw too many conclusions, positive or negative, regarding the efficacy of the technique, the likelihood of a final extraction and so on. People using words like 'never' or 'certain' or 'wrong' will have firm forum wrist slappings.
Many of you were not around during the month of extraction at Purgatory Ripple. The old hands know how frustrating this process is going to be. Be patient. Do not jump to conclusions. Do not resort to superlatives.
Warning over.
As you were.
Thanks for the link to the vidéo Astro0, I'll be watching it .
Some data on the tracking site now!
Movement of a few tenths of a mm according to that data (don't read too much into this!)
edit:
Looks like the drive number has only be incremented by 'one'. I was expecting at least two as the drive was in two legs + maybe more as there were visdom navcam images sequenced.
Possible aborted drive?
> Movement of a few tenths of a mmActually, a few mm. (Edited)
Fredk, regarding the downlink time, I think that 1440UTC was the beginning of the downlink session so it missed the data transfer to the exploratorium by a small amount of time. We may see the pictures in the next window which will be at 2040UTC.
Unless I'm very much mistaken (and that's quite likely) - it's IMU based.
I'm pretty sure that they are from the IMU.
I really don't know what signifcance to put on these very small numbers. My gut feeling is not a lot!
Just a fact check here -- was sol 1898 the last sol on which Spirit rolled wheels in a commanded drive? It seems like there's a more recent driving day that I'm missing.
Correct, Spirit got dug in on 6th May 2009 (sol 1899)
I think it is a bit of a stretch to say Spirit got 'dug in' on 1899 - the problems started on sol 1886 and she was furthest 'in' on 1891.
Emily, the last significant drive was on 1898. There was a drive with very little movement on sol 1899 which I think was the one that faulted out when the middle wheel stalled.
James
Thank you both!
(F5, F5, F5, F5...still looking for those raws!)
As Tesheiner wrote above, the jpegs shouldn't appear at exploratorium until around 20:40 UT. If not then, add n*6 hours, for integer n.
The exploratorium site must be broken again
It's still 20:30UTC per my account.
UTC = GMT = ZULU
Right on cue, the images are up at exploratorium:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/forward_hazcam/2009-11-17/2F311735004EFFB205P1214R0M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/rear_hazcam/2009-11-17/2R311735481EFFB205P1314R0M2.JPG
Looks indeed like very small movement.
Where did you guys find that time BTW?
The explotratorium is sync'ed four times a day at 0240, 0840, 1440 and 2040 UTC.
It's not posted anywhere, it's just a question of checking for new data day after day since some years ago.
Back to business, to our "armchair analysis"...
I believe I can see the "two steps" of today's drive on the tracking web data. If that's correct, it's a little bit different from previous extraction moves since it's completely embedded on a single "site/drive id" (if you know what I mean). Assuming the commanded wheel turns were as reported on the MER website (2.5m each step), the slip factor was really high, as expected: 99.98 - 99.99%
Do you mean the 20:40 time? I've just noticed that the exploratorium images have been appearing four times a day 6 hours apart. You can see that from the timestamps on the exploratorium files. Edit - Tesheiner was quicker than me!
I don't see much evidence of movement in the soil around the LF wheel, comparing before and after tosols drive attempt:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/forward_hazcam/2009-11-08/2F310928585EFFB204P1214R0M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/forward_hazcam/2009-11-17/2F311735004EFFB205P1214R0M1.JPG
So should these new images be at the halfway mark, after 2.5 metres of wheel motion, or after 5 metres? The wheel treads have definitely moved, but is that 2.5 metres worth of change in the surrounding soil?
Peering into the shadows, there is some change in the soil behind the LR wheel:
AFAIK, the images correspond to the end of the drive.
Fred - your anim is good - I think we see the RR wheel digging in a reasonable amount, not much movement on the LR.
Don't know what it tells us, if anything, but here's two images to compare the left middle wheel between Sol 2008 and Sol 2088.
Edit: Ugh; those show up in reverse order, and without the filenames - yech. If you switch between these images, it looks like the left middle wheel has raised a bit (not sunk). If you save the images to your computer they should have more illuminating filenames.
And for completeness, here's the right middle wheel, sol 2012 and sol 2088.
Apparently today’s drive only lasted 1 second.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/freespirit/index.cfm
MIs from sol2076(2frames) and sol2088(1frame)
Animation - large movement was on sol 2076 when the wheels were re-aligned and last frame from today's movement.
Lined up as best as I can for now.
