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Getting Unstuck in West Valley |
 Aug 25 2009, 11:54 PM
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#826
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 Member  Group: Members Posts: 237 Joined: 22-December 07 From: Alice Springs, N.T. Australia Member No.: 3989  |
QUOTE (MahFL @ Aug 24 2009, 10:23 PM)  That sunset Yes, I'm still excited by that sunset. And still grateful to Squyres et al. After showing the little movie I did to non-astronomy orientated friends and getting lots of oohs and aahs, I decided to upgrade it a bit (music track - pic of Spirit in the test bed, map of Gusev etc etc) and put it on YouTube. Type in: Sunset August Mars To Peter (Tman) - learning from what you did, I chucked the times in to the YouTube movie for starters. Will probably work on improving the colour, smoothness etc a bit as soon as I have spare time in the coming days and post a version 3. As for 'true' colour - YouTube - flv files etc is a bit different yet again! |
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Aug 26 2009, 02:24 AM
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#827
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 Member Group: Members Posts: 239 Joined: 18-December 07 From: New York Member No.: 3982 |
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Aug 26 2009, 06:57 AM
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#828
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 4280 Joined: 19-April 05 From: .br at .es Member No.: 253 |
Ouch! Fortunate to have had those cleaning events boosting the energy up to 900Wh, otherwise...
From that same status report: "The team is aiming to start sending drive commands to Spirit in September.". |
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Aug 26 2009, 07:12 AM
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#829
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Member Group: Members Posts: 877 Joined: 7-March 05 From: Switzerland Member No.: 186 |
Yikes, that's a lot decrease and abruptly. Well it seems the regional storm getting not worse and abates already. We can hope for... more than ~600 again?
QUOTE I was up for a try on the new
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Aug 26 2009, 01:20 PM
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#830
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 Martian Photographer Group: Members Posts: 353 Joined: 3-March 05 Member No.: 183 |
Optical depth is above 2.5, highest it's been since 1287. The big unknown is whether it comes back down mostly by advection of the storm away from Spirit (reasonably likely) or from falling in place (some will sure, but this isn't nearly as extensive as the sol ~1250 storms). The panels are clean now, but the dust will fall somewhere...
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Aug 26 2009, 07:25 PM
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#831
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 Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2922 Joined: 14-February 06 From: Very close to the Pyrénées Mountains (France) Member No.: 682 |
Emily visited the Rover Test Bed yesterday. Make sure you read her very valuable report here: http://planetary.org/blog/
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Aug 27 2009, 12:11 AM
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#832
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Member Group: Members Posts: 237 Joined: 22-December 07 From: Alice Springs, N.T. Australia Member No.: 3989 |
QUOTE (climber @ Aug 27 2009, 04:55 AM) Emily visited the Rover Test Bed valuable report Yes, v interesting read. I thought this sums it up well..... "......extricating Spirit could not be done with one basic motion as had worked for getting Opportunity out of Purgatory; it's going to be more complicated than that with Spirit. So now they are being very, very methodical, doing every possible test on Earth, before they begin to slowly, methodically, carefully drive the rover on Mars to try to get free of Troy". Patience required. It can be done but very little room for error. IMO the Spirit team will succeed. |
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Aug 27 2009, 01:48 AM
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#833
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 Senior Member Group: Admin Posts: 4763 Joined: 15-March 05 From: Glendale, AZ Member No.: 197 |
Thanks for that report Emily (wiping envious drool off my chin). It's good to hear that they have been proceeding very much as we had expected.
-------------------- If Occam had heard my theory, things would be very different now.
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Aug 27 2009, 01:55 PM
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#834
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Member Group: Members Posts: 470 Joined: 24-March 04 From: Finland Member No.: 63 |
This has probably been explained in this thread already, but I am sort of unclear about it, so please excuse me.
Is it true that they are actually going to push FORWARD towards Von Braun, instead of trying the extraction back towards known territory? Anyway, if the overall plan of the basic direction of extraction is known, this could be added in the extraction FAQ. -------------------- Antti Kuosmanen
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Aug 27 2009, 02:35 PM
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#835
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 Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 4260 Joined: 17-January 05 Member No.: 152 |
I believe that forward extraction plan was mentioned before, but with the new testing they're doing now, I'd think which way they extract will depend on the results of the new tests.
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Aug 27 2009, 10:16 PM
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#836
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Member Group: Members Posts: 530 Joined: 21-March 06 From: Canada Member No.: 721 |
I don't think this has been raised as an issue before, but...
If they continue toward Von Braun, at some point the stuck wheel is likely to end up off the hard surface it currently drags along, and into the churned up soil where the leading wheels have been digging away. Wouldn't this cause it to create even more drag on the rover? |
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Aug 28 2009, 02:36 AM
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#837
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 4260 Joined: 17-January 05 Member No.: 152 |
From the latest Spirit update:
QUOTE As of Sol 2007 (Aug. 25, 2009), Spirit's solar-array energy production was precipitously down to 322 watt-hours, with a large increase in the atmospheric opacity (tau) to 2.61. The dust factor declined to 0.658 Yikes! That 66% dust factor is down from 83% last week! 
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Aug 28 2009, 02:32 PM
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#838
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 4260 Joined: 17-January 05 Member No.: 152 |
You can see the effect of the duststorm with these before-and-during images. First note the shadows in these hazcams:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...E5P1131L0M1.JPG http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...E5P1131L0M1.JPG And compare the horizons in these navcams: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...E5P1561L0M1.JPG http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...E5P1561L0M1.JPG |
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Aug 29 2009, 07:43 AM
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#839
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 Senior Member Group: Admin Posts: 3108 Joined: 21-December 05 From: Canberra, Australia Member No.: 615 |
Let's not get too worried about the dust storm or the drive direction nor the strategies that the rover drivers may employ to Free Spirit.
I think that Spirit has found her own way to get free!   
Spirit_LOL.wmv ( 335.5K )
Number of downloads: 477 |
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Aug 29 2009, 07:51 AM
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#840
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 The Poet Dude Group: Moderator Posts: 5551 Joined: 15-March 04 From: Kendal, Cumbria, UK Member No.: 60 |
You're a very, very naughty boy!
Love it! 
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