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Mars Rovers Still Going Strong, Mission Extended
Loconut1389 writes "The Mars rovers' missions have been extended from 90 days to about 250 and have been upgraded with some new software to give them extended single run distances as well as other features. Yahoo has a similar article, also at Reuters.
I think it's great that these initially plagued robots are doing more than expected and are still going strong, mostly thanks to engineers figuring out how to make the most of the software and hardware onboard and figuring out how to diagnose an unfunctioning, unresponding machine millions of miles away. The whole project amazes me and I'm happy for NASA to be getting some good news for a change."
would make these rovers a bit cooler
My whole kid's class is using Maestro to view the Mars photos in a similiar fashion to the NASA engineers.
Great science... and great learning as well. It's java driven... and crunches older computers. However, it really shows the excellent work that we are doing there.
AC
Perhaps NASA will have some good luck for a change...
How even though given the anti-intellectual culture of the US we are still the only ones able to land this very successful rover, and I feel the world actually respects the US for it(almost makes up for the other stuff), unfortunately, unless we get more kids interested in science, and more funding for research, the rest of the world will quickly catch up and surpass the US. Hopefully having this mission be more than anyone ever imagined, it will counteract both of these things.
I don't think you understand how these robots actually work. They could not have been debugged and fixed if they were "unfunctioning" or "unresponding".
So... why are you wasting time on Slashdot?
Especially given the time of year (Easter Sunday if you were not aware)
Actually this is just a game to set the right expectations. They designed whole thing with a much larger project life right from the beginning.
But, given the fact that the rover technology is low-cost and still unproven, they expected a certain risk for various glitches. So, a 250 days "published" interval followed by a deadly clitch would mean a very bad image for NASA.
NASA played the same "stay on the safe side" tune on many otehr missions - see for example the Voyager missions, etc.
Don't try to use the force. Do or do not, there is no try.
Oh no! Another 160 days of cover-ups and conspiracies! Well...perhaps, anyway! :-)
There are some really smart and talented people at NASA, and it's nice to see that their work has finally been recognized after a period of NASA-bashing. It really peeves me that people have settled into this anti-American groove over the last few years.
Some of the top minds in history have been American, few modern scientific or engineering feats have been untouched by Americans in one way or another. Half the people who criticise Americans haven't actually been to the United States. I studied in the US for 3 years, and before I left for the US from South Africa, I had a few pre-conceived ideas about Americans, all of which turned out to be untrue. So before you bash Americans, think about these things, and consider actually spending some time in the US.
I used to read /. for the articles. /. for the comments.
Then I kept reading
Now why am I still here?
Next week, once the four-day upload of the software is complete, Opportunity will head for Endurance crater
Isn' that really sad? those rovers that are millions of miles away get their data faster than I can download anything from eMule these days, right here on good old earth.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
and autonomous decisions ...who thought Gator?
Jonathanjk.com
The thing that keeps us ahead of the rest of the world is innovation. As long as our kids grow up thinking they can do anything, we're ok. If we let the safety grannies and lawsuit lotteries prevail, then we're sunk.
American education has, in my lifetime, been a lot less rigorous than European or Asian education. Don't play Trivial Pursuit with a German. Don't argue about equations with a Japanese engineer. Yet most of the innovation has come from the USA.
Our success has mostly to do with freedom. Our real enemies are things like software patents and DMCA.
I waste my leisure time on Slashdot to relax. I do not think this "waste" is comparable to the billions of pounds wasted on this asinine mission, if that was your implication.
So far everything about this mission has shocked me, at least to some extent. We havnt just been rovering around mars to say we could do it. Thats what the previous mission felt like. But we have found amazing signs of water and the conversations around what has been found has sparked for many a rekindeled interest in our favorite planet. Since the rovers have gone up I have been watching slashdot more closly for news from these bots.
I have seen reports of evidence of water and watched as we all ooo and aaa over what that could mean. I have read the debates on the possibility of methane producing microbes in the soil of mars, or the cows hiding out in a hidden green pasture. We have all wondered about the possibility that we could jumpstart the life on mars or make it inhabitable for us with teraforming. Basically I have seen more interest in the red planet in the last few months than ever before. I cant wait to see what another 160 days can do for our imaginations. Do you think anything new and amazing will be found as this trek on the red planet continues, I certanly do.
