Getting Unstuck in West Valley Options

[djellison]

This will probably be the second time that Spirit has more power than the day she landed.Time to reopen the Gusev Crater Observatory and burn the midnight Whrs

[ElkGroveDan]

With that much power it's time to spin the wheels so fast that the soil heats up and the grains melt and fuse. Then we let it cool down and drive out over the now solid surface.

[ustrax]

Paulo, I hope you do find him, I can only imagine what a thrill it would be for him!

That shouldn't be hard, Julian's dad works for NASA...it must be something in the genes...

[climber]

But Squyres has said that the timing of at least one cleaning event suggested something more localized, like a dust devil.

I'm surprised Doug didn't make any comments on this
Even the boss is trying to drive you mad
PS: for newcomers it'll be a too loooong story to explain...

[nprev]

Time to reopen the Gusev Crater Observatory and burn the midnight Whrs

Great idea, as long as we're sitting here! A couple of evening Phobos/Deimos transit movies would certainly be interesting.

[CosmicRocker]

It was interesting to listen to SS in the recently posted NPR Science Friday interview. Along with all of you, I have been looking at the white material being churned up by some of Spirit's wheels, and wondering what it might be. There have been a few comments here referring to the white material as silica, but I couldn't find any references to support that conclusion.

As I recall, Spirit drove up and down Silica Valley, churning up a lot of white stuff, but not getting significantly bogged down. Long ago, she was almost stuck at or near Tyrone, where the white material was identified as ferric sulfate. There was another bright bog after leaving WH3, in the attempts to climb onto Home Plate or leave that area. I don't know if that bright material was identified.

In the SF interview, Steve indicated that this most recent bright stuff is ferric sulfate.

[Beauford]

In the SF interview, Steve indicated that this most recent bright stuff is ferric sulfate.

Ferric sulfate can be quite hygroscopic. ...any waters of hydration on this stuff?

[ElkGroveDan]

I don't know how long the exposures can be, but going back to my teen years one of my favorite observing pastimes was taking long star trails to look for satellites slashing across the image. This was long before the Internet and easily available tracking data so I was left to wonder what it was that tumbled past creating dotted or dashed lines on my negatives. The processed photos were always great conversation starters In Mars' sky we know that there are several long lost orbiters. It would be a great challenge to attempt to rediscover one of them.

[Old Coder]

Long time reader but first question. Is it possible that the back wheels on Spirit can turn forward while the front wheels are turning backward? This could use Spirit as its own resistive force rather than the dirt. If this is possible then would that action possibly raise the center of Spirit some small distance?

[fredk]

There are several juicy tidbits in the latest Spirit update:

A small (4-degree) backward wheel motion test was sequenced on Sol 1913 (May 21, 2009). The wheel and motor performed satisfactorily. A second, larger test (16 degrees) was performed on Sol 1916 (May 24, 2009), and again, the wheel performed satisfactorily, showing no signs of a jam in the backward direction.

Pending the recertification of the IDD, a MI mosaic of Spirit's underbelly is planned for this coming weekend to assess the rover's embedded condition.

But the best bit is we get to find out how much more than 800 Whrs we're at now:

As of Sol 1919 (May 27, 2009), solar array energy production was 843 watt-hours,... with atmospheric opacity (tau) around 0.606. The dust factor increased to 0.774

843!

[Deimos]

I don't know how long the exposures can be, but going back to my teen years one of my favorite observing pastimes was taking long star trails to look for satellites slashing across the image. This was long before the Internet and easily available tracking data so I was left to wonder what it was that tumbled past creating dotted or dashed lines on my negatives. The processed photos were always great conversation starters In Mars' sky we know that there are several long lost orbiters. It would be a great challenge to attempt to rediscover one of them.

See http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_...projects_2.html. One of the cool things for people who are familiar with star trail images on Earth is simply that they are different. The south circumpolar trails are different; Polaris has significant trailing. Even Orion is subtly "wrong". I need to get back to the data and make nice versions of more of the data ...

Exposures can be up to about 5 and a half minutes. We didn't always use the maximum due to the density of cosmic rays in long exposures. But we have taken many star trail images as part of meteor and spacecraft searches. We briefly thought a long streak seen early was VO2--it was in a position somewhat consistent with the VO2 final orbit. After a detailed look at the orbit dynamics, we found that (a) it could not be verified as VO2 and ( a search guided by what we knew vs. didn't know would have a vanishingly small chance of catching one of the orbiters. And that was before considering they would be invisible except during "flare" type events, which we could not predict. Sadly, a test with ODY under the best viewing conditions we could manage proved the difficulty to our satisfaction.

[fredk]

Along with all of you, I have been looking at the white material being churned up by some of Spirit's wheels, and wondering what it might be.

I don't remember other white stuff we've dug up having such a granular appearance as the latest dig. Have a look at this pancam view, eg:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...DOP2283L7M1.JPG

[HughFromAlice]

843!

I would never have believed that Spirit would have approached anything even slightly near the 800 mark again! Just shows how wrong you can be! Gives us interesting information about the properties of that ubiquitous Martian dust.

[CosmicRocker]

Yep...She's all powered up, but with no place to go. I hate that.

I don't remember other white stuff we've dug up having such a granular appearance as the latest dig.

That's a good observation, fredk. As far as I know, we haven't seen that before. The granular bright stuff is different from that which we have seen at other sites. However, many of the recent images display abundant, powdery soil, as well.

I'm a bit frightened by this recent trap. Thank goodness this rover is being commanded by such an amazing team. They'll find the way out, if there is one.

[Tesheiner]

Pending the recertification of the IDD, a MI mosaic of Spirit's underbelly is planned for this coming weekend to assess the rover's embedded condition.

That's tomorrowsol.

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