Spirit: End of Mission Options

[briv1016]

New Update:

http://www.planetary.org/news/2011/0430_Ma...ate_Spirit.html

There is only so much that can be done from down here, and the countdown to the end of mission for Spirit has quietly, unofficially begun behind the scenes. Word is that NASA headquarters is preparing to announce that MER will continue as a one-rover mission around the first of June.

Later:

JPL's crew will continue the current recovery operations, which take place several times a day, through May 25th, informed Nelson. Following that, "greatly reduced recovery operations" -- averaging one effort each week -- will continue through the end of the year.

[Stu]

Oh... crap...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_...EMPLATE=DEFAULT

BUT important to wait for official word from the Powers That Be. These things are often the result of games of Chinese Whispers gone crazy.

[fredk]

From the NASA TV schedule:

May 31, Tuesday
2:30 p.m. - NASA Science Briefing: Mars Spirit Rover Celebration: An End to a New Beginning - HQ (Public and Media Channels)

[elakdawalla]

Well spotted, Fred.

And:

[ustrax]

Guys, gather around, the day we expected to happen 90 sols after landing has arrived.
I will never forget Spirit and her journey, our brave gal, I will tell her story for generations to come.
So many years of quest, stories, legends, adventures, mountains, anxiety, utter joy, I am lacking words here.
Love you Spirit, forever. You have a VERY special place in my life. Farewell.
Hug you all UMSFers. And to the team...thank you for the adventure of a lifetime.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_...EMPLATE=DEFAULT

[Stu]

Very sad day, but probably the kindest thing to do. All journeys, all adventures, all dreams must eventually come to an end.

Wouldn't it be just like Spirit, drama queen to the last, to phone home in reply to tomorrow's "last chance" hail?

But... well... a few words, just 'cos I feel moved to.

http://twitpic.com/522gbs

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Spirit's gone for us,, but the weird thing is..in the distant distant future someone could easily get her roving and taking pictures again.

[nprev]

Great poem, Stu. There's nothing more I can add to your beautiful writing...it's just right.

Requiem in pace, brave little friend & pioneer.

[Astro0]

There's an audio discussion on right now about Spirit.
http://www.nasa.gov/news/media/newsaudio/index.html

Callas just said that: 'Last commands will be sent to Spirit (tonight) 0700UTC'.

[bkellysky]

"All journeys, all adventures, all dreams must eventually come to an end."

If I have learned anything from this site and all of you, dreams never have to end.

[djellison]

I've been pondering the words that best describe what's happened.

Spirit is just a robot. A bunch of thinking metal sent from Earth (as Scott would say).

The adventure, the personality, the achievements - they are because of the team of scientists and engineers who designed, built, tested, launch, landed and drove her. She is their avatar.

Every image she ever took. Every cm she ever drove. Every RAT brush, grind, APXS or Mossbauer integration. Every scuff, turn, bump, beep and approach. They were all the result of a carefully crafted set of instructions running on a carefully crafted spacecraft built onthis rock and then sent to that rock.

So yes - our little robot has gone silent. But what made her, the essence of what she is.....is still right here on this rock, driving Opportunity, testing Curiosity, or analyzing spectra from 6 years of Gusev exploration.

She didn't die. She just moved on.

[briv1016]

What happened to the "try to communicate once a week until the end of calendar year" plan?

[djellison]

After review, it was decided that the likelihood of that being successful wasn't sufficiently high to keep asking for time on the assets required.

[brellis]

Rest well, Spirit. One day, we'll come visit you in person!

[Zeke4ther]

Adieu

[Explorer1]

We'll be seeing it again some day, not to worry, but it might be a long wait...

[Pertinax]

... perchance to dream.... Sleep well my sweet Spirit.

My right hand side is with Doug and I salute all those who crafted this fantastic adventure, but with my left I wave a fond farewell to our girl.


-- Pertinax

[lyford]

Thank you to all the wonderful people at JPL who made this mission possible and to all the great folks on this board who walked with Spirit every step of the way.

[eoincampbell]

"We drove ...until the wheels came off "
That's Spirit.
Huge congrats to all the team, what a trip!

[fredk]

The May 31st announcement is now gone from the NASA TV schedule. Maybe they posted that before they indended?

