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Opportunity Rover Arrives at Endurance Crater
Mean_Nishka writes "After weeks of driving, the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has arrived at 'Endurance Crater.' It's a scientific treasure trove with an extensive outcrop of layered bedrock, and scientists will have to decide whether or not to send Opportunity inside for a closer inspection without getting it stuck forever - there's more information via a Monterey Herald/AP article."
On a side note, I don't understand the design of these rovers. Seems like they're dangerously flippable. If that happens, they're pretty much junk, right? Do they have any way of correcting themselves if one tread climbs up onto a rock and it tips over?
:)
I think you've been watching too many episodes of robot wars where a robot gets flipped over and becomes helpless!
The rovers don't have a self-righting mechanism, but they might be able to do something with the instrument arm. NASA has done extensive testing of the rovers to determine the performance envelope.
The rovers don't move very fast, and with the cameras they can accurately map the terrain in 3D to avoid trouble spots.
Why not have 5 or 6 treads around the center and have the middle gyroscopiclly right itself?
They are limited by size & weight, and they want to carry lots of scientific instruments - that's the tradeoff they had to make. Given that the rovers have greatly exceeded their expected lifespan, I think the designers did a great good job.
On a side note, I don't understand the design of these rovers. Seems like they're dangerously flippable. If that happens, they're pretty much junk, right? Do they have any way of correcting themselves if one tread climbs up onto a rock and it tips over? Why not have 5 or 6 treads around the center and have the middle gyroscopiclly right itself?
Interesting point, and one which sendt me looking all over the web for pictures of planetary rovers. Seems like pretty much every rover we (ie, humans) have sendt out there is built on the same principles - wheels, no autoerect feature, seemingly hight center of gravity. So, I'm forced to conclude, they picked this particular design because it works.
It is, when talking about spacecraft, worth remembering that they are designed down - down to a volume to fit the launcer, down to a weight to be able to get where it's going, and down to a budget to get it of the ground in the first place.
Perhaps a tracked, selfrighting rover with wrap around tracks (like the early british tanks of WWI) would be a better design to use on Mars... but since it isn't used I'll hazard a guess that it's either not as suited as it may appear, or it may be too bulky, too heavy and too expencive.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
What I want is to hear Mars. Does anybody know why one of the least resource consuming sensors - a microphone - has never been sent to the surface?
Ok, so maybe all you'd hear is incessant whistling of wind. Maybe Mars makes wierd noises, like the barking sands in the desert.
But for a $0.25 mic, we'll never know.
If you look at the driving plan thus far and at the surroundings, you see that endurance crater is pretty much the only big interesting feature in the area. Also, given the finite life of the rovers (extended design life is 180 days?) there must come an end some time. The rovers seem to operate perfectly right now, but i believe that the thermal cycling of the batteries is a definite show-stopper in a couple of months. Considering this, i think it is a fair gamble to drive into the crater with the risk of never coming out. If you do you might get some very interesting data on all the deep soil layers. By the time you would get out you are almost dead anyhow.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]