"...The rover has a top speed on flat hard ground of 5 centimeters (2 inches) per second...."
http://marsrover.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft_rover_wheels.html
Given a wheel diameter of 25cm (78.5cm circumference), full speed would turn the wheel about 6.3% of a revolution in one second.
I just have to comment that the last day's worth of posts on this topic must hit some kind of high for the ratio of analysis to driving distance.
Oh, what the heck, let's get wildly speculative...
1)
I would assert that today's movement was intentionally slight, a deliberate perturbation to confirm data on Spirit's mechanical and frictional state. This includes noting if the rock underneath is in significant contact (is it a pivot?). The response from this perturbational movement will help determine the next movement set. Mechanical engineers love perturbation theory. ...And the principal of virtual work...
2)
Digging myself deeper (not Spirit, hopefully), the JPL guys in the sand pit found a "stick-slip" type of behavior, so that a slight movement below a certain threshold (.5 mm?) would not cause the sandy dust under the wheels to break free and slip. Furthermore, the diurnal thermal cycle causes a "reset" of the grain inter-particle friction, so the slight stick-before-slip can be repeated the next Sol. So, we can expect Spirit to explode out of its hole at 1.5 cm/month.
3)
The right front wheel no longer turns, but it can be rotated left and right. In fact, if this is done while the other wheels are pushing, it reduces somewhat the effective drag that dead wheel provides. Helps Spirit shimmy out of there...
--There, now I feel better.
According to the update:
"A tight limit on vehicle roll and pitch of less than 1 degree change was set for this first drive. As the rover began its first move, it sensed that its roll was outside the allowed limit and safely stopped the drive."
Less than one degree pitch or roll. I don't think they expected the drive to last very long with those restraints -- a few seconds at the most.
The specific pitch or roll movement triggering an abort would give them some valuable information. According to the update it was a roll that shut the drive down. To the left or right? It seems that a roll to the right would be preferable, but then it would still need to be determined if it was because of the left wheels rising or the right wheels sinking.
Patience fellows.....the next drive will be huge...like 2 seconds......
BTW, what was the normal tilt and roll limit, and the ultimate limits which would make it fall over ?
Did the rovers tilt change during the drive attempt? I don't understand how the abort could have been triggered during the first second of the wheels turning.
Sunspot,
My impression from the line:
"As the rover began its first move, it sensed that its roll was outside the allowed limit and safely stopped the drive."
Is that the roll of the vehicle was *already* out off allowable drive limits before even starting the drive. i.e there was a mismatch between the actual roll of the vehicle and what the drivers thought it was when setting the limits. As soon as the first roll limit check was made after the drive started, this was discovered and the drive stopped.
Using 145cm wheelbase and 1 degree angle I get 2.5cm* change in elevation from one side to the other. We don't know what the limit was set at, one half degree? One tenth? It's not hard to imagine a vehicle the size of Spirit settling one centimeter on one side as soon as its wheels start turning. No need for that to take one whole second.
*EDIT: correcting the wheelbase to 106cm, the calculation gives 1.85cm change in elevation.
Not knowing which direction the tilt actually went at this stage (did someone work it out?), but...
...to visualise a full 1 degree tilt (the real tilt was less) in 1 second, here's a animation.
I got the impression it was 1 degree from where they were at, they already said she was at a small of degree roll on the edge of the crater didn't they ?
A polite reminder repeated from earlier...
This is a warning. Progress may be negligible, it may be significant, it may be entirely invisible and non existent.
DO NOT attempt to draw too many conclusions, positive or negative, regarding the efficacy of the technique, the likelihood of a final extraction and so on. People using words like 'never' or 'certain' or 'wrong' will have firm forum wrist slappings.
Many of you were not around during the month of extraction at Purgatory Ripple. The old hands know how frustrating this process is going to be. Be patient. Do not jump to conclusions. Do not resort to superlatives.
Warning over.
Another armchair rover driver here. In that one second of "activity" I doubt the wheels turned even the 6.3% of one full rotation. I would guess the very cautious pitch threshold was reached the moment the wheels started to spin, and thus the movement was aborted. I'm thinking its an actual tilt vs. what JPL told the computers the tilt was abort. Either way, this is an easy fix.
I think we can answer that. Looking carefully at the LF and LR wheels in the hazcams, we can identify features on the wheels (or in the powder caked on them) between sols 2079 and 2088:
It looks like the wheels turned only about half a wheel cleat. With 29 cleats all around, that gives a rotation of about 6 degrees, or about 1.7% of a full rotation. If 6.3% corresponds to one second at full speed, then this drive was about 1/4 second at full speed. Longer if slower.
