Travelling to the channels, Extraordinarily unlikely |
Travelling to the channels, Extraordinarily unlikely |
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#1
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![]() Member ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 813 Joined: 8-February 04 From: Arabia Terra Member No.: 12 ![]() |
Opportunity is entering a multi-year science campaign at the rim of Endeavour crater, a campaign primarily driven by the interest in clays.
Eventually this investigation will conclude. So where next? Far, far to the south lies a location identified as a go-to target for one of the MSL candidate landing sites- a series of outflow channels. With no possibility of further Mossbauer integrations and the mini-TES severely degraded, wouldn't these features be good targets for an imaging/APXS only geology investigation? ![]() Iazu by the middle of the decade, unnamed crater south of Iazu by the end of the decade, channels by middle of the next decade... |
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#2
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Junior Member ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 46 Joined: 14-January 06 Member No.: 645 ![]() |
Seeing Oppy's mission continue another 8 years .... PRICELESS.
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#3
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![]() Member ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 206 Joined: 15-August 07 From: Shrewsbury, Shropshire Member No.: 3233 ![]() |
It is arguable that the life expectancy of a MER rover should be measured not in SOLs but in kilometres driven. I think for example that over the rough terrain that Spirit was driving two wheels were always going to fail when Spirit had driven 7.73 kilometres. What this means is that if hypothetically Oppy's "wheels" were to last for another 5 km then it could be anything between 1 and 8 years before Oppy becomes a stationary Lander.
There is therefore a good case for Oppy IDDing every rock in sight and not travelling more than a few meters each month. There are probably enough different rock types for Oppy to IDD around Cape York and Cape Tribulation to last the rest of the mission. I do not think that Oppy's wheels could cope with the drive to the channels no matter how much time was available. I would be interested to know if JPL could have got more driving out of Spirit if they knew then what they know now? Presumably in retrospect they would have alternated driving directions on the trip to the Columbia Hills? Does rock climbing wear out wheels faster than driving on the flat? |
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