Air Bag Blocks Spirit's Path

cosog writes "bad news everyone: 'Two sections of the air bags used to cushion Spirit during the landing phase are obstructing the vehicle's path.'. Fortunately scientists have a solution for it: 'We'll lift up the left petal of the lander, retract the airbag, then let the petal back down[...]'. This means that: 'The earliest the six-wheeled Spirit rover will get rolling is Jan. 14, about three days later than originally planned, NASA said'."

Comments

Rover can use another ramp

[Aglassis]

The article says that if all the lift and tuck maneuvers fail, the rover could just turn and roll of in another direction. I know we have some JPL dudes hanging out here, so the question is, why waste 3 days? Why not just roll off the alternate ramp and start exploring? I guess I just don't understand why the front ramp is so special.

Re:Rover can use another ramp

[Eivind]

Pray tell, what limit exactly imposes this "fixed #" of days for exploration ? What exactly prevents Nasa from extending the mission to make up for a day or two lost ?

You can disagree all you want. Fact is the people at NASA spent thousands of man-hours studying this, odds are their judgement is better than yours.

You also seem to be unaware of how much testing this thing went trough. It's been driven for thousands of tests in terrain as much like the ones they expect on mars as possible.

Storms are extremely unlikely to do anything to the thing, *especially* aslong as it's physically connected to the lander.

Sure, odds are probably 99% that just turning and driving off one of the other two ramps would work fine. But if odds are 99.5% that i'll go well after first doing this lift-retract-settle maneuvre, then that's still definately worth a day or two delay.

Re:Rover can use another ramp

[zeux]

Why not just roll off the alternate ramp and start exploring?

The mission has plenty of time and the way behind the rover is a little less large than the way in the front.

It's better to take 3 days checking everything and trying to clear the best way than rushing and losing the rover.

And also remember that during these 3 days they can still continue scientific experiments thanks to the cameras.

Re:Rover can use another ramp

[BlueEyes_Austin]

They're saying 90 days...but on astrobiology they are working on a 104 day schedule (difference between Sols and Earth daays, perhaps?) In any event, these puppies ought to last quite a bit longer than 90 days. They are just keeping expectations down. (Like they are not talking AT ALL about finding fossils, although the science package can do this.)

Re:previous air bag difficulty

[Surazal]

You know, I thought of this when I followed this Mars landing from Day One: "They're complaining about an airbag being in the way!? Whatever happened to worrying about the darned thing landing in one piece?"

Ah well, this is honestly the type of technical problem I like to see when watching this. It sure beats the alternatives.

Re:Air bags are safety hazards

[Mr. Slippery]

would you rather be strapped in with an air bag in your face while being plowed along, or would you rather be thrown free to safety?

You wouldn't be thrown "free to safety". You'd much more likely be thrown to your death. Being thrown from a vehicle by a collision is usually fatal.

because de spite...

[jefu]

It seems that despite those gorgeous panaromic pictures they have got, the boffins haven't decided on where to go.

I think it may be "because" of those images. I've seen a bit or two of the press conferences and it always looks like the scientists are frothing at the mouth with eagerness to explore one feature or another. Or perhaps one feature and another and another and another .....

Deciding where to go first can't be easy.