Spending the money on those on earth who are in need would be a good use of it, and would help a few people - but not all the many really. If these rovers help find signs of life on mars (they won't do it themselves, because they weren't designed to [a mistake if you ask me]) it will have a much greater impact on the world. Knowing that life is not unique to earth will put everything in perspective. Not to the same extent as that described in Star Trek: First Contact, but the same idea.
It amazes me that, having spent so much money to get the suckers there, that the plan wasn't originally to run them until they broke.
I'm afraid I disagree. The way to stop the starving of the millions in Africa is, short term, to erase their debt and increase funding in infrastructure to survive famine, and long term to allow African products a level playing field economically. Unfortunately the latter option, in removing farmers subsidies, will lead to a lowering in standard of living of Americans which they are simply not willing to contemplate, even when lives are at stake. Killing tyrants is an overly simplistic solution that will only result in new tyrants where there is a continuing system which encourages tyranny to flourish.
As to your other point, I do not disagree with USA's military activities abroad when they are motivated by a desire to free people from tyranny and allow them to live their lives as they see fit. Unfortunately I do not feel Iraq falls into that category.
The main driver is really the batteries. They have to maintain a certain level of heating during the night cycle to get the rovers viable. Otherwise, there is some pretty nasty thermal cycling as the electronics ramps up in the day cycle as the solar panels. That requires a certain percentage of the electronics to run all night. It was the battery failure that immediately preceded the other landers and rovers major hardware problems.
Kinda funny what the press latches onto. In February, the issue was "Oh, my god. The solar panels are collecting dust which will shorten the mission". ehhh.. Nope. Doesn't look that way, does it? As long as the panels are able to provide power to the batteries, they can keep extending this. They just have to slow down their power discharge during the days to allow the rover to store up enough energy to make it through the nightcycle. Eventually, that means immobility, but they don't really need that as much after a certain point.
africa's far to screwed up to be economicly worth saving them. i think the best way to go about this is to conquer africa call it america 2 and start mass shipping of wallmarts and suv's thier.
... debugging while the software is live! :}
Still, an amazing feat. These people deserve a medal.
How about just telling them to get the fuck out of the desert, rather than giving them handouts they haven't worked for and don't deserve. Why don't the Nigerians funnel some of their millions they scam from others into their own backyard rather than expecting the rest of the world to bail out a people who can't even support themselves?
Are the first world nations now world-wide charities? Any nation of slobs who can't take care of themselves should come crawling hand and foot to us and beg for us to bail out their sorry asses? Europeans way back when dealt with population issues and innovated in order to solve their social problems. Everybody in Africa must be incredibly stupid not to be able to do the same.
I'm afraid I disagree. The way to stop the starving of the millions in Africa is, short term, to erase their debt and increase funding in infrastructure to survive famine,
Please. The famine in Zimbabwe is entirely due to the policies of its insane president, Robet Mugabe.
Give my regards to Akhbar and let him know that with this info, the ETA is now 2 days.
-Mohammed
Which is why it's such a shame that Beagle2 failed. That thing was designed from the ground up to be able to detect life, the engineers even built in a clean room while wearing what looked like haz-mat suits in order to prevent contamination.
Only here will a post that is pro-US get modded down as flamebait...
This isn't about handouts. A handout is what you give to a begger, to support them so they can beg again tomorrow. The point is that a small amount of money (to us) can set up these people so they would not have to beg. Not today, or tomorrow, or the day after. It's like giving a begger a job instead of ten dollars out of your wallet. It then becomes up to them to succeed. I think you're ignorant to characterise a whole nation of people as slobs, or scammers.
To turn your initial analogy on its head, why don't you Americans get out of Washington? It's built in a swamp, in a inhospitable climate, and you're wasting the worlds energy on air conditioning just to make it slightly pleasant. Move somewhere more temperate.
Perhaps the Africans would like to move somewhere where they could more easily earn food to put in their mouths. Like, maybe America? But somehow I don't think you would be happy about that either.
It's a real shame the Beagle 2 didn't make it, to be quite honest it was better than both our American bots, because it could carry out real complex tests on the soil, smell the soil and air for certain chemicals etc, it could really do much more, and with what Spirit and Opportunity have found out - which have lead to estimates - Beagle could have solved these, it's a shame, but lets look to the positive, 2/3 ain't bad.