[Guest_Bobby_*]

A Tribute for Spirit from NASA:

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/spirit_mission/

[akuo]

Farewell little robot. You brought anxiety, joy and wonder. But never did we expect to grow this old with you.

[Stardust9906]

Farewell Spirit and thank you.

[Guest_Oersted_*]

http://www.space.com/11773-nasa-mars-rover...ssion-ends.html

It has been one heck of a ride!

[Nomadd22]

Curiosity must be thinking "Great. How am I suppose to follow an act like that?"
Goodbye little brother.

[TheChemist]

I have been absent for so long, mainly due to sparse free time, but I had to come back to say goodbye to my old pal, Spirit.
We had such wonderful time together, climbing hills and observing abysses, I 'll miss you friend.

It may take several hundred years, but I am sure some time a human hand will tap your panels and say thanks from all of us. Farewell.

[kungpostyle]

Rest in Peace old friend.

[tanjent]

Best not ponder the fact that Spirit seemed to be within a week or two of wriggling her way out of that Scamander sandtrap. In the end it was not to be.
The torch is passed; within a year or so we should have some new company for Opportunity out there on that lonely red planet.

[Rxke]

Unlurking to say goodbye...

But... what a ride!

[climber]

Thank you for the ride little old Lady. Among your achievments you helped uniting all of us here at UMSF.

[hendric]

Thank you Steve, for giving us the chance to walk next to Spirit during her journey.

Dammit, now I'm going to be a blubbering fool all morning.

[Tom Gwilym]

Awwwww.......*Sniff*
The day has finally come. I always said I wouldn't consider Spirit dead until Mr. Squyres said she was gone. I guess the time is now.
Good job little friend, you did better than anyone would have thought. 90 days!? HA! That will show them.
Sister Oppy will continue your journey running across he plains of Meridiani! Go Oppy Go!

We'll miss you little Spirit - thank you!

[Hungry4info]

Recent MRO image of Spirit.
http://www.uahirise.org/ESP_021925_1650

It seems the arrays aren't prohibitively dirty.

[punkboi]

Farewell, Spirit.

Today also marks the 3-year anniversary of Phoenix's landing on Mars

[belleraphon1]

SPIRIT... what a trek you gave us, little friend. I remember when they named you. How abt tthe name. How glorous the journey.

You are our avatar. A machine made from love and deep skill. A machine like you is more than the sum of it's parts. A soul is born, a unique soul. From the team. The engineers and scientists and managers that made you a whole.

Some distant future.... perhaps in the later years of my grandsons... humans from Earth will find and finally free you.

Til then, rest well.

Love from yout friend, Craig.

[centsworth_II]

Spirit... made it to the hilltop, and
showed us what was on the other side.

Thanks and congratulations to all the engineers and scientists who put her together and made her run.
Thanks and congratulations to every technician who wrapped a cable or tightened a screw. Just. Right.
They really did hit a home run!


Spirit touches Home. (From Hungry4info's link)

[JayB]

my own meager tribute to my favourite martian using what I think is the best image ever returned from Mars.

http://sometimesacritic.files.wordpress.co...1/05/spirit.jpg

[Tesheiner]

A lot of memories from this journey:

Those "faraway" hills, and then they were growing and growing on the images to finally become ground under the wheels.
Climbing day after day, to one day have an unforgettable 360 degrees view of the far horizon.
The "abyss". It finally was a dune field; but it was a lot of fun imagining caves or sink holes (thanks Ustrax / Rui).
Running to Home Plate. A feature that once was just a name on a picture taken from orbit but afterwards it was not only a place fully studied from left to right / north to south, but also was a place for a remarkable barbecue.

And I will have to repeat again what was already said on most of the posts on this threat, but it is just the truth: thanks for all the people working on the MER mission for this unforgettable experience!

[paxdan]

Spirit is Dead, Long Live Spirit!

[dot.dk]

Thank you Spirit and MER team. It was one hell of a ride

And to refresh that amazing landing those many years ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWk-umZm86U

[MoreInput]

So farewell, Spirit, *sniff*. It was a long interesting and exciting time. Thanks also to the Team for making this mission possible.

