Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the congrats-from-the-news-nerds-to-the-nasa-nerds dept.
tvh2k writes "CNN reports that both the Mars Rovers Spirit and Opportunity are now both fully functional. Working on opposite sides of the red planet, they have begun analyzing rock and soil samples."
Am I the only one disapointed by the names of these probes? When I think about space projects, I think they should be named after great scientists...not names generated by 4th graders as part of a contest.
Re:Name gripe
by
wizarddc
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
So you're telling me Hubble was a household name before that big lens in the sky got there? Hell, call them Tycho and Brahe. Leonardo and Michaelangelo. SOMETHING. Bill and Ted comes to mind as the perfect example.
if it can dust one thing, why not another
by
rritterson
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
From the CNN article, apparantly Spirit can dust off a rock. It doesn't say how though, but I would guess either compressed air brought from earth (unlikely), a little air compressor, or a brush of some sort.
Now, apparantly the lifetime of the rovers is limited by the rate at which dust build up on the solar panels. How hard could it have been to reticulate the arm so that it can bend around and dust the panels off themselves? Even if it were to cost $1mil, it'd still be worth it as it would extend the lifetime of the rovers indefinately.
(Personally, I'd still like to see a better solution- have the rovers shake like dogs do when they get wet)
-- -Ryan AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
Window for Opportunity?
by
ferralis
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Anybody have an update on the heating problem and how that affects the longevity prospects of Opportunity?
-- Any generalization is a stupid one.
More, nearer.
by
LoudMusic
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I heard rumblings a while back (may have been on/.) about alternative space exploration to our current methods. Basically launching hundreds of smaller robots at a task rather than a single highly developed bot. They mentioned lots of benefits, like 80% failure rate would still generate something. Additionally they would be near eachother and possibly work together and even repair one-anothother.
Has there been anymore talk about things like this?
-- No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Erosion caused by water
by
nycsubway
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I have seen many many pictures of the erosion and channels and lake beds on mars over the years. Many many pictures... and they all looked very convincing, because it was so similar to the effects that water has on earth.
Then at the start of the Spirit and Opportunity landings, I started to think about it more. Something bothered me about the way the erosion appeared. It seemed there was no source for the water. I started thinking what might have caused features similar to that caused by running water. I think it is caused my lava flows. I could be completely wrong, and probably am, but maybe what I interpret as not being features caused by water, are really features that were caused by a very early and short-lived time of running water.
What about having the reactor in the base station, and the rovers moving back to it to recharge? or better yet, give it a full service station, imcluding solar panel cleanings, battery recharge. Also why dont the rover have some kind of wipers to stop the buildup?
-- All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
The launches are clustered so tightly (2 weeks) because the optimal launch window for mars occurs every two years. Otherwise, it might make sense to do a yearly launch so that design problems (like the flash memory error) can be thoroughly tested and fixed.
Having two rovers operating at the same time might cause a reliability problem... if spirit had kept randomly transmitting at odd times, it might have interefered with good data being sent from opportunity. Nasa thought of that, and that's probably why the two rovers are on opposite sides of the planet - hence, only one is visible to earth and/or the relay satellite at a time, so they can't interfere.
Something I've been curious about, and I'm sure there's a reason for it, is why the landers don't use signals to an orbiter, which then can use higher power to transmit back to earth? Is this just too complex or is there another reason this scenario won't work?
water source
by
Shooter6947
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
The water source for the Martian channels is weird. It is certainly not rain: the channels don't spread out enough and there are closed drainage systems. Planetary scientists (I am one) think that the channels might have been formed by sapping: the water comes out of the ground in a spring.
What I still haven't seen is a full, technical explanation of what went wrong in the first place, and (more importantly) why it wasn't caught in ground testing. One would imagine that flash-contention issues would be relatively easy to bench test.
As with Pathfinder, NASA seems to have run into testable software issues only after the hardware is on another planet. I'd like to see more morning-after analysis on this both so NASA can improve its process for future missions, and so that we can all learn something about software testing for our own projects.
Does anyone know of place (web page, mailing list, whatever) where this is being discussed on a deep technical level?
-- When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
fault-tree analysis
by
iamr00t
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Because all systems in space research become so complex, you can not have error, and you only have one chance of running the program (or system), NASA started using special techniques, that allow them to formally verify every state of device in advance.
I remember reading article about that around Pathfinder time, when Polar Lander crashed because of software error. Here is that article from Wired. 50 man-years to verify the system, eh?
There is formal verification of algorithms in CS. However, in case of spacecraft it's more than software, it's hardware too, as we can see. And hardware does get included in verification too!
As a business software programmer, I find that fascinating. I can only imagine what the life would be if we used verification. Of course, the reality is that it will never happen, we are not rocket scientists:)
Weird object spotted by Opportunity
by
jfoust2
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
You don't need the staff on hand because it's all in the 'hands' of the rover.
I think you underestimate how many people are involved with the operation of the rover. Even to recieve the transmissions, you need a very powerful reciever, because the transmissions from the rover are on the order of a Watt. This means time at a radio antenna must be spent. Furthermore, you must carefully craft the intructions to be sent,you must monitor the status of the rover (without human intervention Spirit would have been dead), not to mention all of the support staff for these people to get their job done.
The rover wasn't designed to do much more than very menial tasks without further instruction. I doubt that the rover could operate autonomously for more than a couple days. If there was a way that they could cost-effectively get additional data after the primary mission, wouldn't you think that they would do it?
-- Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
Slashdot Mirror
Am I the only one disapointed by the names of these probes? When I think about space projects, I think they should be named after great scientists...not names generated by 4th graders as part of a contest.
Anti-slash: In sacred jihad against slashdot
So, is the power leakage on the Opportunity rover also fixed or are they just going to put up with a shorter lifespan of the machine?
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
From the CNN article, apparantly Spirit can dust off a rock. It doesn't say how though, but I would guess either compressed air brought from earth (unlikely), a little air compressor, or a brush of some sort.
Now, apparantly the lifetime of the rovers is limited by the rate at which dust build up on the solar panels. How hard could it have been to reticulate the arm so that it can bend around and dust the panels off themselves? Even if it were to cost $1mil, it'd still be worth it as it would extend the lifetime of the rovers indefinately.
(Personally, I'd still like to see a better solution- have the rovers shake like dogs do when they get wet)
-Ryan
AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
Anybody have an update on the heating problem and how that affects the longevity prospects of Opportunity?
Any generalization is a stupid one.
I heard rumblings a while back (may have been on /.) about alternative space exploration to our current methods. Basically launching hundreds of smaller robots at a task rather than a single highly developed bot. They mentioned lots of benefits, like 80% failure rate would still generate something. Additionally they would be near eachother and possibly work together and even repair one-anothother.
Has there been anymore talk about things like this?
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
I have seen many many pictures of the erosion and channels and lake beds on mars over the years. Many many pictures... and they all looked very convincing, because it was so similar to the effects that water has on earth.
Then at the start of the Spirit and Opportunity landings, I started to think about it more. Something bothered me about the way the erosion appeared. It seemed there was no source for the water. I started thinking what might have caused features similar to that caused by running water. I think it is caused my lava flows. I could be completely wrong, and probably am, but maybe what I interpret as not being features caused by water, are really features that were caused by a very early and short-lived time of running water.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
What about having the reactor in the base station, and the rovers moving back to it to recharge? or better yet, give it a full service station, imcluding solar panel cleanings, battery recharge. Also why dont the rover have some kind of wipers to stop the buildup?
All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
The launches are clustered so tightly (2 weeks) because the optimal launch window for mars occurs every two years. Otherwise, it might make sense to do a yearly launch so that design problems (like the flash memory error) can be thoroughly tested and fixed.
Having two rovers operating at the same time might cause a reliability problem... if spirit had kept randomly transmitting at odd times, it might have interefered with good data being sent from opportunity. Nasa thought of that, and that's probably why the two rovers are on opposite sides of the planet - hence, only one is visible to earth and/or the relay satellite at a time, so they can't interfere.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
The water source for the Martian channels is weird. It is certainly not rain: the channels don't spread out enough and there are closed drainage systems. Planetary scientists (I am one) think that the channels might have been formed by sapping: the water comes out of the ground in a spring.
What I still haven't seen is a full, technical explanation of what went wrong in the first place, and (more importantly) why it wasn't caught in ground testing. One would imagine that flash-contention issues would be relatively easy to bench test.
As with Pathfinder, NASA seems to have run into testable software issues only after the hardware is on another planet. I'd like to see more morning-after analysis on this both so NASA can improve its process for future missions, and so that we can all learn something about software testing for our own projects.
Does anyone know of place (web page, mailing list, whatever) where this is being discussed on a deep technical level?
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Because all systems in space research become so complex, you can not have error, and you only have one chance of running the program (or system), NASA started using special techniques, that allow them to formally verify every state of device in advance.
:)
I remember reading article about that around Pathfinder time, when Polar Lander crashed because of software error.
Here is that article from Wired. 50 man-years to verify the system, eh?
There is formal verification of algorithms in CS.
However, in case of spacecraft it's more than software, it's hardware too, as we can see. And hardware does get included in verification too!
As a business software programmer, I find that fascinating. I can only imagine what the life would be if we used verification. Of course, the reality is that it will never happen, we are not rocket scientists
NASA's press releases aren't mentioning a strange object spotted by Opportunity. It's no face on Mars, but it's just as ripe for imaginative interpretation: A snail's eyestalks? A rabbit head? A sea serpent? Under "As Far as Opportunity's Eye Can See", on http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/oppor tunity/20040202a.html
there's a large panorama at: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/oppor tunity/20040202a/MSPan_B1_2x-B009R1.jpg
and look down under the sedimentary outcrop at right.
You can also see that NASA was looking at it on Sol 2,
on a series of four images taken on Sol 2, 2/3rds of the way down at: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/opportu nity_p002.html
but strangely it looks like those pixels are whited-out
Curator of the Jefferson Computer Museum http://www.threedee.com/jcm
Is the third the one at JPL that the keep rehearsing maneuvers with?
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
You don't need the staff on hand because it's all in the 'hands' of the rover.
I think you underestimate how many people are involved with the operation of the rover. Even to recieve the transmissions, you need a very powerful reciever, because the transmissions from the rover are on the order of a Watt. This means time at a radio antenna must be spent. Furthermore, you must carefully craft the intructions to be sent,you must monitor the status of the rover (without human intervention Spirit would have been dead), not to mention all of the support staff for these people to get their job done.
The rover wasn't designed to do much more than very menial tasks without further instruction. I doubt that the rover could operate autonomously for more than a couple days. If there was a way that they could cost-effectively get additional data after the primary mission, wouldn't you think that they would do it?
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?