Wheel Trouble, ...down to 5 good wheels? |
Wheel Trouble, ...down to 5 good wheels? |
Mar 14 2006, 12:29 AM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 90 Joined: 13-January 05 Member No.: 143 |
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I just heard that there is a serious problem with Spirit's right front drive actuator after yestersol's drive. (This is the actuator that had high currents in the past and led to the backward-driving strategy.) It will take awhile to evaluate the situation, but early speculation is grim.
In a worst-case scenario, they can still drag the bum wheel along, but don't expect another summit view. Best-case scenario would be a rock or debris jammed in the wheel. This is a heads-up, sorry I can't really give more info at this time. I still thought you all would like to know. |
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Mar 15 2006, 06:48 PM
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14434 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
I gave a talk to some 16-18 y.o. school students today - and I always finish my talks with the most recent image I can get before the talk starts...so today I finished talking about Spirit thus...
"To bring it bang up to date, this image was taken yesterday morning, and shows the front right wheel - the same one that was a temporary problem 600 sols ago, essentially stuck. A major stall of the motor suggest that something might be broken for good inside the mechanics of the wheel - so I'm sad to say that I leave Spirit with the news that yes, one of its wheels might be about to fall off" For a bunch of typical teenagers, they got most of the space related gags, went oOoo at the right anaglyphs, wow at the right pictures - and indeed laughed at the idea of a dodgy wheel falling off. For the Brits ammoungst you, there's a joke about finding a Mars rover up on bricks with 6 missing wheels somewhere in there, with the mission engineers saying something like "I KNEW we shouldnt have had that engineering consultant from Liverpool in to do the job" Doug |
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