Also from me, thank you for the "Spirit" along all these years. I first noticed the MER mission on a television documentation in 2002, thats just about 9 years. and so its part of my life. And it is still a fascinating story with the best things just to come.

And to say it in the words of John Cleese:
"Spirit is no more! She has ceased to be! She's expired and gone to meet her maker! She kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust. Bereft of life she rests in peace. This is an Ex-Rover". Bye, bye...

[Eluchil]

An great NASA video here.

[MERovingian]

Sleep well Spirit, and hold the fort for us! We are coming next!
Our descendants will no doubt dome your whole journey, from your lander to your Home sweet Home plate, turning it into the Spirit-Gusev Museum.
Good night little Martian.

[Astro0]

It is well worth going back and reading through the entire Spirit thread and all the topics and posts.
There are some great memories back there and in hindsight, some interesting comments.

I liked these:
Comment: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...post&p=2106
Topic: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...ost&p=11437

[Mixer]

I can't tell you the chill down my spine I got reading this, I feel like I've lost a friend.

Is it ironic though that I don't really have any feelings for Oppy?

Its like all the hurdles that Spirit had made her all the more valuable.

[Bill Harris]

Spirit: you are born, you live, and you die, but the important thing is what you do inbetween.

--Bill

[SFJCody]

A glorious mission seems to have come to a close. In the annals of unmanned spaceflight the overland multi-year travels of Spirit and her sister, flung across the void to crawl the world next door, are almost without parallel. The numerous trials, tribulations and hard-fought successes of this machine made the urge to anthropomorphize her almost overwhelming, and with that has come a sense of loss at her passing. She may be dead but her scientific and exploratory achievements, which belong to all of those who had a hand in her story, will live on.

[MahFL]

The drive towards the Columbia Hills was one of the most exciting things I have seen, almost each day new details of the hills came into sight.

[vikingmars]

"...the urge to anthropomorphize her almost overwhelming".
"...Spirit: you are born, you live, and you die, but the important thing is what you do inbetween"

Since the end of Viking Lander I which was experienced as a sad event at JPL (we felt like we lost a companion), I decided for myself not to anthropomorphize the landers any more...

I think that the greatest achievements are the ones done by the PEOPLE operating and managing those planetary robots.
Here are the real stories to tell. They are filled up with lots of big deceptions, great achievements, sadnesses, joys, etc, etc...
The "heart" of Spirit lies within the engineers and scientists who devoted (sometimes a big) part of their LIVES to this outstanding mission.

[PDP8E]

One of the great things that came from the Spirit/MER missions, was the unexpected crystallization of this UMSF community from the founding actions of one Doug Ellison. Bravo.

one mission ends - another begins

My thanks go out to all the people at JPL and their partners that pulled this off!

(BTW: I have a feeling that our great grand children will be able to see Spirit at the Smithsonian ...)

[ilbasso]

I think often about how folks at JPL planned their jobs/careers around a 90-day mission for Spirit and Opportunity, only to see the need to shepherd these little wanderers continue for years and years! How many careers changed as a result of the longevity these incredible machines?

[tasp]

How many times did that 90 day warranty reset ?

I wish my wheels did as well. Amazing tribute to the folks who put her together and the ones who operated her with such skill and care.

Maybe Opportunity can trundle around from the other side of the planet and check out what happened?

[kenny]

(BTW: I have a feeling that our great grand children will be able to see Spirit at the Smithsonian ...)

That would be the new branch of the Smithsonian on Mars...

For me, Spirit's highlights were the ever-extending ambitions:

the "long" uphill haul to the lip of Bonneville,
the amazing view of the interior, and crashed heatshield, from the little dunes on the rim,
the seemingly "impossible" trek which it set out on to the Columbia Hills,
the extraordinary realisation that we were actually going to succeed in climbing them, then those unbelievable views fom the summit.

It was unforgettable....thanks, team!

[Stu]

http://www.planetary.org/news/2011/0526_Ma...pdate_NASA.html

Full Update to follow very soon.

[briv1016]

@marsroverdriver

The Nat Geo channel is airing "Death of a Mars Rover" on June 2. Done by Mark Davis, who did previous rover specials and is *awesome*.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/epis...r-6755/Overview

[CosmicRocker]

Thanks for posting that, briv1016. I DVR'd it tonight. I haven't watched it all yet, but it looks like a nice summary of both rover's missions, and includes a lot of fantastic animation modeled by MAAS Digital.

