Dust Storm- Opportunity EOM, the end of the beginning of a new era in robotic spaceflight |
Dust Storm- Opportunity EOM, the end of the beginning of a new era in robotic spaceflight |
Jun 5 2018, 03:05 PM
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#1
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14432 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
Expect a quiet few sols - http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~lemmon/mars-tau-b.html
SOL TAU 5097 0.65 5098 0.64 5099 0.67 5100 0.64 5101 0.60 5102 0.60 5103 0.61 5104 1.55 5105 **** 5106 2.12 |
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Jul 26 2018, 08:25 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 206 Joined: 15-August 07 From: Shrewsbury, Shropshire Member No.: 3233 |
When spirit failed to restart when the spring came I was convinced by the official explanation that the electronics had been damaged by low temperatures. However it was also possible that spirit did not restart correctly because of an error in the software or hardware designed to carry out this recovery. I realize that insight has different hardware but I wonder if there has been a full end to end test of recovery from a flat battery and no sunlight using the insight reference hardware. The insight radio science experiment simply requires radio communications over more than two years to be successful. I wonder if insight would recover correctly in a similar scenario to that currently being endured by opportunity?
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Jul 27 2018, 12:34 AM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2517 Joined: 13-September 05 Member No.: 497 |
I wonder if insight would recover correctly in a similar scenario to that currently being endured by opportunity? No idea. Probably Giang Q. Lam, Scott Billets, Timothy Norick, and Richard Warwick. "Solar Array Design For The Mars InSight Lander Mission", 14th International Energy Conversion Engineering Conference, AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum, (AIAA 2016-4520), https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2016-4520 has some information, but it's behind a paywall. I'm not sure if a worst-case global dust storm was a credible contingency for InSight planning; I suspect not. -------------------- Disclaimer: This post is based on public information only. Any opinions are my own.
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Jul 29 2018, 10:47 PM
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#4
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
Insight will land on November 26, 2018. That is virtually simultaneous with the next southern summer solstice – November 28.
A previous monster dust storm, in 1971, began about three weeks before that southern summer solstice. This one began about six months before southern summer solstice. So one thing we can hope for, at minimum, is that Insight will get through nearly an entire martian year before the next dust storm would likely begin. Is the radio science experiment seriously compromised if it completes a bit less than one martian year? It seems like the baseline failure rate of missions to the surface of Mars is much higher than the risk Insight faces due to a dust storm, but it's a good issue to bring up. Unlike purely engineering-based risks, this one (given solar panels for power) is beyond our control. It seems like landing right at southern summer solstice is a fortuitous design (or chance circumstance), though. Note: If Insight had launched at its originally planned date of March 2016, it would have landed in September 2016 and had approximately 18 months of operations before this dust storm. The 2018 launch date reduced the risk. (Which, in hindsight, is more than risk for the voided 2016 dates.) |
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