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Mars Rover Opportunity Still Stuck In a Dune

Posted by Zonk on from the lonely-little-guy dept.

Maddog Batty writes "The mars rover Opportunity, which has been stuck in a sand dune since the end of April, is still going nowhere after wheel spinning attempts were made to free the probe. It did manage to move a very short distance as can be seen in the difference between these two images. Before this attempt the NASA JPL team were playing in their own sandpit trying to replicate the conditions on Mars. (older coverage)"

18 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Late breaking news by Maddog+Batty · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is the first attempt to get out since it got stuck. Maybe I should have pointed this out in the article...

    --
    wot no sig
  2. Well, it's not a pit by Council · · Score: 5, Funny

    At least it's doing better than Spirit, which last I heard was sliding inexorably into an ominious pit of sand, where it will be slowly digested over a thousand years.

    --
    xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
  3. Re:stuck,, by bigjnsa500 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Maybe an underground water source? From those 2 pictures, the sand looks like wet beach sand.

    --
    This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
  4. Re:Er, thanks? by Council · · Score: 4, Insightful

    All those things are things that are to be expected.

    Just because a story contains the word "still" doesn't mean it's not news. If the president's plane still hasn't arrived, that's worth reporting. I don't know about you, but this is, to me and the people reading over my shoulder, the most interesting stories on the front page today.

    --
    xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
  5. Just a test by g00set · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to JPL's site the latest move was not an attempt to *free* the rover.

    "Opportunity rotated its wheels on sol 463 for the first time since the rover dug itself into a sand dune more than two weeks earlier. The wheels made about two and a half rotations, as commanded, and the results were a good match for what was expected from tests on Earth. In the loose footing, the rover advanced 2.8 centimeters (1.1 inch) forward, 4.8 millimeters (0.19 inch) sideways and 4.6 millimeters (0.18 inch) downward. After further analysis of the results, the rover team will decide whether to repeat the same careful movement again on sol 465."

    --
    ... and furthermore ... I don't like your trousers.
  6. Relax, it's far from doomed by thompson42 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The rover managers have successfully tested methods for extracting Opportunity from the sand. Principal investigator Steve Squyres has said all along that it will be a slow process:

    http://athena.cornell.edu/news/mubss/

  7. JPL Status report by spworley · · Score: 4, Informative

    Opportunity didn't move for two weeks because JPL is being properly conservative and haven't tried until they understood the situation. The first small movement command was given on May 14, and Opportunity moved about the way they expected.

    http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_oppo rtunityAll.html#sol464

  8. If only Spirit could help by ravenspear · · Score: 4, Funny

    In other news, a team of NASA's best psychologists is scheduled to hold a meeting where they will determine how to best break the news to Spirit that her brother may be nearing the end of his life.

    Mission planners at NASA are concerned about the consequences this could have. While they still want Spirit to remain functional and capable of scientific discovery, they are aware of the moral issues involved and have decided against keeping the news from her, fearing a backlash from the MCLU (Mars Civil Liberties Union).

    NASA administrator Michael Griffin released a statement saying the team is carefully weighing the choices and will continue striving to preserve Spirit's technical functionality and psychological stability. Should Spirit become too depressed over the impending demise of her brother and refuse to cooperate, there is talk of calling in a special favor from a nearby resident to cheer her back up. Apparantly Spirit has recently become infatuated with a local hunk named Marvin.

  9. The Mars Rover isn't really stuck in a dune... by consumer_whore · · Score: 5, Funny

    NASA is just practicing to be on http://www.carstuckgirls.com/

    1. Re:The Mars Rover isn't really stuck in a dune... by rich_r · · Score: 5, Funny

      Possibly the finest example of a niche market I have ever seen!

  10. I've skimmed TFA's, but... by tunabomber · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I still have this question: if they do manage to get it free, how long until it just gets stuck again?

    From the pictures it looks like Opportunity is entering a Martian dune sea, which will offer many more opportunities (npi) to get stuck once more. Do they have a plan to identify/avoid soft spots like this one in the future?

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    pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory71 ...
    1. Re:I've skimmed TFA's, but... by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Informative

      They have a plan.

      The rover got stuck because they are driving over a series of long ridges in the sand. These ridges are in rows that run mostly along one direction. The rover was originally expecting these ridges to be solid and it drove straight perpendicular across them. Unfortunately they are not as solid so it got stuck.

