"NASA's Hibernating Mars Rover May Not Call Home"

bah - for all anyone knows we might as well say

NASA's Hibernating Mars Rover Might Call Home Today

Silly NASA - Remember Sol 18?

Our girl will call home when she's ready. Never count her out.

There's nothing new in that release. It's just a P.R. game of lowered expectations. And based on the way the sensational media treats UMSF-type stories I have no problem with that kind of posturing. No one wants to see the headline "NASA Loses $300 Million Mars Rover" "Bad decisions over a year ago were the beginning of the end for costly robot that got stuck in a pile of sand." Better to have a headline that says "No Response from Dead Rover" "After much listening, spacecraft that quit working last year, really is gone."

Meanwhile back in the world of reality, nothing has changed and we have a very real chance of hearing from Spirit in the coming months.

Here is an image that Spirit took on Sol 2181 (a few sols before she went to sleep)
Spirit took 14 images with 6 filters in less than 3 minutes.
It is looking at Scamander crater, (front view) as it was trying to back out.
I have reduced the JPG artifacts (a lot) and sharpened the image (a little)
It is the best I can do with out color and radiometric calibration ... your mileage may vary (too much green? ... but it was 6 filters!)

Click to view attachment

Let's hope she phones home soon...

Nice work, PDP8E. I enjoyed seeing the soil and those layered rocks in subtle colors.

in 3 days time, we get the calibrated stuff up to Sol 2160 on the PDS.

While we wait for Spirit to wake up, yawning, from her sleep, isn't it amazing to think that it's 5 years since she stood on the top of Husband Hill and we all drooled over those first clear images of Homeplate...

New astropoem for anyone who wants to read it:

http://twitpic.com/2hq1li (image)

http://astropoetry.wordpress.com/2010/08/2...spirit-was-free (text only)

For those that want to reminisce, as well as Scott's blog there is the UMSF thread from 5 years ago:

Sol581: Spirit Arrived!, ...on the summit of Husband hill

Those we incredible times. It was around that time that I first started to dabble in processing the raw images as well.

Here is the Calypso Panorama with the rover deck that I'm putting together. I'm almost done, but this is what I have so far . I'll finish it up later today.



*Updated: Finished!

I'm not sure exactly when this was posted, but the Pancam team's version of the Scamander Plains Panorama is now available.

http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_ins.../scamander.html

I just read this interesting but pessimistic article: http://is.gd/gYU8L. "On 20 September, Mars rover team leader Steven Squyres of Cornell University said, "I firmly believe that in the next 4 to 6 weeks, we're going to hear from that vehicle." That was 8 weeks ago". "There's a good possibility it died, and we'll never hear from it again" Squyres now says". "Spirit might still pipe up, he says. "So we listen, [but] it could be a long wait."

Ugh! I wonder when they will give up and give us all the bad news?
WAKE UP SPIRIT!!

The situation lives under a bell curve, defined by several parameter that we don't have a good grasp of.

Whilst prospects get less positive over time, the sun continues to climb each day.

This story is a long way from being over, whatever the outcome.

Today is the Spring Equinox. Summer Solstice is not until April 9th 2011. I'd be highly skeptical of anyone pronouncing Spirit dead before then.

A very long time from now, a DD might sweep her panels clean. How far do her chances diminish if she doesn't wake up this spring/summer?

I don't think the primary problem is lack of power from the cells. The issue is whether or not her electronics survived the winter cold. Without power, she was unable to keep her WEB (warm electronics box),er, warm. So potentially components could have gotten cold enough that their differential contraction caused a failure, ie the circuit board vs the chips on it, or the batteries themselves (but I think there was confirmation the batteries could survive that temp that long, electrolytes in the capacitors frozen out, etc.

I still feel that Spirit's story isn't done quite yet. I will light a candle for her tonight.

The WEB has radio-isotope heater units (RHUs) so that is less of an issue than other parts of Spiirit outside the WEB.

Coming out of the last Martian winter, Spiirit did not get a cleaning event until Feb 2009.

http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/mission/status_...09.html#sol1810

That was about 1.5 months after the southern Spring equinox in Dec 26, 2008, so iif history is any guide, we might hope for a cleaning by Christmas this year.

"If you wish upon a star..."
Sun and wind, c'mon Spirit, send us some beeps,
would love to hear from you...

Can we read anything positive from this report from the PDTI?
One of those images showed up at Exploratorium yesterday.

