The Planetary Society Rover Updates Options

[Guest_Bobby_*]

http://www.planetary.org/news/2007/0531_Ma...ate_Spirit.html

[Guest_Bobby_*]

http://www.planetary.org/news/2007/0630_Ma...ate_Spirit.html

[fredk]

Interesting description of this odd hazcam frame.

"We were doing just a standard IDD unstow and it stopped part way through the unstow process. It scared the living daylights out of us, because this IDD is the one with the problem with the shoulder," recalled Squyres. "We thought something terrible might have happened."

It turned out to be an obscure "angle 360 wrapping" bug.

[mhoward]

It turned out to be an obscure "angle 360 wrapping" bug.

The detailed description of the bug is actually a bit funny, but probably only to an engineer.

[Guest_Bobby_*]

http://www.planetary.org/news/2007/0731_Ma...ers_Update.html

[fredk]

Lot's of info in this one.

The only way to get rid of the dust is to let it slowly settle out. A typical rate, Lemmon said, is something like one percent a day. "So even if all the storms on Mars shut down today, you're talking about two or three months before you're back to normal levels."

And what the heck is going on here:

If Mars wasn't enough of a challenge, the rovers are now facing a death threat down here on Earth, as a bill wending its way through the Senate threatens to shut down the rovers and pull the funding plug. It's part of the continued budget cuts from the science programs at NASA to fund the return to the Moon announced by Pres. Bush in January 2004 as part of his new Vision for Space Exploration.

[helvick]

Minor conversion error in there:

"It's cooler by 10 to 20 degrees Celsius [50 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit]

Well no, that would be 18 to 36 degrees Fahrenheit since this is a delta not an absolute temperature.

[Juramike]

A little off topic here, but I saw this on the UMSF login screen:



It looks like the The Planetary Society is thinking waaaay beyond the Solar Sail.

You go!

[Eluchil]

An excellent update as usual. The comments on the low power fault protection mode seemed a bit odd to me though. Didn't Spirit enter it when it experienced the early continuous reset anomaly?

[djellison]

Yes it did, but because of the reset issue, it couldn't really follow it through with normal low power fault ops.

Doug

[CosmicRocker]

Wow! I'm not even going to attempt to elaborate beyond that update. Salley, if you are reading this, that was one of your best ever updates. I feel updated on several levels.

As I read through it I was collecting quotes to comment on, but I loved the one you ended with...

In reflecting on the last several weeks, Squyres typically put things in perspective. "No one's ever known what it's like to be in one of these storms," he said. "We're lucky we've lasted long enough to experience this. We may come out the other side and we may not. If we do come through the other side -- okay, it's going to be one more phenomenal accomplishment for the mission. If we don't, well, this is one of the two acceptable ways for the rovers to go."

[Del Palmer]

http://www.planetary.org/news/2007/0831_Ma...ate_Spirit.html

Looks like Steve Squyres was busy with other rovers (and polar bears) this month:

Squyres was leading a team to test out past and present life-seeking instruments for future Mars rovers on NASA's Arctic Mars Analog Svalbard Expedition and facing "some very challenging conditions," as he put it. "In 10 years of doing rover field tests, it turned out to be the first time I've had a command approval meeting interrupted by a polar bear," he elaborated. The humans stood down, the bear was diverted from the test rovers, and Squyres returned to his Cornell University MER base in one piece earlier this week.

[Del Palmer]

More from NASA's Arctic Mars Analog Svalbard Expedition:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/news/amase/index.html

Steve's journal entry:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/new...e07_entry5.html

[tty]

I wonder why they chose Svalbard? Admittedly it is the part of the Arctic that it is simplest and cheapest to get to (but definitely not the safest part since it has a very high density of polar bears). However it has a very maritime arctic climate. I would have thought that a dry arctic environment (e. g. northeastern Greenland, Wrangel's land or the Parry archipelago) would be much more relevant for Martian research.

[CosmicRocker]

Hehe...I guess it is good to hear that Steve managed to avoid being eaten by a bear. There is a high probability he will survive the rovers, too.

It might be interesting to hear more about why this location was chosen for the tests. But after reading the descriptions of the experiments that were performed, they seemed more aimed at simulating communications between a rover's instruments and its controllers on Earth. If that is the case, the local climatic conditions might be of secondary importance.