Call it a flaimbait, but: If you don't know the difference between "to" and "too", or how to spell "economically" or "there" you're not entitled to have much of an opinion on anything. Sorry. You make me ashamed to be an American
Cost of Mars Rover mission: $800 million (+roughly $15m overrun)
Cost of British Beagle mission: $40 million.
When Beagle 20 has failed ($40m * 20 = $800m, you see) let me know. I'll be more than willing to praise the US overblown space program. I think parent is a little premature.
To further pick apart the wording of this summary...
I'd hardly describe them as "plagued". Both landers have been astonishingly successfull. They did suffer what MIGHT be characterized as a minor glitch and that was quickly circumvented.
Really the hardware and software have worked fine. I'd be more interested in seeing some reporter cover the people aspect of the mission, which I don't think has gone perfectly, but maybe with so many smart people involved couldn't have. Consider:
(1) Reporters early on asked how soon Opportunity would leave the crater it landed in to explore other areas. The scientists seemed to be unable to tear themselves away from those rocks and go topside and peek around. Had they done that they would have discovered several other outcrops like that in the area they characterized as flat an uninteresting. They could have always gone back into the crater, but it was almost as if they were afraid the rover would topple over on its way out and didn't want to run any risk. I wish they had been more open about this. Even Spirit spent way too much time hanging around its landing platform IMHO. Spirit had the misfortune of landing in a less interesting place than Opportunity. Still they spent days taking pictures of the lander. I think they could have done better by driving farther, sooner, and they'd bee almost to those hills by now.
(2) It was announced with great enthusiasm that the rover teams were going to "go to mars time" which meant each person would report to work during the Martian day for the rover they worked with and go home for the corresponding Martian night. Within a couple of weeks they were all complaining about how horrible this was. It's called jet-lag otherwise, but most of the staff seemed unable to cope with it. So why hadn't they experimented with that during the several years it took the rovers to get to Mars? It's almost as if they didn't actually expect both landers to land successfully, so they never bothered with the logistics that would be involved. Now, according to the last press conference they have had to re-invent their planning process so that more can be done during the Earth day and they seem willing to sacrifice some downtime for the rovers activities when the Martian day and Earth day don't coincide. At least that's the way it sounded to me.
(3) Personnel changes: The director of the mission (I forget his name) got promoted several weeks after the landings. Couldn't that have waited a few more months? I rather know how government works, and this promotion thing is just about all they think about, but why shuffle everyone around now? I would think maybe after both rovers had passed the 90 day mark would be a better time for any discretionary staff changes.
(4) Reporting to the public. It really started out great, with live video of the control center during both landings, daily press conferences and a great web interface for making pictures available to the public. But I really don't understand why you get different content if you go to http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ than when you go to http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html Seems clear to me the first one should just point to the second one. Looks like a case of dueling webmasters to me. But my real gripe is how quickly the coverage has scaled back. The press conferences went from daily, to 3 times a week, to once a week to every other week, and then turned away from raw information sharing to more dramatic presentations from the east coast. Other forms of communications rapidly tapered off too. For example the simple two minute long flight directors update is now much less frequent. At least the text based updates are still daily, almost. I've wondered whether this was more a burn-out issue or if public interest has dropped off that fast. In either case, Americans sure have a short attention span these days. You would wonder whether the expected "lifetime" of 90 days for the landers didn't almost
They tried to avoid contamination on the rovers too, didn't they?
I think you have an over-idealized view of human nature if you think discoving life on Mars will make a huge difference here on Earth.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
I don't know how much difference it will make, but it will certainly make a difference. Religions will have to adapt to explain it (of course, they won't admit they were every wrong though), which will probably be the biggest change.
Well, it depends. If that life is a few bacterias, then no, it won't make any difference here. On the other hand, if that life is a bunch of bloodthirsty technologically advanced aliens waking from a million-year hibernation and setting their sights on Earth... Then tadah, we now have a common enemy, and humanity will immediately unite since we now have better targets than each other for our homicidial tendencies.
This has nothing to do with idealism, it's simple survival. We root for ourselves first, our kin second, our tribe (nation) third, and humanity in general fourth. If we have no accomplishments of our own to feel pride over, then we are proud of our family/nation.
Nothing would pacify the world like an alien invasion.
And nothing will enrage humans more than competition. "How dare they take our jobs/homes/solar system !?! DIE ALIEN SCUM !!!"
