Extricating Spirit, Digging out from Troy Options

[nprev]

Stories hitting Google News now; here's the Associated Press release, which usually serves as the root for derivative articles.

[ElkGroveDan]

Spirit landed on Mars with six working wheels but soon lost movement in its right front wheel.

Typical media getting it wrong whenever they can.

[climber]

Nasa comment regarding DM1 picture of today release was not much better (ok, probaly tiping mistakes)
"The red line tracks the 18.8 kilometers (11.7 miles) that NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity traveled from where it landed in January 2004 to its position 2,955 Martian days, or sols, later, on Nov. 4, 2009. The rover landed inside Eagle Crater and spent about half of its first year examining layers inside Victoria Crater before embarking on a long trek to the larger Victoria Crater, which is explored for two years."

[fredk]

Now that we have these great maps of Scamander Crater, I went back and had a look for it in some old anaglyphs posted on this forum. And bingo: there, in Ant's sol 1869 pancam anaglyph mosaic from this post, it is. Here's a crop with Scamander circled in white. Also I've circled in black the "rock garden" where we're currently sitting, with one side hanging over into the crater.

[Keatah]

Why not flap the solar panels and fly away??

[Greg Hullender]

Why not flap the solar panels and fly away??

Feel free. :-)

--Greg

[centsworth_II]

I'm wondering if the dark rectangle indicated by the arrow is the depression in Spirit's underbelly that they are concerned may catch on Belly Rock's tip. The forward drive, toward us as we view this image, is supposed to eliminate this possibility.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news...el20091110.html

[nprev]

Not to be denser than usual, but is anyone else getting terribly confused by the forward/back distinctions when talking about the extraction?

I propose establishing four standard reference terms: "rover-front", "rover-back", "rover-left", and "rover-right". Rover-front is the normal lead end of the vehicle where the IDD is mounted, and rover-back is obvious. Rover-left is the left side of the vehicle as viewed from above referenced to rover-front. Examples of useage: "Today Spirit moved 2m rover-back", "This MI image has rover-front facing the point of view", "Spirit experienced some slight rover-left slippage during today's drive".

Just a proposal, and in all probability there's already a perfectly good reference system that I'm not aware of.

[Astro0]

nprev, I know what you mean, but inevitably someone will abbreviate rover-front to RF and then were confused with wheel references like RF (right front) etc.

Spirit has been mostly driving 'backwards' for the past 3 years, so backwards is rear facing and forwards is front of vehicle (IDD end).

I just love acronyms of course, but I'd be happier if Spirit just G-O (got out!)

[nprev]

Good point, Astro0, and I actually thought about that after posting. How about MER-xxx? Then we'd have MF, MB, ML, & MR.

(Boy; I have no life, do I?)

[centsworth_II]

I like the fact that avoiding confusion forces the use of more descriptive language when describing a rover move.

Consider this a backlash against text message/tweeter speak.

[BrianL]

I'll suggest arm-ward as the rover forward direction. I'll let someone else suggest a description for the other direction.

[centsworth_II]

Armward ho!


This situation does have a "Back to the Future" vibe, or in this case, Forward to the Past.

[climber]

RF has a lot of traction here whatever RF means...

[Stu]

That's a fascinating anaglyph Fred - you can almost convince yourself you can see the crater as a depression, can't you?

I guess it could have been a lot worse; if Spirit had driven further in, and not just sank in on one side, I think the game would already be over.