Spirit - 2010 Winter@Troy, The first stationary science campaign Options

[SFJCody]

Let's not get diSpirited!

[Explorer1]

What matters is the state of the antennas, the rover could be in perfect shape but if something catastrophic happened to them... it's EOM (or is that when both rovers go?).
It will be another generation that finds out what happened in the end, until then it's just another mystery.

And of course MRO will continue to tantalize...

[eoincampbell]

"until."
Ain't over yet!

Like, Spirit had some unfinished business or something...

[brellis]

A cleaning event could come along at any time -- how 'bout really soon?

[djellison]

What matters is the state of the antennas.....

And the state of the battery. And the avionics. And the battery control board. And the clock. And the transmitters. And the solar arrays. And, indeed, many many single-point failure places within the MER design.

Phil - you're right - things are very very grim. But it's still wrong to state, with certainty, that Spirit is dead. Quite simply, we do not know.

[tanjent]

Some people here may have influence over when the funding gets turned off, but most of us might bear in mind that it doesn't really make any difference whether we "give up" on Spirit or not. I admit that my hopes and my expectations now run in two completely different directions, but the eventual outcome will be happily independent of both. Not a very romantic point of view, but those members who adopt it may find that it makes the waiting easier to bear.

[Stu]

Some people here may have influence over when the funding gets turned off, but most of us might bear in mind that it doesn't really make any difference whether we "give up" on Spirit or not.

None of us think we can have any influence at all, and we're not sat inside a stone circle, with joined hands and flowers in our hair, chanting and sending Spirit 'positive energy'. But we do feel it's important to be supportive of the MER team. And personally I just feel better for not washing my hands of her when there's still a chance, even a vanishingly-remote one, that she might yet phone home.

But we'll see. We'll see.

[vikingmars]

...There's no absolute proof that the Viking Landers, Pathfinder, or Sojourner are absolutely, unequivocally dead either

Trust me : unfortunately they are. And there are piles of technical doc at JPL telling you why... As said above, you can pick among many proven failures : batteries, clock, softwares, transmitters.... For VL1 there is even a visual proof that its antenna is stuck and no longer following the Earth in the Martian sky
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...ost&p=97403 (a pixel ovelap pic done with two MRO images).
The shadow seen for its high-gain antenna mast and for its antenna itself is narrow on MRO's images, implying that the disk-shaped antenna is not facing the Sun when the images were taken, meaning that the high-gain antenna is pointing either towards the north or towards the south...
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...ost&p=97418

[Stu]

we're not sat inside a stone circle, with joined hands and flowers in our hair, chanting and sending Spirit 'positive energy'.

...of course, if anyone else here wants to try that...

[centsworth_II]

[hendric]

VikingMars,
Your comment is in line with something I was thinking. For future situations such as these, maybe we could use non-radio methods of determining if the craft is alive. For example, with MRO we could monitor the antennas as you said for VL. My idea was to monitor the shadow of the camera mast, and put into the "wake from deep sleep" code a command to rotate the camera mast, say 45 degrees on each wakeup. Then if she can't communicate back to us, we can at least watch her shadow for changes in the size. That would be a hell of a motivator for trying different communication options.

[vikingmars]

Then if she can't communicate back to us, we can at least watch her shadow for changes in the size. That would be a hell of a motivator for trying different communication options.

Yes ! I agree : it's a good idea Hendric !

[kenny]

Sorry to fire off an unpopular loose cannon, guys.... it certainly showed there is plenty of "spirit" left in the forum, anyway!

[brellis]

Has staff already been reduced on a temporary basis until communications are reestablished? Dang, I really didn't want to ask such a question, but flexible or reduced staff levels could have a bearing on recovering Spirit, both positive and negative.

IIRC, some or many of the MER staff work on both rovers at different times, so if they have the full team right now, Opportunity will be getting lots of attention on the home stretch to Endeavour!

[Guest_Bobby_*]

If The Mer Team does go to a one rover operation. Will they keep one computer on that will alert them if they here a Signal from Spirit??? Just curious is all.