Opportunity General Health |
Opportunity General Health |
Aug 15 2013, 10:25 AM
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#1
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Member Group: Members Posts: 102 Joined: 8-August 12 Member No.: 6511 |
I've been clicking around for a general health status for Opportunity, but haven't been able to find one.
Power -- The solar panels seem to be showing signs of degradation over time but it's not clear how much. NASA reports regularly on power output, tau/opacity and dust levels, but not on the status of the panels themselves. They did clock well over 500 watt-hours as recently as May, so it doesn't look like their performance is a serious issue. As for non-solar power, the radioisotope heaters seem to be fine; they're Pu-238, so they would only have lost about 10% of their power since launch. So the WEB is still toasty. Motors and joints -- I know we've got one bad wheel motor (which means we spend a lot of time driving backwards) and the bad arm azimuth joint and the separate issue with the arm potentiometer. Electronics -- There was the flash memory issue earlier this year but I don't know if that was a one-off or a sign of age. Instruments -- The Mossbauer spectrometer is done because its radioactive cobalt source ran out. MiniTES got dust on its mirror after the big 2007 dust storm and stopped working. AFAICT the other instruments are okay? Pancam, Navcam, Hazcams, and the APXS all seem to be working fine. There was a NASA press release last month that said "Opportunity imaged the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) bit to assess remaining bit life", but it didn't say anything about what they saw and I haven't been able to find any more information. Clearly the RAT is still working, at least for now. What else? Doug M. |
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Aug 17 2015, 11:34 AM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 154 Joined: 21-April 05 From: Rochester, New York, USA Member No.: 336 |
> Yet even if all instruments and cameras are dead...
So some value comes if the only parts left working are the power system and the radio The other part of my original question was about a "log" that documented the various failure dates of key components. I was thinking about creating some kind of timeline that showed this visually. |
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Aug 17 2015, 06:22 PM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 194 Joined: 3-January 10 Member No.: 5156 |
I did not know about a good log for this problems. In the english Wikipedia is a small chapter of the failures of Spirit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_(rover...ar_and_failures
I am also interested in such a timeline, it could be interesting for the Wikipedia. Here is a list about the equipment failures I know: Opportunity: - A) The shoulder of the instrument arm stopped working at Sol 654 (November 25, 2005). The Joint-1 azimuth motor stalled because of increased electrical resistance (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_m...ulder_troubles). As I know opportunity does not stow the arm anymore and drives in a "fisherman" position over the martian surface. - Also Opportunity had problems with the heater. Opportunity happens to have a heater stuck in the "on" position that draws additional power. (see http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/mission/status_op...tyAll_2007.html, Sol 1316)- - C) One wheel cannot be steered anymore, and is locked in a specific position. But the navigators have learned, to drive with this issue. - D) Also, Opportunity drives backwards since many year , because there always had been elevated currents in one of the wheels. - E) The MiniTES does not work since the sandstorm 2007. - F) The Mössbauer instrument does not work anymore, but I think there is no exact time stamp since it stopped working, it was just a permanent degregation (as expected) - G) The amnesia events since one year (Wikipedia EN: Early September 2014) -------------------- Need more input ...
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