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Maybe now that we're experts in Martian exploration we can send one of these to Iraq to finally find the WMDs or to SCO to locate the infringing code.
i always wonder how these people first decide the estimated lifetime of these probes? i mean is the factor of safety huge or something? literally everything that they throw into the space, if it survives the unit conversion mistakes made by the designers, outlives its expected short lifetime. i guess they keep their estimates VERY conservative... you can then celebrate once the probe/rover outlives your estimates!
Did anybody else notice the top-of-the-hour news announcement on Air America, I think, that the mission was extended and the probes would "remain on Mars"? Yup, I bet they will. Few things amuse me more than confused science reporting.
How are we honor-bound to help these African people? What specific responsibility do we have over their lives?
None, I suspect most will say. The reality of it is that we help them out of the kindness of our hearts. It doesn't do us any good nor make us look any better to anyone in the world. Its not going to stop a terrorist attack.
The only way to help many of the people in Africa is to destroy the despotic governments that profit from their suffering. Ask a Somalian or a Tutsi about the effect of despotic governments on their life.
Humankind.
"flaimbait" .. ?
*titter*
--- Stop the world! I want to get off!
Since when is northern Virginia an intemperate climate?
I think that is a little optimistic. How many religions have adapted to evolution?
Yeah, that's because both the German trivia master and the Japanese engineer are living in the USA and are working for innovative American companies and universities.
Or at least, they were back in the 20th century. Now the Department of Homeland Bureaucracy imposes vast amounts of red tape on foreign nationals. (Don't you dare go home to Germany for a visit - you might not be allowed back into the US.) Meanwhile, foreigners (as well as American citizens) can be imprisoned without trial. And the President has declared war on stem cell research.
I wonder which nation will become known for innovation in the 21st century?
Did you know Mars has peeps? ;)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Mars may provide the answers as to the beginnings of the earth and life itself.
"The country is full of ... corruption." "Go to ... China ..."
This is really funny. Just look at the one issue of corruption in China. Some of my friends who are professors in the US originally from China say that going back to China is really hard. They go back because of family and their kids get sick (for the entire trip), doctors expect/require bribes, everyone expects bribes, the pollution is terrible, the political leaders are a joke (i.e. they can violate the laws and nothing happens), etc. There are a lot of good things you can say about China but a lack of corruption is not one of them.
But in case anyone thinks you're serious, people should know that the purpose of this geological survey mission was to build a solid case for a *biological* survey mission.
If you have trouble understanding why that's important, think about the social, political, and scientific implications of finding separately-evolved life on Mars - hell, even finding that life came to Earth from Mars. That might be even *more* of a shocker.
This is extremely important work. Don't knock it.
+++ATH0
Call me crazy but I'd rather have socialized health care than know what rocks are on Mars...
I'll tell you how things could get really innovative. Instead of sending one little rover here, one little rover there, why not send many little rovers, each of which can, once on Mars, attach to the others, to form a really big rover. You don't have to send all the rovers at the same time. It's enough that you launch them so that when one runs out of power, the next one arrives, attaches to it, gives it more power, and continues to operate. Within 10 years, you'll have a huge rover the size of a building driving around with tons of equipment measuring everything. When people land on Mars, they could use this bigger rover as their temporary home, while additional materials are sent to build a big dome, which would house a big nature scene. It would work because it would be cool. It would cost trillions of taxpayer dollars.
..
You don't want socialized medicine.
Just research
4/5 Canadians are unhappy with their health care system.
Down in South West Florida, senior citizens come from germany, france, and canadia to have routine surgery done (like cataracts, and hip replacements.)
They pay out of pocket even though they are paying $2,000 a year in taxes for their "free" healthcare system because they have to weight months or even up to a year to get the surgery done for "free".
Simple economics tell us when something is free, demand increase, while supply decreses creating a shortage.
Please if you are really serious about wanting socailized medicine email me at modulation007@hotmaill.com, I'll send you a speech I just did on it for college.
What people don't realize is we would pay more in extra taxes for "free" medicine then you would, if you just bought private health insurance. Imagine paying a 36% tax rate. Thats what the germans doo.
I'll be interested to read the details of the nuclear powered Martian rover(s) planned for 2009
Can I ask what you did, what your major was, etc. before you got to work on this project? I really, really want to work in space operations and my original plan was to join the Navy, log some military high-performance jet flight time, then either get out and go to grad school or go to Naval War College for engineering. Unfortunately, the Navy idea has since been nixed and now I'm sort of floating around and not knowing what my next step should be.