"Progress ?" was there any forward progress, or did the wheels just spin ?
Given that they are expecting to drive many meters to get the couple of feet they need to get out of the trap, I think it's safe to say that the one second drive was all wheel spin, if such a minuscule turn can be called "spin"
Pretty sure. Flip between the 2079 fhaz image:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/f/2079/2F310928585EFFB204P1214R0M1.JPG
and the 2088 image:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/f/2088/2F311735004EFFB205P1214R0M1.JPG
Make sure the images are aligned exactly (full screening both should work). Notice that the horizon along the left side of the image rises between 2079 and 2088. It's only by a tiny amount, around 1 pixel. If you try to picture the camera fixed to the rover, if the left (west) side of the rover sunk down a bit, you'd expect the left side of the horizon to rise a bit in the front hazcam view, and that's what we see.
I agree about the LF wheel looking like it's risen a bit. But remember that with the rocker-bogey system, one wheel rising doesn't mean rover rising.
I used an incorrect wheelbase dimension in my previous calculations. I have added edits.
The total calculated tilt change of about 0.1 degree remains the same.
The paper I quote in my previous post says, "Wheel baseline is roughly one meter side-to-side..." And in http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=5456&view=findpost&p=130529 "Wheel width is 160mm - and the distance between the insides of the wheels is 900mm for the front and rear wheels..." That would give 106cm between wheel center lines, not the 145cm I originally used.
So, the less 'scary' version based on everyone's calculations above (ie: 0.1degree after .25secs)
Almost imperceptible!
According to http://twitter.com/marssciencegrad/status/5830712110 it looks like there'll be another drive attempt on sol 2090. If it's around noon or 1pm local Spirit time, that'd be November 19th, 4 - 5 am California time, or 12:00 - 13:00 UT.
Second drive should be similar to the first:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/spotlight/20091118a.html
The second commanded drive is similar to the first commanded drive.
I think we're probably hoping the actual drives are a bit different
Some data flowing in the tracking web.
Dunno how many steps were executed but the net advance seems to be about 1cm.
I do have basic questions here that apparently have not been addressed since we all thought we'll drive backward.
Assuming the crust will not broke more, what is the distance for Left front to reach firm terrain? (Same question for Middle an Back weels from both sides)
I mean, once LF will be in firm terrain the traction could improve a bit and so on when more weels will meet it. I'll also say the Middle Right will be the first to get to firm terrain, correct?
How this compare to purgatory?
this is reminding me of something a few years back ( well many )
seeing a Corvette balancing on a OVERLY tall speed bump . it bottomed out on it and had the back wheels up in the air about 1.5 in.
Since the poor RF wheel is stuck with undesirable bulldozing up front on the solid terrain, does anyone have any idea what is its' lowest-drag profile? It's currently set square with the other wheels but one wonders if a bit of toe-in or toe-out might slightly reduce drag/pile-up and maybe induce a bit clockwise twist to the whole rover movement. The equation gets even more interesting (complicated) when the rover does a 'crabbing' move...
We've got movement! Sol 2088 to 2090:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/forward_hazcam/2009-11-17/2F311735004EFFB205P1214R0M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/forward_hazcam/2009-11-19/2F311913928EFFB206P1214R0M1.JPG
Not only movement but I think the LF wheel has moved up a little bit so it's not digging in the soil.
The RF wheel looks to have moved ahead in relation to the small rock next to it by as much as a cm*. I can't wait for the flickers!
*edit: Compared to 11/17/09 hazcam.
To play devil's advocate, one reason why the horizon would drop in the front camera view would be if the rover were sinking in back. I'm having a hard time judging what's going on in the rear hazcam views -- anyone care to interpret?
Attached is fhaz animation, I'm working on rhaz.
Rear Haz
I can see quite some differences in LF .
There are little agregates (?) on the rigth of the soil in front of it that end up near the edge of the soil in front of it while they were further (sorry, I miss words to be precise enough in my description); And, I agree Eduardo, I can see it (LF) moving up quite a bit. It seams that some soil in front of LF is now under it, i.e. the weel went up a bit.
MIs sol2088-2090 view to LR wheel.
Do I see the pointed rock fading into the distance?
This looked extremely promising, though I guess we'll have to wait upon the official word on how they thought it went.
My first contribution:
Movement for sure!
