Extricating Spirit, Digging out from Troy Options

[Hungry4info]

The 1 Mb limit is killing me as far as uploading .gifs here is concerned, so I'm moving my operations to YouTube.
Excitement over the recent progress has motivated me to compile a small movie of the attempts to free Spirit. It starts at the beginning of extraction, and ends with the most recent images.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMpgF_qoTEA

[alan]

<backseat roverdriver> Watch out for the potato </backseat roverdriver>

[Hungry4info]

O_o the potato?

[Julius]

Time to update spirits route map?

[fredk]

so, are we out?

We are definitely not out yet. The visible wheels are still in various stages of burial. And it's not clear what the middle wheels are doing.

One note of caution: as I mentioned in my last post, the LR wheel is now at the southern edge of the trench which that wheel had dug back just before she was declared embedded. That makes me wonder what progress will be like now that we've reached the edge of the "crust". And did she stop here just coincidentally, or did the LR wheel bog down on this latest drive when it hit the edge of the crust?

I don't mean to put too much of a damper on the optimism here - she has made great progress recently!

[djellison]

Time to update spirits route map?

Not really - total progress to date would be no more than the size of the dot on the route map

[fredk]

... now that we've reached the edge of the "crust".

Err... I have to eat my words here. I was wrong: the LR wheel has actually eaten through considerable new crust material now. On this gif I've compared the old view, where you can see the old southern limit of the LR, with the new view. To make it easier, I've circled matching rocks in black and white:

Clearly we've recently eaten through a lot of crust, to the east of the old trench. So apparently that hasn't slowed us down. This is great news!

[NW71]

Clearly we've recently eaten through a lot of crust, to the east of the old trench. So apparently that hasn't slowed us down. This is great news!

fredk - this is great news indeed!

Would you have any idea if the crust will breakdown and eventually provide a 'ramp' out of the crater or do you think will we meet a 'wall' at the edge of the crater?

Hope you don't mind all the questions - I just want to know she's gonna get out of there!

Neil

[Hungry4info]

I can't see how the boundary between the soft sandy crust and the sturdy crust can be so contrasted and steep that the rear wheels can't out. I certainly hope this is not the case.

[briv1016]

I was a little bored and decided to look at some old Spirit updates from last winter to help remember how bad power got. It's truly amazing how much the team has learned about operating these rovers at low power.

Last winter solstice was on June 25th 2008 and corresponds to this update on the 27th. (power at 230 watt-hours)
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/sta...08.html#sol1587

This is last week’s update. (power at 211 watt-hours)
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/sta...ll.html#sol2144


And keep in mind, Spirit is still driving!

[climber]

Re power/driving, can somebody tell how much was commanded versus the 4 + 7 cm of actual movement? I mean, if slipage is low, chance to get out with little power improve.
Re winter Heaven, Eduardo, when you say "exactly there", do you mean "There-there" or what, 1 - 2 meters near HP?
Fredk, isn't the LR in better postion now as compared when she get embeded? I mean nearly on top instead of inside the crust.

[Hungry4info]

isn't the LR in better position now as compared when she get embeded?

It looked that way to me at least, especially considering how it rose up quite a bit a few drives ago.

[Tesheiner]

Re winter Heaven, Eduardo, when you say "exactly there", do you mean "There-there" or what, 1 - 2 meters near HP?

I wrote "exactly here". I would only expect short moves trying to improve the rover's attitude.

[OWW]

Looming Martian winter threatens Spirit rover

The way I read this, it looks like they've already given up.

[briv1016]

I have a feeling that article was written before they tried backwards driving.