Slashdot Mirror
Opportunity Rover Encounters Its Own Heat Shield
blamanj writes "Mars Rover Opportunity, a few meters shy of the 2km mark on its odometer, has come across the remains of the heat shield from its landing. This map traces the path of the rover for the past 11 months. It's been averaging about 6 meters/sol.
Spirit, which had to stop to dislodge a rock, is still climbing the "Columbia Hills". It's tough going, and Spirit experiences slippage of up to 80% as it climbs the hills."
Since I assume that they would not know the precise location of the shield, it must have been quite a moment when the thing first slewed into view. It's a bitch getting that Mountain Dew out of the keyboard, isn't it?
"...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
The crushed-body of an evidently indigenous species was found sprawled in the impact zone of the heat shield....
That stuff is gonna be worth a lot of money some day, when a kid digs it up in their back yard. On Mars. You know, after we all move there.
"It's tough going, and Spirit experiences slippage of up to 80% as it climbs the hills."
Sounds a bit like trying to get out of Gehennom with the amulet.
From the article;
"A potato-sized rock got caught in Spirits's right rear wheel on sol 339"
Come *on* NASA. Potatos vary so wildly in size that comparisons like this are totally useless!
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
They already knew where the heat shield was. They had a picture from the Mars Orbiter camera that let them know exactly how far away it was. There's actually been several pictures. I forget how long ago they knew, but they've known for some time where it was.
I don't think anyone thought either rover would last this long, so it's only now that they get around to looking at it.
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
Not at all.
The rovers are astonishing in what they can do, but a human would dramatically outpace them. What it might take a rover an entire day to do, a human could do in a 30-45 seconds.
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
It's not often that we get a chance to examine the integrity of the remaining heat shield in these missions. Let it take a look and see what JPL guys can learn from it for future missions, eh?
It will be interesting to see how much sand has been blown over the shield in almost a year. Might give more insights into Martian weather.
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
Lutefisk is a disgusting Norwegian dish, think of it as fish jell-o. You take some perfectly good pieces of dried fish (yuck) and soak them in lye (yes, really!) for 24 hours. Then you soak the fish in fresh water for 48 hours, before putting it in a pan and letting it simmer for about 20 minutes. Finally you wrap the fish in aluminium foil and bake in the oven at 200C for 30-40 minutes.
The result is a quivering mass of translucent, inedible fish that is served with potatoes, bacon, mashed peas and melted butter (or melted pork fat).
Now, what I want to know is, how did that disgusting dish of spoiled fish end up as the (informal) name of a rock on Mars?
And remember kids: Never trust a computer you can actually lift.
There's also a divot where the heat shield bounced. With any luck, it dug into the Martian surface far deeper than Opportunity could dig. This will give them a chance to examine what's underneath the surface layer - they hope.
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
After the heat shield, what will Opportunity look at?... Are there scientific targets identified, or are they maybe going to try to "sprint" Opportunity and see how far it can get in the shortest amount of time?
I have the NASA rover plans right here, and the schedule is as follows:
1. explore Endurance crater (complete)
2. examine discarded heat shield (complete)
3. run rover for endurance trials
4. sprint rover (you called it)
5. race rover
6. jump rover
7. make rover do acrobatic tricks
8. crash rover
9. profit
- 1 Opportunity
- P Pancam
- 155450047 Number of seconds since Jan 1, 2004 at 11:58::55.816. (works out to Sol 307)
- Data product full frame EDR
That sort of stuff. I lost interest at that point.And no, I've not heard any comments on this picture yet. There are other pictures with frost, but water would be puzzling on the Martian surface at that pressure and temperature.
I'm pretty sure they'd have mentioned a leak in the Opportunity's radiator.
.... .. .... ..
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
It's quite far away. Keeping in mind that the entire distance the rover has traveled is about 2km, if the beagle probe was only 10km away (really, really, really close in planetary terms), it would still most likely be "out of reach". And even if we could get to it, what would we do? Poke at it with the rock abrasion tool?
Parent forgot to post where the pictures are, go to:
C:\My Documents\My Pictures\Mars Rover Mission
You'll find them there.
The "90 days" was certainly something they expected - maybe even double that. But they also knew that the Martian winter was coming up and that Mars would go behind the Sun, causing Earth to lose contact with the rovers for a number of days.
I think they were really surprised both rovers made it through the Martian winter. That Opportunity is actually back up to the normal output for the solar panels is a welcome surprise.
Spirit doesn't seem to be doing nearly as well. There's problem with the lubrication of the wheels, the brakes may not be releasing - or the circuit that detects them releasing has gone bad, and the dust accumulation on the solar panels has taken it's toll.
There might be more wrong with the Spirit rover, but even I've been skipping some of the updates on the web site.
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
I don't think anyone thought either rover would last this long
I was at a presentation by one of the members of the rover science teams six weeks ago.
If there are no surprises, he was talking about the rovers possibly lasting till June or July. By that time, he was suggesting that the rover's batteries would no longer be able to hold enough charge to keep the things operating.
For a while they had been expecting that the solar panels would fail first, but apparently the rate of dust accumulation is less than they expected. (Plus "martian carwash" events seem to have cleared off some of the dust. He felt such events were probably caused by dust devils that happened to cross over the rover.)
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
The sun is named Sol. A "sol" is what we calls days except a sol is longer. Mars doesn't rotate as quickly as Earth thus making the days longer. Apparently the guys at JPL felt funny about making the "day" longer than the traditional 24 hours we experience here on Earth. They even began sleeping according to Martian sols.
What is your penile percentile?
I know it isn't going to happen due to the distances involved, but I'd love it if one of these rovers (or one of the rovers to follow...) were to come across Viking I and/or II. It would be interesting to see how they have withstood the test of time in the last 28 years since their landing. I imagine there is quite a bit of useful science that could be conducted, as both are known variables from nearly 30 years ago, and we have a lot of data from them about their surroundings.
At the same time, Viking I and Viking II are two of the extraterrestrial missions I have early memories of. I was three when they landed, and continued transmitting data until I was nine. So these are old friends I wouldn't mind revisiting.
The current missions aren't close enough to either one to make it, but maybe a future mission will give up a glimpse of these past heroes. One can hope :).
Yaz.
This has been pointed out before:
The cameras used on the rovers have wide sensitivity to the whole visible light spectrum + more than just a bit on each side. Greyscale cameras are more useful when doing science. You plunk a variety of filters over it (I think they have 9?) and you can 'see' from UV down to infra-red.
"Simple" Red+Green+Blue cameras are a poor equivalent in comparison. For example, different minerals are clearly visible at certain wavelengths. Your "standard" colour camera will have a hard time picking out a mineral if it reflects light somewhere between red and green, where a specific filter on the greyscale camera can highlight it without trouble. To drastically simplify a whole heap-o-science, imagine a colour camera with Red+Green+Blue PLUS IR+Yellow+UV+Orange+Purple+Pink sensors. That's what's on the rovers.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.