From the http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/spotlight/20091119a.html
Here is a little animation of the underbelly of Spirit (sols 2088 -2090)
I dusted off the program that s t r e t c h e s the heck out of the histogram of the images (no respect for gamma)
Animation middle right and left (Pancam L257):
new http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=6291&view=findpost&p=150717
as the most annoying thing of sand is it keeps falling on you while you dig... would it be possibile for the IDD to remove the sand over the wheel, to prevent it from burying the wheel itself?
EMBEDDED IMAGE REMOVED - please either attach images or post links to them offsite -- embedding makes life difficult for people with slow connections or small screens.
The IDD is not a shovel........so NO.
There is no way they are going to be shoveling with the IDD. MahFL was being polite by just saying NO.
One thing I'm led to wonder is whether the surprising (?) progress is due to packing of the underlying soil due to sitting in one place for so long. This might motivate a strategy if the current plans otherwise go awry. Hoping I'm wrong.
We just need to all sit back, calm down and have some patience here, these chaps know what they're doing
After 12 driving sols we will have backed out onto the firm ground - you mark my words
Oooh, that sounds like a call for a Spirit Extraction Pool. Some of our members would be absolutely thrilled about that!
NO MORE POOLS PER DOUG - ADMIN
Third drive attempt soon, according to the http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/spotlight/20091120a.html
Some data on the tracking site now. Looks like about 5mm progress forward, although worryingly, another 4mm 'down'.
And this time it looks like the two steps were executed.
I'm wondering if "down" might just mean that the mid part of the rover is down a bit, but the rear is moving up.
Less progress on 2092 than on 2090:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/f/2088/2F311735004EFFB205P1214R0M1.JPG
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/f/2090/2F311913928EFFB206P1214R0M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/forward_hazcam/2009-11-21/2F312092660EFFB208P1214R0M1.JPG
Here's a tweaked version of the rear wheels:
Movie of 2 forward left hazcam pics taken on Sol 2092 - Earth Time Sun Nov22.
2F312091613EFFB207P1235L0M1.JPG
2F312092660EFFB208P1214L0M1.JPG
First pic with IDD (arm) down and second pic about 18 mins later. Looks like that revolving left wheel is pushing up a bit of 'sand'. Rover slewing a bit to the right and probably not sinking in relation to that wheel. And, dare I say it, possibly a bit of movement towards safe ground! That critical right wheel - looks like no perceptible movement in relation to ground.
Front, Rear and Nav sequences from sol2088 to sol2092.
Front and rear sol2092 show both steps.
I do not like the repeated down movement of the right RW.
Full res. http://i48.tinypic.com/a9r8kp.gif of the progress from the Forward Hazcam (by Mirko from the German forum)
The LF wheel is still steadily shoveling soil and that should start to pay dividends. Wonder when they will try some crabbing?
Some rough and ready renderings of Scamander crater based on the OSU elevation map posted with the press conf a week or so ago. The exaggerated elevation is 5x exaggerated.
doug
your renderings are very cool
I agree, excellent renderings.
Looks like we're again imaging underneath the rover.
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/forward_hazcam/2009-11-22/2F312092535ESFB208P1162L0M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/forward_hazcam/2009-11-22/2F312092935ESFB208P1162L0M1.JPG
Looks different now (i.e. farther in the distance). Touching?
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/micro_imager/2009-11-22/2M312092879EFFB208P2926M2M1.JPG
Here is an animation of the underbelly of Spirit over the last 3 imaging sessions (sols 2088, 2090, 2092)
I have pushed tortured the histograms and did some adaptive processing
Animations middle right and left (Pancam L257):
new: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=6291&view=findpost&p=150822
Three steps -
ADMIN - PLEASE DO NOT POST LARGE IMAGES DIRECTLY INLINE. UPLOAD AS AN ATTACHMENT FOR PEOPLE WITH SLOW CONNECTIONS ETC. SEE BELOW
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/freespirit/
Last drive was aborted after 4m worth of wheel spinning due to a RR stall.
Sequencing diagnostics today (for nextersol, 2095)) including a possible steering test, a small backward rotation of just the right-rear wheel and a short (~1m) forward drive of all wheels.
The story James linked to only mentions a "forward commanded motion of the rover", not a drive of all the wheels. Obviously the RF won't take part in the drive, and the only question is whether the RR will. But without the RR, three left wheels vs one right wheel means she'd yaw over to the right pretty severely I'd think.
