Stroupe's Slide Options

[djellison]

An ammount or lack of information doesn't make a rovers survival any less or more likely. Sorry - I don't see what you're getting at. We all know it's going to be a risky winter, we've all been told it's going to be a risky winter. We've never have much power information, so it's not like a dearth of it is particularly possible anyway.

Doug

[fredk]

They've been behind in the Spirit updates for some time now, but have started updating them. They are regularly giving power levels in the updates. The latest (to sol 1449) says they're "holding steady in the range of 260 watt-hours". We've had this sort of backlog before, and I think we can expect it to get cleared eventually.

[stevesliva]

I thought that they were waiting to increase the tilt to max until the sun was low enough in the sky to justify it, not waiting for power levels to drop.

Ahh yes, as the update says:

The winter Sun continues to dip lower in the sky. As of sol 1450 (Jan. 31, 2008), the noontime Sun was 64.6 degrees above the northern horizon, indicating that the optimal northern tilt of the rover deck would be 25.4 degrees from vertical (90 - 64.6 = 25.4). Spirit's current northward tilt is 22 degrees, relatively close to optimal. By mid-February, the optimal tilt will increase to about 28 degrees, the maximum Spirit is anticipated to be able to achieve. That's about the time when rover drivers plan to have the rover complete one more short drive to get into position for the winter.

[Zeke4ther]

According to the latest update Spirit may achieve a tilt of 30 degrees. Impressive and a little precarious
I wonder how much slippage they have been experiencing.

[BrianL]

I wonder how much slippage Spirit will experience when she tries to climb back up. Well, no point in worrying about that now. Fortunately, we'll have the trek to Ithaca to keep us distracted for the next few months.

Brian

[centsworth_II]

Spirit could just climb down and take an easy route up.

[PaulM]

Spirit could just climb down and take an easy route up.

I had always assumed that Spirit had now finished investigating Home Plate and that when Winter was over it will drive down slope and then around the base of Home Plate on its way to Goddard. One hope that I have is that Spirit will land at the bottom of the slope with a bump and that this will shake great clogs of dust off Spirits solar panels.

I was interested to read in a recent comment by Steve Squyres that he expected Spirit to find some more silica deposits. I guess that Spirit will make a lot of discoveries in the 400m long trench that it will dig as it drives to Goddard.

[fredk]

They've definitely seriously considered the West Valley to the west of HP as a route south next spring - recall all the imaging they did of it on the way here. But it's really just a question of drivability. They wouldn't want to follow West Valley if there was risk of getting bogged down there Tartarus-style, so they may prefer instead to follow the easily-drivable top of HP to its south end. I think it's unlikely they'd make it back up the 30 degree slope to HP here, but recall that they did drive up onto HP just around the corner to the east on sol 1306, with broken wheel, so that may be an option.

I was interested to read in a recent comment by Steve Squyres that he expected Spirit to find some more silica deposits.

Do you have a link to where he wrote this?

[centsworth_II]

I had always assumed that Spirit... will drive down slope and
then around the base of Home Plate on its way to Goddard.

The shortest route to Goddard is across Home Plate.

[ToSeek]

The shortest route to Goddard is across Home Plate.

Yes, but it would have to climb back onto Home Plate to do that - not sure that's feasible from the current location. (I was at a talk by one of the rover drivers last weekend, who was all for trying to climb back up to see what happened, but he said the scientists were dead set against it.)

[PaulM]

Do you have a link to where he wrote this?

The link is:

http://www.planetary.org/news/2008/0131_Ma...ate_Spirit.html

What Steve Squyres said was:

"Once springtime comes, we want to send Spirit off in search of new evidence of hydrothermal activity at Gusev," Squyres said. "I want to find more silica. The thing that's going to tell us the silica story is not the silica itself, but where it occurs and what it occurs in conjunction with. We have found a lot of places with silica and they're all different from one another. I'm sure there are more. But we've got to get Spirit through this winter and it's going to be a tough, tough winter," he acknowledged.

[centsworth_II]

(I was at a talk by one of the rover drivers last weekend, who was all for trying to
climb back up to see what happened, but he said the scientists were dead set against it.)

I'm sure that Spirit's present location -- picked to give the greatest tilt to the north --
is the worst spot to try and climb up onto Home plate. I'm also sure that there
are better spots to climb up near by.

[ToSeek]

I'm sure that Spirit's present location -- picked to give the greatest tilt to the north --
is the worst spot to try and climb up onto Home plate. I'm also sure that there
are better spots to climb up near by.

The rover driver wasn't expecting to succeed, but from an engineering perspective he was thinking it would be worth the try.

[jvandriel]

Here is the Panoramic View taken on Sol 1470 with

the L0 Navcam.

jvandriel

[jvandriel]

and a mosaic of the solar deck taken on Sol 1473

with the Mi cam.

jvandriel