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Rovers May Survive Martian Winter
yokem_55 writes "According to this article on Yahoo News, Mars rover engineers are beginning to consider the possibility that the rovers may be able to survive the oncoming Martian winter in a hibernation mode, and then return to activity when spring returns to the red planet. The article ends with a quote from Steve Squires speculating that, 'we're looking at the final demise of these vehicles perhaps as late as the onset of our second winter on Mars.'"
Why wouldn't this work in the first place, a couple of solar cells and you're good to go?
I'm probably missing something.
Always nice to see the reminder that NASA can do great fucking engineering when the mission is properly separated from politics.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
They were never designed to last past April. Both rovers are already well past their life expectancies.
Does anyone else get the feeling that the rovers were actually designed to last this long, but the lifespan that was published was a PR version that was extraordinarily short, so that in the event the rovers didn't last this long, they could save having to answer questions?
Plus if it worked to spec, they could spin it up like this now, saying it lasted way beyond spec?
Anyway, I'm not complaining, it's good that the rovers are still healthy and are expected to last longer.. it's way overdue.
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
Just a question I am curious about: given that the problem of dust buildup degrading the operation of the solar panels was anticipated, was there no way of incorporating some cleaning mechanism?
It is utterly inhumane to send them to Mars without building a hut for it to hibernate through the winter.
Dude! it is a robot!
IT FUCKING FLEW THROUGH MILLIONS OF MILES OF SPACE.
They're NASA, you're just some chump behind a computer.
Lets just hope they park them somewhere out of the worst of the weather. Oh, and that they remembered to pack the jump leads.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
As a system admin/engineer/operater etc etc, the wait for something to come up again, and seeing something like the following is a nice and satisfying feeling:
.......
Rover>ping -t mars_rover
Pinging mars_rover with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Reply from 192.168.1.2: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.2: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.2: bytes=32 time=6ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.2: bytes=32 time=6ms TTL=64
Ping statistics for 192.168.1.2:
Packets: Sent = 9, Received = 4, Lost = 5 (55% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 6ms, Average = 3ms
It seems that with many recent NASA missions they greatly underestimate the capabilities and timelines , then act like something is a great big bonus if it actually outlasts or outperforms the underestimated goal.
Sure... this is one way to make sure people are not disappointed, because if you always tell people the lowest goal then they'll only be overjoyed if it does any better... but is this the new way forwards?
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These things are engineered to last a certain ammount of time, as component specifications are generally conservative equipment will often last longer than it was designed for.
Take the voyager 2 probe, this was launched with the intent of exploring Jupier and Saturn. But they managed to extend the mission out to both Neptune and Uranus.
Of course they thought about these posibilities, they chose the launch date such that they could continue their slingshot in that direction :-)
But found that with all of the weight constraints, it was easier to simply have larger panels than they needed. I heard about it on an interview over on NPR.
I know i'm asking for the imposible here, but couldn't you have read the article first before asking us to spend time telling you things that are already in the article? WTF makes our time so cheap, and you so precious that we have to digest this short article for you so you dont have to read it!
Anyhow to awnser your question, allow me to quote the article: "Part of the wintering over strategy will involve positioning the rovers to soak up as much continuous sunlight, even as the Sun moves low in the martian sky, Bell said. Secondly, the robots are to be oriented so that communications links with orbiters zipping overhead is maximized, he pointed out."
In otherwords, they will go into low power mode, but not be switched off, and hopefully be positioned so that they wont loose communication for very long, if ever
Even though I RTFA, I still don't know when spring will come on Mars. If I remember correctly the Martian year is about twice as long as Earth's year (or was it?). But what about the seasons?
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
A-ha. I thought they were concerned that the winter temperature may be too harsh for the rovers (wouldn't space be colder than the surface of mars? Notwithstanding direct sunlight). However the article mentions: "Right now, we're seeing a pretty sharp drop off in solar power on both vehicles. That's a consequence of both the onset of winter and declining solar power because of the dust build-up" So wiat until spring when hopefully everything will fire up with more solar power.
Maybe they were made by Toyota?
