Extricating Spirit, Digging out from Troy Options

[NW71]

WHOA!

I left for work at lunchtime thrilled about Spirit's progress and now come back to find the forum in fairly pessimistic mode.

I can understand that the power situation makes tilt a prime decision factor now as opposed to extrication. I am a little unclear though on why (given that we are making what appears to be significant movement) that spirit may have to be written off as a rover. Assuming the rover maintains the power levels to survive the winter is there any reason further extrication attempts cannot be made in the next Martian summer? Or have I been overly excited by the recent 4cm and 7cm movements?

Neil

[JayB]

just to add some optimism back in

from twitter 6 hours ago

@marssciencegrad Spirit's new drive-diagnostics-drive strategy worked *fantastically* over the weekend. Wohoo!

[briv1016]

Thinking of this problem from the other direction, how much power can we reasonably expect to gain by intentionally burying the front wheels? With the power levels where they are it seems a matter of when, not if, Spirit is going to go into low power fault this winter. Is it worth all hope of extraction come spring? (Assuming she survives a short hibernation.)

[Hungry4info]

Sand contamination has been proposed (here at least) of contributing to wheel stalls and failures. If this is the case, I'm unsure re-burying the front wheels is a good idea, as opposed to get free and run for the nearest (maybe 2nd nearest) slope. But then again, I don't know just how dire the power situation is. How are we going to get the RF wheel buried anyway? We can only bury in the left side, tilting us westward.

I know for one thing, I won't do too much speculation until after the press conference.

[Steve Holtam]

I think the Spaceflightnow story is just bad timing and should not sour our moods at this point. Spirit is thrashing along well.

From @marsroverdriver "Friday's autonomous diagnostic+continue commands worked perfectly & roughly doubled progress, as hoped. Same again today!"

Keep those fingers crossed and have faith in the drivers, JPL, and Spirit!

[vjkane]

Driving in the current direction, how far does Spirit have to go to get out?

[marsophile]

How are we going to get the RF wheel buried anyway? We can only bury in the left side, tilting us westward.

The SpaceFlightNow article said by steering the RF wheel to the left and right repeatedly, the rover could create a depression for itself to sink the wheel. (Apparently the RF steering motor still works reliably.)

I wonder if straightening out the rover's leftward tilt might actually improve traction, even if it means sinking the wheel?

[Vultur]

Thinking of this problem from the other direction, how much power can we reasonably expect to gain by intentionally burying the front wheels? With the power levels where they are it seems a matter of when, not if, Spirit is going to go into low power fault this winter. Is it worth all hope of extraction come spring? (Assuming she survives a short hibernation.)

I suppose one could ask, what % of the science return of Spirit-as-a-rover could we get from Spirit-as-a-lander? If it's, say, 5%, then presumably any odds better than a 95% chance of total loss makes it the winning bet to go extraction-till-the-end. If it's, say, 50% that changes things a lot...

[Steve Holtam]

Take what you want from this -
RT @marsroverdriver "If you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen." -- Conan O'Brien

Looking towards the press event tomorrow.

[brellis]

Vultur, the science returns from Spirit as a stationary object can tell us a great deal about seismic activity, weather patterns, all kinds of good things. Much more than 5% of a mobile rover, and some things we couldn't get from our rovers as they move.

[Guest_Bobby_*]

Nasa will have a live audio streaming update at 1 PM EST January 26 regarding The Spirit Rover.

Here is the link I found at Nasa's web site:

http://www.nasa.gov/news/media/newsaudio/index.html

The People participating in this event are

- Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program, NASA Headquarters in Washington
- John Callas, project manager, Mars Exploration Rovers, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
- Ashley Stroupe, rover driver, Mars Exploration Rovers, JPL
- Steve Squyres, rovers principle investigator, Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

I plan on listening to it tomorrow morning to see what the latest is.
I hope it's good news.

Go Spirit

[Astro0]

RHaz for Sol2154 (Sunday) shows Spirit pushing a rock along - bottom centre-left.
Hopefully it will just bury itself similar to 'Pointy Rock' and not act as a wedge.
If they drove again on 2156 and they still made progress then it's probably not an issue.
However it does show how close the WEB is to the ground.

[climber]

The People participating in this event are
- Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program, NASA Headquarters in Washington
- John Callas, project manager, Mars Exploration Rovers, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
- Ashley Stroupe, rover driver, Mars Exploration Rovers, JPL
- Steve Squyres, rovers principle investigator, Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

I can only think, with such a pannel, of a big announcement.

[vikingmars]

I can only think, with such a pannel, of a big announcement.

Agree : I think they will announce a choice between 3 possibilities :
1. a few more moves to position to make her face north and then keep her as a stationary rover -forever (VL1 was a great mission as stationary lander...) ;
2. they were encouraging moves to extricate her, BUT winter comes in : more extricating tries to come BUT after winter (i.e. spending winter here and move after) ;
3. really encouraging moves to extricate her : extrication to occur just on time before winter, BUT then no more moves and spending winter on "dry" ground a few meters away from current position... and then more moves after winter

[Stu]

Interesting NYT article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/science/...tml?ref=science

And excellent rover article here: http://www.airspacemag.com/space-explorati...e-Martians.html