Are you thinking that the RR may not have been turning much during the entire last drive? If that's true, then you're right. Three left and one right wheel driving didn't yaw her over much - it didn't make very much progress period.
But we don't know how the RR behaved during the entire last drive. Maybe it slowed down only at the end, just before the drive was aborted. If that's the case, then 3L + 1R driving might still yaw us a lot more than we've seen yet. Still, traction is worse on the left side, so it's not clear what might happen.
Problem is they removed a local tilt to produce the DEM- and I don't know how much - so it was guess work on how to place the rover in terms of tilt etc.
Here is the underbelly animation showing more of the left side (looking under and to the back of the vehicle..2088,90,92)
A rocker or a boogy is really moving, maybe someone can illuminate what is (mechanically) happening with that kind of motion?
Also notice in this animation as well as the other a few posts back, that the ground appears to heave up on the 2092 image.
Well, the ground isn't heaving up, the camera platform (Spirit) is digging in and so it is lower (yikes!)
Question: has anyone seen the origin of Scamander discussed?
Is it assumed to be an old impact crater that was filled with the loose bright material or could the hollow have been formed by the same process that produced the material.
Here is the last animation based on Sols 2088,90,92 that show the rightmost section of the undercarriage of Spirit
One thing I would like to point out is the repeatability of the camera pointing; the arm deploys the MI to the exact same places over many sols - I have not made any attempt to align the images - awesome engineering!
The images from today's diagnosis / drive are available: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/forward_hazcam/2009-11-24/
And looking at the data available at the tracking web, the net movement was 2.5mm N and 1.3mm W.
Before: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/forward_hazcam/2009-11-21/2F312092660EFFB208P1214L0M1.JPG
After: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/forward_hazcam/2009-11-24/2F312356114EFFB214P1214L0M1.JPG
There is some movement in the soil behind the RR wheel after tosol's RR wheel diagnostic drive:
Full quote of previous post removed - Mod
These images appear to show the ground moving away, which is a very good sign. The three attempts at movement so far have been very promising but I became concerned by the front Hazcam views from Saturday that appear to show that the locked right front wheel has lodged against a small stone and did not appear to move when there was a clear movement from the left front wheel. I wondered what would happen if Spirit rotates around the locked front wheel. Would this cause the rover to slide further into Scamander crater?
I see clear motion on the FR during the last drive. Small, but so was the motion from the FL. I don't think small pebbles etc are going to significantly increase the drag caused by that wheel.
There was no stall of the suspect wheel during the diagnostic drive, so it's full speed ahead (relatively speaking!) for the next 5m drive over the Thanksgiving weekend.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/spotlight/20091125a.html
@marsroverdriver (Should be careful here: #FreeSpirit progress on Mars -- actual motion vs. commanded motion -- is right on predicts. Almost scary.)
good (cautious) news from twitter
Huh. Swear I just heard a sound like hundreds of thousands of fingers crossing...
Here is a Spirit undercarriage animation that spans sols 2081, 88, 90, 92, and 2095
It shows the center view... the JPL engineers have been taking, what I call, a left, center, and right view of the underbelly after drives. Incredibly, the IDD arm places the MI at the exact same place (+/- a pixel or two) over 2 weeks.
I have tortured the histograms to get the lighting bearable.
If anyone wants to try a Lucy-Richardson or any other focusing trick, I can provide the the individual processed frames via flickr.
Just making the verb predict more like the verb target.
I've always heard 'predicts' used rather than 'predictions' in space ops.
Full in-line quoting removed. That certainly ISN'T right - ADMIN
And that somehow makes it right?
I'd rather it be spaceflight ops -- I mean operations -- jargon than twitterese!
Does any of you have insight into the next moves of the rover extraction team at JPL. What do they expect from the next drive.. and the whatifs that must have been planned in detail ?
Not knowing what action plans is made, is no fun at all.
So, Scott says we're ~50cm from clearing Belly Rock. How many more cm we'll we need to see Belly Rock appears in Rear Hazcam?
50cm. The bottom of a Hazcam image is the ground directly below it So we will see the rock appear at the bottom of Hazcams as we get clear of it. Hazcam's FOV is 120 degrees and the pointing is 30 degrees below the horizon - so you get 90 degrees below, and 30 degrees above.
Does Spirit sink at all during the days off?
I'm just glad I'm not driving her -- I'd be spinning those wheels in a mad panic, hehe.