On a more serious note I remember reading that after a certain amount of time in this extended mission they would have shut the rovers down because they didn't have the money to keep the control room going, but I guess as they're talking about keeping them going longer still I'd hope they've been able to find a bit more cash
should have wings so they can fly south in the winter and then back again in spring.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Hey tell Nasa that to survice the winters on mars they only have to get some guy to go into the mountain where the alien machine is placed. But your hand on some funny looking device with a hand holder thing. once your hand goes in the hand holder thing the machine will melt all the stored ice and create an atmosphere.
Duh!!
You would think they would have seen "Total Recall" already, what have they been doing?
I wonder if the Martians will think they're some kind of strange tortoise, and put them away in a cardboard box?
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
As one who actually works on the mars program (orbiters, though, not the rovers), I can tell you that MANY different options were considered. Most weighed enough that you'd have to sacrifice instrumentation to implement them, however, and as the nominal mission was only nintey days, it was decided that more guaranteed science results during that period were preferable to uncertian return during the extended mission.
The best idea I've heard so far for dust removal was to use electrostatic forces to make it all jump off, but for similar reasons this was not flown either.
When I read this, the first thing to pop into my mind was the theme song from Gilligan's Island: "A three hour tour..."
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So, here's the problem.
NASA does astronomy. To be very blunt and honest, astronomy provides very few concrete short-term benefits.
Most people think in the very short term when it comes to deciding who should get money -- and when politicians are strapped for cash for a project, NASA is always a likely source of money to divert.
As a result, it's always an uphill battle for NASA's research to get funded.
This is why NASA spends so much effort marketing what they have done -- for instance, providing free, beautiful pictures that consist entirely of false-color images that have been tweaked by hand to look attractive...they're more a credit to the artistic nature of the postprocessors than to the people doing the research itself.
One major problem is mission failures. The response to NASA getting mission failures appears to be a counterintuitive "cut their budget". My guess is that when positive public opinion and awareness of NASA goes up (as with successful missions), NASA's likelihood of getting funding increases markedly.
So all NASA has to do is make significant public underestimates of their mission potentials. That way, after completing, say, 10% of their expected work, they can announce that the mission "is a success". When the mission finally does end, the media can crow about how it "vastly exceeded anyone's wildest imaginations", and make public lots of hand-retouched images.
That doesn't mean I disapprove of what they're doing. I like seeing basic research being funded, and I don't think that there's a really good alternative method for NASA to get money.
It does mean, however, that it's *very* unlikely that this is an off-the-cuff decision by an engineer at NASA. It's a good bet that they have pre-made strategies for dealing with dust, extreme temperature change, power loss, signal loss, failure of particular systems, etc.
May we never see th
You gotta give these people credit.
Not only did they build a robot that flew millions of miles through space, survived a crazy landing, and has held up in alien terrain, but now they're extending the life of the robot long past what it's meant.
Those original engineers must be thrilled to see the robots lasting this long.
Props to NASA
The greatest experience we can have is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein
A few weeks back the guys over at Car Talk had a call from a guy who wanted some advice on how to properly prepare his vehicle for winter.
They asked him what type of car it was, he said it was a kit car. "How much did the kit cost?" they asked. "Oh, about 450 million dollars." replied the caller.
Yes, an engineer from JPL was calling to get some tongue-in-cheek advice on what to do to keep the rovers safe over the martian winter.
It was pretty cool.
He took a duck to the face at 250 knots.
Am I the only geek here that heard the Guys from the JPL call into Car Talk to ask how to winterize the rovers? That was classic! Talk about Stump the Chumps. I think it's the first time I've ever really heard Ray flustered.
What if it is just turtles all the way down?
NASA also used to historically "overbuild" these machines to as much of a degree as they possibly could too, within the bounds of such parameters as launch weight, power consumption, budget, etc. Surely these "overbuilt" qualities are a significant factor in the machines' ability to far exceed their original intended missions.
Nowadays, the beancounters have much more say over the engineers, and the "overbuilding" is done to a much lesser degree.
NASA does a ton of incredibly good things to encourage science and technology.
They supported over 30 FIRST teams when I was in FIRST - I would bet they support more now. Look at the link, it's an incredible program. If possible, get your company or school involved in it. FIRST was one of the best experiences of my career.
Note: FIRST stands for:
For
Inspiration and
Recognition of
Science and
Technology
Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but copyright will always protect me.
Should know that underscores are forbidden in hostnames...
I believe the segment in question can be found here. It's in real audio, hoorah.
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dupe comment, i know. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=110501&cid=93