      Once they get the rover un-stuck, they will instruct it to move parallel to the ridges, and to weave in between them when possible to make forward progress. It will be slow, but it should minimize the chances of getting stuck again.

    2. Re:I've skimmed TFA's, but... by ScottMaxwell · · Score: 4, Informative
      I still have this question: if they do manage to get it free, how long until it just gets stuck again?

      That's an excellent question, and the short answer is, we don't know. We crossed about 4km of this stuff uneventfully before we encountered the current dune (BTW, it's technically a ripple, not a dune), and we aren't completely sure what makes this one different from the rest.

      I've been a little out of the loop, since I switched back to Spirit a few weeks before the Ripple Event, but I followed some of the email traffic as best I could. Last I saw, the working hypothesis was something to this effect: this ripple just happened to be a little taller and steeper than normal, and we just happened to be gaining a little elevation anyway (so we were at a greater tilt than normal) when we came across it.

      I don't think there are yet any particular guidelines about avoiding them, but as you might expect, there's a team working on it.

      The two basic possible explanations seem to be geometry (which I touched on above) and material. Someone threw out the idea that we can tell "dangerous" ripples from the regular kind by their albedo -- possibly, hazardous (fluffy) ripples are made of lighter dust and are therefore brighter. But I don't know whether that idea gained any traction. To my eyes, the ripple we're on didn't look particularly brighter than many others we've crossed without incident, but I didn't do any systematic analysis, so I can't really say.

      My impression is that geometry is the leading candidate explanation, and if that proves to be the case, our guidelines will likely include evaluating every sol's traverse path for hazardous geometry. If we can't tell the rover how to avoid them itself, it might also mean no more autonav drives (where we let the rover find its own way), which would significantly slow our progress. But then, so would getting into another of these ripples.

      This is all still a work in progress, though. Just remember, this is why we call it "exploration"!

      --

      ``Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators.'' -- Richard Dawkins
  11. Call AAA by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nasa: Hello, my rover is stuck in a dune.

    AAA: Where is the dune?

    Nasa: On mars.

    AAA: What is the make and model of the vehicle?

    Nasa: It's a rover.

    AAA: What color?

    Nasa: Grey.

    AAA: What is the license plate?

    Nasa: It does not have a license plate.

    AAA: I'm sorry, if you don't have a license plate, we can't send out a tow truck. [click].

    --
    Fight Spammers!
  12. Article Correction by Chokai · · Score: 4, Informative

    The drive that you are seeing in these images that supposedly did not get the rover out of the dune is in reality a short test drive performed on Sol 463. The response from the rover was roughly what was expected by the MER engineers as you can read on the JPL site.

    Considering that the wheels spun the equivalent of a 60 meter drive when they got stuck in the first place. (according to Dr. Albert Haldemann, Deputy Project Scientist for MER) they anticipate a fair amount of driving/spinning to get out. Also obviously if thier testing at JPL was wrong they did not want to worsen the situation to the point of no return on thier first try.

  13. Re:Well... by jfengel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Alternatively, we can send up another rover. It's way cheaper than getting a human being all the way to Mars alive. And we don't have to worry about bringing it back.

    So yeah, when you say that "the 2 things holding us back are price and safety," those aren't two little things. They're the whole ball game. For the price of sending a human to Mars we could send scores, perhaps hundreds, of rovers, with zero risk to human life. No, we don't learn as much, but it means that when we do finally send humans they go fully prepared.

  14. Here I am, a brain the size of a planet... by Greyfox · · Score: 4, Funny

    And I'm stuck in this sand dune. (Spins wheels fruitlessly) and my solar collectors are getting dusty again. And I have this terrible pain down the diodes in my right side...

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  15. Or maybe...... by reality-bytes · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Or maybe it is stuck in fine, granular and very dry sand which would perhaps be even worse than wet sand.

    Every time you try to move, the sand is quickly displaced so the vehicle stays put.

    Its a shame they can't use the trick from Ice cold in Alex where they put it in reverse (lowest gear) and move it using the starting handle as not to displace the sand too quickly.

    Of course, this would rely on:

    A) Opportunity having a starting handle.
    B) A friendly passing Martian offering to wind it.

    --
    Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.