1. What new EDRs from ANY sol were received on sol 2445?

Number of EDRs received by sol, sequence number, and image type:

Sol Seq.Ver ETH ESF EDN EFF ERP Tot Description
----- -------- --- --- --- --- --- ---- -----------
02080 p2104.10 1 0 0 0 0 1 pancam_mtes_cal_target_L267
02081 p2535.24 0 0 0 1 0 1 pancam_scamander_plains27redo_L234567Rall
02128 p1561.09 0 0 0 0 0 1 Unexpected sequence!!!!
Total 1 0 0 1 0 2

This is the F (11th) version of this image. My guess is that it's just stuck somewhere in the pipeline and keeps trying to come through.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...04P2535L2MF.JPG

The timestamp on the latest image is the same as the image uploaded to the Exploratorium on Sep 15.

Well, the time stamp would have to remain the same as the time the image was captured, but that is a good point that this image has attempted to come down multiple times over the past months. It does look like a pipeline issue. ...what a bummer.

30th Nov update at http://marsrover.nasa.gov/mission/status.html#spirit

Sol 2457 ........ Spirit remains silent .... also conducting a paging technique called "Sweep & Beep" to stimulate the rover in the case of a mission-clock fault...... peak solar insolation is not until mid-March 2011. So Spirit has plenty of occasion to respond.

Beep - Beep - there's still hope!!!

Is it considered likely at this point that the rover is in a mission clock fault state, if it has survived? Otherwise we would more likely than not have heard from her by now?

There are many possible scenarios, and as Scott and others have said in the past, "Never bet against Spirit!"

Damn Facebook...I actually looked for the "like" button for Astro0's comment!

Spirit map update for sol 2458. How sad.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/tm-...it-sol2458.html

I understand that when contact was lost with Viking 1, it entered a mode in which it tried to communicate with Earth at randon times of the day similar to the mission-clock fault mode that Spirit may currently be enduring.

I would like to know whether if the level of effort currently being employed to talk to Spirit had been tried on Viking 1 then contact could have been re-established with Viking 1? Were the two problems essentially the same? Given that Viking 1's RTGs kept its electronics really warm, how long might Viking 1 have continued to try to phone home? Could Viking 1 still be trying to phone home today?

Spirit's winter solstice was May 13,2010
We lost contact on May 22
She entered Spring in middle November 2010
Summer Solstice will be mid April 2011
And Fall arrives in late September 2011 (all times approximate)

...so Spirit is one month into Spring (which is like 2 weeks of spring on Earth)
If she is in one piece we should hearing from her anytime now...

Hoping for a dust angel to wipe her plates clean!

Happy New Year 2011 dear Spirit
with all our wishes for your good recovery
(just to help you and this topic roll into 2011)

...and hopefully not "angel dust", as that will REALLY cause problems for her!

I`d like you to help me understand something. I have read in the September 30, 2010 Planetary Society MER Update that: "When there is enough power to wake-up, Spirit will get up for between five and 10 minutes, long enough to power things up and check for a signal called solar groovy, which essentially means the rover has 1.1 amps of power coming off its solar array. " and "...so eventually it will be waking up in the time period when its gets a solar array wake-up, another signal from the solar array indicating that the rover has 2 amps of power coming off it. “That, in turn, signals an autonomous wake-up to the CPU,” Nelson pointed out. " How many watt-hours are the 1.1 and 2 amps?

hop for the best

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pr.../20110104b.html Claiming to be the author of about 75% of what you publish is a little disingenuous, don't you think?

I'm assuming that this refers to current available on the bus rather than what is coming off the arrays themselves before it gets into the power management and distribution system. The power bus on the MER's is nominally 28V so 1.1A would be just over 30Watts and 2A would be 56Watts. Those are instantaneous numbers. Assuming those are peak values at noon then a (very rough) approximation of the daily power available in watt Hours would be about 3x that number so 1.1A would be around 90 watt hours and 2A would be 168 watt hours. That range seems about right given that Spirit went silent when the daily power numbers dropped below about 130watt hours per sol.

I'm making a lot of assumptions there though so you can take those with a fairly large grain of salt.

