Spirit - 2010 Winter@Troy, The first stationary science campaign |
Spirit - 2010 Winter@Troy, The first stationary science campaign |
Feb 1 2010, 12:48 AM
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Senior Member Group: Admin Posts: 3108 Joined: 21-December 05 From: Canberra, Australia Member No.: 615 |
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) 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? |
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Jun 21 2010, 11:48 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1887 Joined: 20-November 04 From: Iowa Member No.: 110 |
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. |
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Jun 21 2010, 04:48 PM
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Dublin Correspondent Group: Admin Posts: 1799 Joined: 28-March 05 From: Celbridge, Ireland Member No.: 220 |
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. |
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