Getting Unstuck in West Valley Options

[MerAB]

Here a panorama from Spirit on Sol 1913:

[Ant103]

Sol 1913 panorama, with a DD toward the plains of Gusev.

[Beauford]

EDIT: For what the 'real' ISIL will use for its soil testing...I'd say that they have that well in-hand and will come up with a perfect match based on the data they get from the Rover's IDD analysis. The nice thing about my flour-cinnamon version is that I can make a cake afterwards to celebrate the fact that Spirit has become 'unstuck'.
[/quote]


Two words seem relevant here: silica gel.

[Fran Ontanaya]

It seems that Spirit has caught a DD in stereo:

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/na...DPP1840L0M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/na...DPP1840R0M1.JPG

[SpaceListener]

I am putting a copy picture and draw with a yellow line to circle the suspected pond of basalt-silica surface. I selected the draw yellow line because the altered surface basalt-silica is inside of a small pond where the water chemical reaction might have happened. I might be wrong!

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[briv1016]

New update:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/sta...ll.html#sol1907

716 watt-hours!!!

[alan]

The missing images from sol 1888 have finally been downloaded

[tanjent]

As I look at these pictures, I really have to give credit to the mission planners who obviously were afraid to come this route. To my eye it looks completely innocuous. If we had seen terrain like this up on Husband Hill I wouldn't have given it a second thought. And yet, obviously, the team spent a couple of months trying to go around HP the other way. When Opportunity gets into difficulty it is always while traversing obvious sand traps, but here the "cinnamon" layer looks quite safe. The presence of the slippery flour/silica material underneath must really test a rover driver's intuition.

With the passage of enough time I hope the newly-disrupted material around the wheels will consolidate itself and allow just enough traction to push away from the high-center spot. It seems impossible to high-center the vehicle by more than a hair's breadth because as soon as effective traction is lost it becomes difficult to make the situation worse as well as better. Given enough time the wind may come to our rescue once again as stray sand grains consolidate around the wheels - I just wish I knew whether it would take a few weeks or a few million years.

[SFJCody]

Looks like Richard Hendricks's driving at night idea is the kind of thing the MER team are considering (according to the recent npr podcast). I missed his post when skimming through the thread on wednesday which is why I posted the same idea on a previous page.

[Ant103]

My version of Sol 1888 color pan.

[fredk]

It seems that Spirit has caught a DD in stereo:

Yeah. Quite a nice sight.

[HughFromAlice]

credit to the mission planners who obviously were afraid to come this route. To my eye it looks completely innocuous.

My thoughts entirely! I've looked and relooked at the photos of where Spirit is bogged quite a few times and - to me - it looks essentially no different from the harder ground around it. It's nobody's fault Spirit got bogged.

[Burmese]

With Spirit snuggled down so close to the ground right now and with the web so close to the soil(or possibly touching), and power rising, is there any concern that Spirits' thermal danger thresholds might get reached sooner than under normal circumstances? (thinks back to the laptop he once burned up by leaving it on the carpet).

[alan]

The left middle wheel moves

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...DPP2146R2M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...DQP2146R2M1.JPG

[nprev]

Sharp-eyed observation, Alan!

I wonder if this was one of those wheel motor current tests; looks like it rotated just a couple of degrees at most.