I would just take the GRE and apply to grad schools (probably for Comp. E. or maybe AE), but I'm afraid that might be a little too directionless. Are there research assistantships available anywhere you know of that are looking for people and are willing to pay your way (or at least most of your way) through grad school? Basically I'd like to hear what path you took and what you think would be a good way to get started.
+++ATH0
Evolution is a theory to explain observations. Finding life on another planet is an observation that needs explaining. They are completely different issues.
Is NASA using Energizers?
"Simple words such as 'better' or 'faster' are best used by simpletons. Life [...] is more complicated." - TMC
It partly starts from conservative design practices: most of the time you don't have the option to go back and fix mistakes (Hubble is utterly anomalous in this respect). Reprogrammability is also a key element of enable remote reliability.
These conservative design practices almost automatically mean there's some usable, extendable margin on operation. Thus "pulling extended life out of a hat" is not as difficult as one might imagine, though the specifics of how it is achieved is generally not know at launch - unexpected things ultimately fail in flight and you figure out the workaround only when they happen - this Mars mission is a typically example.
Add to this the sociological and political needs to display "excellence, brilliance and inscrutable indispensability" and you have the climate for creating this as a fundamental cultural trait.
I used to be involved in space-related organizations for non-NASA programs. The same "miracles" always happened there too. :-)
What I would like to know is why didn't NASA put some sort of "panel cleaners" on the probes? Would that increase the cost so much? Does it make sense at all? I think it's a pity that a perfectly functional hardware dies because of dust on its surface!
Just a thought.
Remember that movie Silent Running? Or the tribute at the end of Babylon 5 to Silent Running where they blew up the station because of Navigational Hazards?
I was just wondering if there was a 'kill' switch or plans to Euthenasia the two rovers when they're crawling across the mars scape with a half productive wheel drive, or a crotchy old camera arm trying to fullfill their latest commands?
Its kinda sad..
When the Pioneers and Voyagers crawled across deep space with stiff fingers as it were.. they got a second chance.. and proved they could make it to Galactic frontier before going silent.
But on the other hand.. if they're never silenced.. will the martian rovers become the new Flying Dutchmen of mars? The Mary Celeste where future travelers will listen for whispers from corners of mars long since abandonned.. but pleas for new commands go unanswered?
Once every Summer season when the Sun rises in the murky Martian sky.. and the sandstorms have accidentally swept their solar panels clean.. will they wake like the Ghosts of Mars and call
home?
Sounds silly.. a martian Ghost story..
I'm sure NASA will carefully park them in some well known crater.. and generations from now they'll wind up in a Martian Smithsonian Annex exhibit near Gustave Crater.
- john
I believe Einstein, when asked why he got involved with physics, said, "It's all about the Benjamins!"
Yup, good ol' American greed is what drove every scientist to pursue their careers. That's why we have researchers earning seven figure incomes.
And who can forget the contributions of private companies like the DARPA corporation to the innovations in computer technology and the Internet.
Thank god none of the innovations we take for granted today were funded by governement programs. Or for that matter spearheaded by individuals and teams with detestible motivations like "selflessness", "persuit of knowledge for the sake of knowlege", or other commie beliefs.
No, we owe every advancement in science to the unmitigated greed of scientists everywhere.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
You've obviously never tried living here....
I wish these guys would help program the Windows OS. Just think how much more we could get out of it.
Actually I used to live in Falls Church. I've also lived in South Florida and I currently live in Georgia. Trust me, Northern Virginia is quite a bit more temperate during August. During the winter.....well that's another story all together.
...okay spelling is important but that's about it...
Actually, you should remember Thos. Jefferson's words, "I have nothing but contempt for a man you can spell a word in but one way."
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
For years and years, we've been saying that in the end, we're all the same no matter where we come from, we're all human beings. When it comes to space exploration, it can only be more true. We are not americans or canadians or french or japanese, we are earthlings.
Yes! Even just living in a different country (as I've done in moving to Japan from the US) really brings this point home. People, cultures are different--and that's good! variety is the spice of life and all that--but everybody shares the same basic needs and desires, if only people would realize it. We need more people in the world thinking like you.
Just one thing--I think "Terran" works better in English. "Earthling" reminds me of too many bad SF flicks . . .
Perhaps controling the world's resources (oil) to afford to launch such things into space is part of the reason this can be accomplished.