Spirit - 2010 Winter@Troy, The first stationary science campaign Options

[Astro0]

Well, with perhaps a few more weeks of tilt-enhancing drives to go and then settling in for the winter, I thought it might be a good time to have a thread dedicated to ideas and observations that will come. It's likely that we won't hear much from Spirit during the coldest part of winter (April-June) possibly longer. There'll hopefully be beeps to tell us that she's still alive.

Already there are plans for radio science and determining the fluidity or otherwise of the Martian core, plus weather observations, surface changes etc.
What else could you think of that Spirit could do? Remember that she's not going anywhere (vonBraun is out)

In the meantime, have you sent your postcard to Spirit yet?! It's a great idea from the Mars outreach team.
http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/spiritpostcards
What would you say to Spirit?

[vikingmars]

Now, let's derive some experience from the mission of Viking Lander 1, an active static lander for 6.5 years...

We did :
1. digging trenches (soil analysis AND soil mechanics) ;
2. long-term surface change surveys ;
3. monitoring dust storms (at that time we were not aware of dust devils) ;
4. "Marsquakes" surveys ;
5. sky dynamics surveys (i.e. for opacity and search for clouds) ;
6. Phobos & Deïmos imaging (i.e. also for dust opacity) ;
7. full 360° hi-res panoramic pics taken : early morning (7:30 am), at noon, early afternoon (15:00 pm) and some sections at sunset (i.e. 17:00 pm) ;
8. meteorology (temperature + pressure + wind direction).

I think nearly all the same goals can be met with Spirit as a stationary lander, with :
- wheels and/or the IDD for (1) ;
- the cameras for (2), (3), (5), (6) and (7) ;
- the inertial measurement unit (which provides 3-axis information on position) for (4) if sensitive enough ;
- some heaters consumptions from which an outside temp can be derived for (8) and dust movements on the solar panels for long-term wind directions for (8) also...

Well... still a lot of GOOD SCIENCE to expect from Spirit !

AND.. let's imagine Spirit sending back to Earth spectacular images such as romantic full hi-res 360° sunrise or sunset panoramas with rocks casting long shadows...

Now, let's have a "positive Spirit" !

[Ant103]

So, I think there is something cool to do about full 360° pan. This is to do a super-res 360° pan, in B&W taken with the L1/R1 filters (so blank) for the super-res and in the same with the full set of filter, and compose a super-res color pan. This will lead to have the biggest pan we ever had of Mars. This will be a pretty hard imagery mission but this is my "little dream" .

[Tesheiner]

I would love to see such a "beast" panorama but I don't see it happening.
The reason would be the lack of power / memory space / bandwidth to manage it in a reasonable timeframe.

PS: I suppose you mean L7/R1 filters.

[elakdawalla]

Maybe they can finally do that rover MI self-portrait though! Though I don't expect she'll have power to before winter sets in. First job is winter survival, then we can have all this stationary science.

[cbcnasa]

As a permanent station the ability to go back to a specific location over time might be an idea for study to visit several times for more specific study of data found. Is there any time line set up now?

[Astro0]

I know that they plan to look at microchanges in soil particle movement over time using the MI.
It'd be interesting if they could brush clean a conveniently located flat rock surface and then watch the dust deposition that occurs and particle movement over time.

[NW71]

I don't want to worry anyone but according to the latest report on the official site Spirit is down to 182W!

[Mixer]

I don't want to worry anyone but according to the latest report on the official site Spirit is down to 182W!

Got a link?

[alan]

I guess that explains the absence of new images downloaded from the last few sols.

[Tesheiner]

Tasks were sequenced to be executed from 2162 up to 2165, including a drive on that latest sol which should be today, but no data has been downlinked since after sol 2161. My interpretation is that they are not making everyday UHF downlink sessions in order to store energy for this latest drive attempt.

RE the report, its an "old one" from a week ago. We may have a new one today or tomorrow.

[Mixer]

I don't want to worry anyone but according to the latest report on the official site Spirit is down to 182W!

@Spirit followers.

May I please beg your humble forgiveness from my previous post, I wasn't trying to be agro NW71 I just picked a crappy emoticon to show my concern for our little buddy.

Hope no offense was caused.

[NW71]

Mixer, no offence taken!

To be fair, I should have posted the link, but I'm afraid my technical ability is very poor and thus I was unable to do so (I am working on it).

I think we've all slammed the desk or similar at some point recently following our brave Spirit rover! My dog Ben has never had so many walks!

Neil

[serpens]

I don't want to worry anyone but according to the latest report on the official site Spirit is down to 182W!

Well deliberately manipulating a 10 degree tilt away from the sun will do that.

[djellison]

What gives you the idea that they've been intentionally tilting south? Anything other than a norther tilt is an unfortunate and unintentional side effect of extraction, or hope for improved northerly tilt