One tidbit I remember from the press briefing was John Callas saying that they now treat sinkage as a "consumable" (much like power or flash memory), so it's something they're monitoring very closely. He said something about how it would be "game over" if they sank so much that the belly pan was sitting flat on the ground. Awful image!
Since we've sunk about 5 mm in these drives, that does suggest Belly Rock is being pushed down too, which would be very good news. And if I squint at PDP's excellent MI animations, I can just imagine that I can see it getting pushed down. But it's still not entirely clear, since we don't know how far along Spirit's belly the rock is. One end of Spirit might be pivoting down and the other held up by the rock.
I have to say that the post by Maxwell that we need 50 cm to clear Belly Rock baffled me. The entire underbelly is only about 60 cm from front to back. So if he meant that we need 50 cm of movement to clear the belly, then the rock had to be around 10 cm from the front initially. But it looked like it was much farther back in the MI's. Maybe he meant we need 50 cm to clear the rear wheels. That would put the rock at something like 40 cm from the front of the belly, and behind the centre of mass, which would make much more sense.
I'm a glass-half-empty sort of chap...
Oh, don't overthink the "almost scary" business. Scott's a typical engineer, always expecting the worst and obsessively hunting for the mistakes and errors he KNOWS have to be in there somewhere. If things are going well, that just means he hasn't caught the mistake he must have made! He'll be sure he's wrong until Spirit's out of there safely. And then he'll find something else to worry about.
Reading "Mars & Me", I understand perfectly what you mean. Nice analyse
Long time since I have posted in the Thread or any other one.
I am still sick with a thyroid issue and being treated now for it.
Hopefully soon I will be better.
Back to the topic at hand. I have heard people discussing using
the arm with all the tools to lift the rover up a little. Has anyone ever
thought about using the grinder tool part that is not working anymore
as a plow to move some of the dirt, sand or what ever it is in front
of that one wheel? If they did that would that be less resistance on
that front wheel making it easier for it to get a grip? I think it's worth a
shot. Is there any small rocks we can shove in front of that wheel also so
it has a solid surface to grab onto???
Just me thinking of other things we can do to help Spirit out
Bobby
Given the many unknowns and an uncannily accurate prediction, I would say that "almost scary" also alludes, sarcastically, to a supernatural component such as clairvoyance.
According to the tracking site the next drive is sol 2099.
Here is an underbelly image from Sol 2061 (before extrication maneuvers)
There is a before and after image
I rotated the 'after' to have a level under-deck.
I don't think belly rock is touching (I wish I could be sure!)
oh well, just waiting for the next drive (Sol 2099)
Your mileage may vary
Very little apparent movement from today’s drive. On a related note, how are you guys getting Spirits movement from the tracking site?
Minimal movement, indeed. Besides, only one step was executed not two; my guess is that it was somehow aborted.
On another note, today is sol 2100!
Wow, this is just a nail-biter to wait for news each day. Let me see if I can summarize the action for those of us who've missed a few days of news due to holidays.
Short term goal: move forward 50 cm to clear Belly Rock.
Long term goal: move forward ~1m to escape Troy?
Update for Sol 2095 (Nov 24th)
Total commanded movement since Sol 2088 (Nov 17): 8.1 m
Total successfully processed movement (wheel spin): 5.6 m
Total forward movement: 15.7 mm
Total sinkage: 4.8 mm
Perhaps it's meaningless to project with just 2 datapoints, but if this ratio of motion is maintained, then to clear Belly Rock Spirit must churn about 178m of wheel spinning and could sink 150mm!
It is similar to the 192m of wheel turns it took to move 1m to get out of purgatory
Some people have very short memories
Was there any sinkage reported during the purgatory extraction?
Here is the underbelly MI animation from Sols 2081, 88, 90, 92, 95, 2099 (center MI view)
There is minor movement on 2099 as commented before.
In case you haven't seen, Odyssey's in Safe mode again
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2009-181&icid=%27NewsFeaturesHome%27
Wondered how this would affect extraction Got this reply from Scott on Twitter last night
"Unclear. Possibly no effect: they might be out of safe mode by the next time we can try to #FreeSpirit anyway (Wednesday)."
Five steps.
I sure hope that stuck wheel starts to slide.
The reversion from the last frame to the first shows clearly that it already is. It's not moving as much as the FL - but it IS moving.
Also, if the wheels are moving material from in front of them to behind them they are doing something very useful. There might be no motion for ten drives while stuff is moved by the wheels, then suddenly you get a bit of a move, and that sequence is repeated as often as necessary.
Phil
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