Extricating Spirit, Digging out from Troy Options

[NW71]

To help me (and I would hope others) gain a better understanding of Spirit's current predicament is anyone able to give us Spirit's current tilt angle and her predicted power production over the winter months? I think a summary of what the different power levels would signify could be very informative. For instance, (and I'm making these numbers up, below 180W means end of scientific measurements, below 160W means loss of daily contact etc)

(Not sure if this is in correct thread or wants to be in winter @ Troy)

Neil

[fredk]

Here are what I think are the highlights from the latest planetary society report on the question of extrication. Arvidson supports Stroupe's comments about further driving in the spring - even before the stationary science campaign, if I interpret this correctly:

"I don't think we'll ever get to Goddard and von Braun now, but we can possibly make it to other targets tens of meters away,” Arvidson said... "We have to hunker down for the winter, so we are a lander starting in a couple of weeks at least for the next six months, and then we will reevaluate the extent to which we can get out in the ensuing spring" said Arvidson. “If we can't, there's still good science to do – with the radio science, the monitoring of the weather, and also new places to study to characterize the sulfates.”

And from Squyres:

“We are going to continue to do everything we possibly can with this rover once winter's over and we'll see what we get. If the rover popped out and scooted across the countryside, so be it, [that] would be great. But nobody's expecting that to happen. What we're expecting is small motion, and if that's all we get, we can do a lot of good science for a long time."

And this about the tilt:

"Before we started driving backwards, we were roughly at 4 degrees southerly tilt. Now, we're roughly in about 10 degrees southerly tilt," Matijevic informed last Friday. But this was expected and should be temporary... "The strategy we have for Spirit getting the tilt better [takes us] through a couple of days of it getting worse before a turn around," Stroupe explained.

(I'm assuming we'll keep using this thread for extrication-related posts until all driving has stopped for the winter...)

[fredk]

Pics are down! It looks like another drive attempt backwards on 2165. Some distance and tilt improvement by the looks of it. RF wheel has been steered - I wonder if they've started to try digging it in:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/fo...2WP1214R0M1.JPG
Edit: on second thought it looks more like a roll towards the west than a tilt to the north.

[djellison]

That's a good turnaround on the images - 4hrs

[alan]

I see some dirt in the cleats of the RF wheel.


Checking previous images there was some motion on sol 2161

2158


2161


I can't tell if the motion continued on sol 2165.

[Astro0]

By the look of it, they not only did some steering on the RF wheel, there's actually been some wheel rotation as well.

Animation Sols2158, 2161, 2165

[Fran Ontanaya]

The bottom of that rock is quite rough compared with the eroded top.

[fredk]

Good catch, Alan! I can't wait till we get the next update...

[vikingmars]

Now, I've got good feelings about a real possibility of extricating Spirit from this sand trap next spring... and rove a little
And I'm also still dreaming of reaching Von Braun. We need good dreams !

[djellison]

The last update suggested this could well be the last drive of the season - so this may well be it. A little bit of scuffing and spinning might be on the cards yet though.

[Tesheiner]

Perhaps I'm not reading correctly (not native english) but I think they are telling that the last drive is / will be the next one, attempting to lift one side of the rover.
From http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/sta...ll.html#sol2159:

On Sol 2165 (Feb. 4, 2010), another drive was sequenced. This drive achieved less progress and had only a modest improvement in tilt. The next drive plan is to cause the rover suspension to lift one side of the rover, improving northerly tilt. This is likely to be the last rover motion before winter, as energy levels are dropping below levels able to sustain driving.

[BrianL]

Use the suspension? Are these rovers lowriders?

[eoincampbell]

Please make that tilt before then...
The silence will be deafening...

[fredk]

I agree, Tesheiner, that there will be one more drive attempt before winter. I guess they'll just be driving certain wheels in order to get the suspension to do what they want. On the positive side, there was a slight increase in power to 188 Whrs, due entirely to clearing skies (lower tau) rather than array cleaning.

[briv1016]

Cleat Cam video up on JPL site. I hope they release a new version when the missing images from sols 2150 and 2152 come down; the break is kind of obvious.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/index.cfm?id=889