Dear Paul M, here are my answers, if I may :

Q/ I understand that when contact was lost with Viking 1, it entered a mode in which it tried to communicate with Earth at randon times of the day similar to the mission-clock fault mode that Spirit may currently be enduring
A/ Unfortunately no (see why herebelow), contact was lost when some instructions were sent from Earth to VL1 on November 19, 1982, for renewing its long-term scientific program : i.e. including the taking of 300° panoramic pictures and the management of its batteries after February 1990 and until 1996 (!). On January 1982, VL1 was already re-programmed with an "help" mode to ensure a minimal telecom mode to Earth should there is an incident (i.e. call back home on an automatic basis). A new programmation sequence was decided late August 1982 and inside those instructions, were sent some erroneous commands (un-tested before their sending by lack of budget) that erased the position of Earth in the Martian sky (that were already in its memory until December 1994)...

Q/ I would like to know whether if the level of effort currently being employed to talk to Spirit had been tried on Viking 1 then contact could have been re-established with Viking 1 ?
A/ A few days after the incident (end of November 1982), the bad antenna pointing was identified and a decision was taken to send new commands at maximum DSN power, hoping that they would even bounce off the Martian surface close to the Lander in case the antenna was pointing towards the ground... No answers were received, unfortunately

Q/ Were the two problems essentially the same?
A/ No, because they were NO more active orbiters around Mars at this time to help sending commands to VL1. Only a direct link from Earth to VL1 (through its hi-gain antenna) was available, and only once per day because of the DSN being busy at this time. Spirit is in a better position to regain contact with us : there is still a direct link available from Earth PLUS several daily telecom links opportunities available from orbiters around Mars

Q/Given that Viking 1's RTGs kept its electronics really warm, how long might Viking 1 have continued to try to phone home?
A/ Until December 1994 at least, with hopes that the RTGs would give enough power until 1996

Q/Could Viking 1 still be trying to phone home today ?
A/ Unfortunately no : I think its batteries are long dead and its antenna is stuck

Astro0, thanks to your nice "sunrise" and "sunset" visions, I had the idea of extracting the colors (just the colors themselves, not the contrast) of the Pancam noon pics (the pics taken to build the 'Calypso' Panorama) and paste those colors on the b&w pics (which gave the contrast) taken at sols 2001 -sunrise- and sol 2002 -sunset-.
Here are the results from these merges (as a reduced version to save space on the Forum).
Now you can enjoy the nice real colors seen (i) at sunrise, (ii) at early afternoon (in fact, a segment that could be part of the 'Calypso' Panorama) and (iii) at sunset over Von Braun...
It's a calm vision on Mars to be enjoyed listening to Mozart or Bach concerti...
And dedicated to all the contributors to this nice UMSF Forum and the Planetary Society Members (not forgetting the PanCam team members : thanks to them we have pictures from Mars !). Enjoy
Click to view attachment

I just want to applaud. That's a beautiful piece of work.
(On my ridiculously bright monitor the first one looks best.)

Very inspiring indeed Olivier, may Spirit ear you call...
Come on baby, wake up! Give us more of these.

I can't take all the credit for that, if you read back further, mhoward had done a fantastic QTVR months earlier.

Nonetheless, brilliant job vikingmars. the place feels 'alive' from the colours you've introduced.
A fitting tribute to our (currently) absent friend

It's Sol 2500 for Spirit!

2500 Sols....no one could have ever imagined it.

Seems like only yestersol since we arrived!

Beautiful images indeed. Look on these images is really spiritual experience .

Wow Spirit! 2500 sols on mars! (Jan 14, 2011)

Click to view attachment

Not sure what the 2500 sol milestone means if Spirit doesn't phone home. Mars 3 has the record of the oldest lander on Mars (that operated after touchdown). Coming up to 40 Earth years. If Spirit doesn't come back on line then Opportunity holds the record for the lander that operated for the longest time.

I think that the milestone is just that "2500 Sols on Mars". Humans like round numbers
Of course we don't know Spirit's condition. She may or may not be operational.
Until someone, probably SS says to the contrary, then I'm sure we'll continue to note these 'round numbers'.

Opportunity of course carries the torch for now.

Tonight I dreamt Spirit had woken up.
It was...nice.

I've done that at least twice.

I dreamt that I went for a walk around Home Plate and thought to myself that it was a pity that Spirit was not currently working because when I got home I wouldnt have any holiday snaps.

I didn't want to make a new thread so I might as well ask here:
What if Spirit were to make contact during conjunction? It can still send messages, but it won't be able to receive; and of course there's no relay system beyond LEO, or the previous conjunctions wouldn't be issues at all. (though that's quite an idea for a new mission!)
Would they just have to wait for conjunction to end like normal? That seems rather tense! Yes, I agree that the chances are low but it's not impossible.