Viking sols? |
Viking sols? |
Sep 21 2006, 10:13 PM
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#1
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 94 Joined: 22-March 06 Member No.: 722 |
I was wondering if anyone here knew how many sols Viking 1 and Viking 2 operated on Mars, for comparison purposes. I know the basics (that Viking 2 went out in 1980, and Viking 1 two years later), but the actual numbers of sols would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance! -J.J. -------------------- Mayor: Er, Master Betty, what is the Evil Council's plan?
Master Betty: Nyah. Haha. It is EVIL, it is so EVIL. It is a bad, bad plan, which will hurt many... people... who are good. I think it's great that it's so bad. -Kung Pow: Enter the Fist |
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Sep 21 2006, 11:53 PM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 2262 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Melbourne - Oz Member No.: 16 |
Wow, how many times has this question been asked here now?
Viking 1 - 2245 sols Viking 2 - 1281 sols cf. Design liftime 120 sols James -------------------- |
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Sep 21 2006, 11:54 PM
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#3
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Interplanetary Dumpster Diver Group: Admin Posts: 4404 Joined: 17-February 04 From: Powell, TN Member No.: 33 |
Viking 2 - 1281 Sols, after which its batteries failed.
Viking 1 - 2,245 Sols, when it was turned off by a bad command. -------------------- |
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Sep 22 2006, 02:27 AM
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#4
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2173 Joined: 28-December 04 From: Florida, USA Member No.: 132 |
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Sep 22 2006, 07:00 AM
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#5
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14432 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
There's always a way where by you could turn a spacecraft actually off. BUT - it would have to be very very deliberate.
Doug |
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Sep 22 2006, 08:31 AM
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#6
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1870 Joined: 20-February 05 Member No.: 174 |
"Viking 1 - 2,245 Sols, when it was turned off by a bad command."
Viking 1 was in an entirely automated mission with the commanding team pretty much disbanded when it started to show signs of battery failure similar to those that killed (actually disabled) Lander 2 shortly before Lander 2's only link to Earth (via Orbiter 1, both direct-to-Earth-transmitters were dead). A group was assembled to design and uplink a battery conditioning sequence and it was transmitted to the spacecraft, which was never heard from again. They believed that the code inadvertently overwrote the code for calculating the position of the Earth in the sky for automated transmissions in the blind to the ground. They tried to calculate when Earth would be in the line of site of the mis-pointed antenna (apparently it was expected to be doing weird wanderings across the sky) and get new commands uplinked, but nothing they tried resulted in further contact. It's plausible -- even PROBABLE -- that battery failure finally caused the spacecraft to permanently safe-mode in some fashion, but we'll never know until and if the memory and tape recorder on the spacecraft are directly examined. |
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Sep 22 2006, 09:24 AM
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#7
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 15 Joined: 15-April 05 Member No.: 234 |
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Sep 22 2006, 02:25 PM
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#8
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 94 Joined: 22-March 06 Member No.: 722 |
Thanks much, all.
-------------------- Mayor: Er, Master Betty, what is the Evil Council's plan?
Master Betty: Nyah. Haha. It is EVIL, it is so EVIL. It is a bad, bad plan, which will hurt many... people... who are good. I think it's great that it's so bad. -Kung Pow: Enter the Fist |
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Sep 22 2006, 02:28 PM
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#9
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Dublin Correspondent Group: Admin Posts: 1799 Joined: 28-March 05 From: Celbridge, Ireland Member No.: 220 |
Sad and all as that code might be at least it would be better than some dodgy autonomous navigation code that caused Oppy to continue to driver over a cliff rather than stopping. Here's looking forward to plenty of sanity checking tests over the next few days. I'm in absolutely no hurry to see more pictures.
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Sep 22 2006, 02:44 PM
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#10
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Member Group: Members Posts: 212 Joined: 19-July 05 Member No.: 442 |
They tried to calculate when Earth would be in the line of site of the mis-pointed antenna (apparently it was expected to be doing weird wanderings across the sky) and get new commands uplinked, but nothing they tried resulted in further contact. It's plausible -- even PROBABLE -- that battery failure finally caused the spacecraft to permanently safe-mode in some fashion, but we'll never know until and if the memory and tape recorder on the spacecraft are directly examined. Do you know if anyone at NASA has tried to use any of their currently orbiting satellites (MGS/Mars:Odyssey) to listen for, or to beam signals to Viking One just in case it is still in a workable condition, however unlikely it may be? |
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Sep 22 2006, 03:21 PM
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#11
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14432 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
I would be utterly amazed if MGS, Odyssey, MRO or MEX could use UHF in a way that would be compatable with the Viking landers.
(update - infact, it's a no. The Viking UHF was around 381Mhz, whereas modern Mars Relay operations are conducted at the 430ish range ) Doug |
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Sep 22 2006, 07:28 PM
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#12
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
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Sep 22 2006, 08:46 PM
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#13
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Interplanetary Dumpster Diver Group: Admin Posts: 4404 Joined: 17-February 04 From: Powell, TN Member No.: 33 |
Do you know if anyone at NASA has tried to use any of their currently orbiting satellites (MGS/Mars:Odyssey) to listen for, or to beam signals to Viking One just in case it is still in a workable condition, however unlikely it may be? Its RTG would have hit a level in the early 1990s where it wouldn't have had enough power to operate. Had Mars not gone 17 years without an orbiter, excluding the three month Phobos-2 interlude, this might have been possible, but the chance of it now is gone. -------------------- |
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Sep 23 2006, 10:43 AM
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#14
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1870 Joined: 20-February 05 Member No.: 174 |
Viking 2 suffered battery failure shortly before its last links to earth were severed by Orbiter 1 running out of attitude control gas and being shut down.
The vikings had "steady state" power output from the RTG's but could do essentially nothing on RTG power alone. They'd charge up the batteries and then run on the higher current they'd provide while doing something like running the cameras and storing the data to the tape recorder. They found that in battery failure, when VL2 tried to run the tape, it went undervoltage and would safe itself. Same thing would have happened to VL1. It might have been able to call home, but not do any useful science after the batteries failed. |
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Sep 26 2006, 01:34 PM
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#15
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
If the MERs had landed right where the Vikings had - or if the
Vikings had been equipped with wheels instead of landing pads - what interesting sites could they have visited? I am particularly wondering where Viking 2 could have gone that would be of any interest, aside from already being on Mars. -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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