[Astro0]

While Opportunity rolls on and the talk of Spirit turns from sadness to pride, Stu and I wanted to present a perhaps final poster/poem to mark the end of MER2(A)'s amazing journey on Mars.



Full size versions on my blog.

[Stu]

Beautiful design and image, absolutely beautiful, as always. Thanks so much for doing that.

[dilo]

Beautiful indeed! Congrats.

[Norm Hartnett]

@marsroverdriver

The Nat Geo channel is airing "Death of a Mars Rover" on June 2. Done by Mark Davis, who did previous rover specials and is *awesome*.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/epis...r-6755/Overview

Nat Geo is replaying this now (1:00 PM PST June 9th)

[briv1016]

It appears they have [finally] fixed the clock on the MER page and removed the "Sols past "warranty"" line for Spirit.

[Nix]

There was a time when I used to sit down at the computer every single day,
waiting for new images to come down from Spirit and Opportunity.
Like so many others here I stood amazed..
It touched my heart to see the scientists behind the mission fall into tears,
when those first images came down onto that big screen at JPL..
I enjoyed playing around with those images, sharing that joy with a bunch
of people here doing exactly the same.
I enjoyed learning from the mission, learning about cameras, geology,
image processing techniques and so forth...
I enjoyed sharing my enthusiasm with my wife, as she sat in the couch
watching tv on her own.. as I was way to hung up looking at alien desert rocks.

There was a time when I would have said that Spirit is dead.
But Spirit is still there -it's a robot after all.. it's parts will deteriorate in
the Martian winds but it could be preserved as we all know.
We all know to well that what really makes us living organisms; our personality,
and everything what makes us who we are, cannot be preserved. We die.
We leave a lifetime of memories, depending on the duration of our staying
here on Earth...

There was a time when I would have been sad for the so-called death of Spirit,
but I'm more than satisfied. I'm more than gratefull for what really made Spirit
something more than just a robot; the real people behind the commands that she
was given in order to function.. the people who sacrificed a lot of time of their lives
to make Spirit do what she did. The people who decided that this wealth of imagery
and other data should be shared with the average man, the amateur astronomer
and others that gather in places like UMSF founded by Doug.

There was a time that all of the people who's names are on the dvd's carried by
Spirit and Opportunity were alive. Undoubtebly a number of those people have died
since the Mars Exploration Mission carried on their names to Mars.
My wife was one of them.
She left on sol 2269 for Spirit, the same number in days from
Spirit's landing to the last Pancam images, or 2208 sols.
I remember thinking 'you are both dying now...'
In memory I like to think of her now as the ancient Greek did,
wandering the plains of Elysium, a province on Mars and the imaginary place in Greek
mythology where the entrance was gained by a righteous life, the island of the blessed,
those who received immortality.

Spirit is what we call dead, but she is still there, just as anything and everyone that
ever left a memory once upon a time. And to quote Einstein; time is an illusion...

So, thank you Spirit, a big thank you to every soul involved in the mission, and another
big thank you for the dvd on board, for taking us to Mars, for eternity !

[ilbasso]

I'm moved beyond words. Thanks for this.

[MoreInput]

My thoughts are with you, Nix!

[climber]

There's a link: http://www.spaceflightnow.com where "Mission officials and scientists pay tribute to the Spirit rover that explored Mars for six years before succumbing to the harsh Martian winter in 2010". It last 1h14mn50s and it's worth to have a look at. You'll see Steve and much more people talking about Spirit legacy as well as a lot of little stories we all enjoy here.
Since the link point to "home page" of spaceflightnow.com, it'll probably not last long but I didn't find a better one.

[ElkGroveDan]

Here's the direct YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkHyBzOjvjg...player_embedded

[brellis]

Some top scientists and engineers are also able to form a compelling narrative to outline their aspirations and accomplishments. This is a wonderful example! Thanks for sharing.

It's interesting to hear SS speak before Spirit had landed on Mars: Planetary Radio December 2003

SS making sure his team got flu shots: "This isn't a sprint, it's a marathon. It'll last for months!"