Posted by
michael
on from the look-both-ways-before-crossing-the-street dept.
Irishman writes "It looks like the Spirit rover has finally left the womb and is rolling free on the Martian surface. Space.com has the full story and some great pictures." NASA also has photos, straight from their fake set in Hollywood where they produce all the "space" footage.
Here's a photo of the landing platform it just rolled off of.
From the cited article: 'Data from the Spirit rover shows it completed this morning's drive off the lander at 3:41 a.m. EST. Confirmation was received on Earth just before 5 a.m. EST, verifying that Spirit had performed the 10-foot voyage on its own.
The move took approximately 78 seconds, ending with the back of the rover about 2.6 feet away from the lander egress ramp, officials report.
"It's as if we get to drive a nice sports car, but in the end we're just the valets who bring it around to the front and give the keys to the science team," says flight director Chris Lewicki.'
Re:Why was moving dangerous?
by
Cyclopedian
·
· Score: 4, Informative
The rover had to drive over the deflated balloon, but why was that more dangerous than just driving over the surface?
Because mission engineers had tested the same setup (airbag position, rover position) and found that the orignal exit ramp had a chance that the rover's solar panel would get caught on the airbag. They decided to opt for the safest route, and turned the rover around and out through the second exit ramp.
Interesting soil
by
Fr33z0r
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The dirt sticking to the wheels of Sojourner (Pathfinder) was discussed at great lengths on a board I read (bit of a crazy board full of the insane for the most part, but there are decent threads from time to time), a bunch of people yelling "it's mud, Mars is wet!" when in reality Soujourner had spun it's wheels in the dirt and essentially "dug" in the dirt... Well, that and the "dirt" is largely magnetite which is inherently magnetic.
Flash forward to today and we've got the "magic carpet", and dirt sticking to Spirit's wheels, sans digging - very interesting, and by the sounds of it also very unexpected. It will be great to find out what's making it stick, and just "how Mars works" in general.
Did I ever mention how glad I am humanity has another rover on an alien world?:)
Official pics
by
Fr33z0r
·
· Score: 4, Informative
The best site for Spirit pictures (and Opportunity when it lands too, I'm sure) is JPL's MER site, it's the official site, so first with the pictures (and if you click one of the dated releases and change the date in the URL manually you can sometimes get a sneak peek at the days release half an hour earlier than the rest of the world - about 4:30pm GMT or thereabouts:)
Re:Revisit Sojourner!
by
Bruce+Perens
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Sojurner did not have rechargable batteries.
It had a solar panel and a primary battery. It was only meant to run for a few days.
Re:Short Mission Duration (given the cost)
by
BTWR
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Wow! Good for you! You think like a NASA guy... I'm not sure of the specifics, but the missions principal scientist was my professor in college and he specifically said that they tried some of your exact ideas for the next rover (which was actually a cancelled 2003 mission). They tried a windshield-wiper type deal, layers of plastic film that would roll off every few days (think like a doctor's office, how they tear off that butcher paper and roll a new cover over for each new patient).
He didn't delve too much into specifics, but he definately said that they simply didn't get any of these ideas to work. Actually, there was a brief period of time when they were actually close to getting RTGs to power the rovers (plutonium, like the ones used in the Viking landers that allowed them to operate for 5 years), but the Greens stopped that:(
Slashdot Mirror
%20in%20front%20of%20the%20lander%20and%20facing%20northwest.){kind=link}
There is also information from SpaceFlightNow here and here.
Here's a photo of the landing platform it just rolled off of.
From the cited article: 'Data from the Spirit rover shows it completed this morning's drive off the lander at 3:41 a.m. EST. Confirmation was received on Earth just before 5 a.m. EST, verifying that Spirit had performed the 10-foot voyage on its own.
The move took approximately 78 seconds, ending with the back of the rover about 2.6 feet away from the lander egress ramp, officials report.
"It's as if we get to drive a nice sports car, but in the end we're just the valets who bring it around to the front and give the keys to the science team," says flight director Chris Lewicki.'
HCG 50a = 2MASX J11170638+5455016
11h17m06.4s +54d55m02s
Because mission engineers had tested the same setup (airbag position, rover position) and found that the orignal exit ramp had a chance that the rover's solar panel would get caught on the airbag. They decided to opt for the safest route, and turned the rover around and out through the second exit ramp.
Spaceflightnow.com has all the details.
-Cyc
/.'s 10 Millionth
The dirt sticking to the wheels of Sojourner (Pathfinder) was discussed at great lengths on a board I read (bit of a crazy board full of the insane for the most part, but there are decent threads from time to time), a bunch of people yelling "it's mud, Mars is wet!" when in reality Soujourner had spun it's wheels in the dirt and essentially "dug" in the dirt... Well, that and the "dirt" is largely magnetite which is inherently magnetic.
:)
Flash forward to today and we've got the "magic carpet", and dirt sticking to Spirit's wheels, sans digging - very interesting, and by the sounds of it also very unexpected. It will be great to find out what's making it stick, and just "how Mars works" in general.
Did I ever mention how glad I am humanity has another rover on an alien world?
The best site for Spirit pictures (and Opportunity when it lands too, I'm sure) is JPL's MER site, it's the official site, so first with the pictures (and if you click one of the dated releases and change the date in the URL manually you can sometimes get a sneak peek at the days release half an hour earlier than the rest of the world - about 4:30pm GMT or thereabouts :)
It had a solar panel and a primary battery. It was only meant to run for a few days.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Wow! Good for you! You think like a NASA guy...
:(
I'm not sure of the specifics, but the missions principal scientist was my professor in college and he specifically said that they tried some of your exact ideas for the next rover (which was actually a cancelled 2003 mission). They tried a windshield-wiper type deal, layers of plastic film that would roll off every few days (think like a doctor's office, how they tear off that butcher paper and roll a new cover over for each new patient).
He didn't delve too much into specifics, but he definately said that they simply didn't get any of these ideas to work. Actually, there was a brief period of time when they were actually close to getting RTGs to power the rovers (plutonium, like the ones used in the Viking landers that allowed them to operate for 5 years), but the Greens stopped that