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Mars Rover Opportunity Working Free
VernonNemitz writes "As previously reported, the Mars rover Opportunity ran into more sand (or finer material) than it was designed to handle. While initial attempts to escape may not have accomplished much, the most recent efforts seem to imply that the plucky machine is going to succeed at getting away."
Clamped by Martians.
I guess moving 7.4 centimetres is better than nothing :) It's good they didn't give up on the rover... I'd like to say they've really gotten their moneys worth with these guys, but it's hard to measure the economic payback of the whole "mars exploration" thing... it's more of a long-term investment.
I store my recipes online (the way nature intended)
This is the obligatory middle so they can post a story tomorrow about how it is totally stuck again.
Frylock: "We should have cloned twenties, Jackson wouldn't have given a fuck."
This is great news... The rovers have been going on WAAY beyond their intended lifespan... Maybe we all can learn from the excellent design/descipline that the Engineers used to create these wonders!
"I guess ... 7.4 centimetres is better than nothing"
Yeah, that's what your girlfriend said!!!
It was easy, they just had to tell it that it could see R2D2 at the local cinema.
lexbaby
"Be Brave, Be Loyal, Be True." -- Hawkeye Pierce
Am I the only one who thinks NASA / JPL needs to outsource the next rovers to a Monster Garage* build team?
*Monster Garage is a reality show on The Discovery Channel in which a team of professional and hobbyist mechanics build a vehicle related contraption in 5 days.
SPIRIT UPDATE: Spirit Observing 'Reef' - sol 477-482, May 17, 2005
Spirit remains in excellent health. On sols 477, 478 and 479 (May 7 to May 9, 2005), Spirit made observations with remote-sensing instruments and analyzed soil targets with its alpha particle X-ray spectrometer and Mössbauer spectrometer. Spirit then performed a short drive to a target called "Keel," on the outcrop called "Jibsheet." On sol 481, Spirit was able to begin observing a target called "Reef," using the microscopic imager and performing a 16-hour integration with the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer. On sol 482 (May 12), Spirit continued work on Reef with instruments on the robotic arm, and performed a 21-hour integration with the Mössbauer spectrometer.
Spirit's total odometry as of May 12, 2005, is 4,341.19 meters (2.70 miles).
Spirit Update Archive
OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Progress Inch-by-Inch for Opportunity - sol 465-466, May 17, 2005
On Opportunity's first three drives to get out of the sand trap, the rover has advanced a total of 7.4 centimeters (2.9 inches) in getting off the dune. Each of the first two drives -- one on sol 463 and one on sol 465 -- turned the wheels about two and a half rotations, enough to drive two meters (7 feet) if there were no slippage. Images from the hazard-avoidance cameras taken during the drives show that some of caked powder adhering to wheels between cleats had come off. The team was encouraged by the results, and decided go ahead with a 4-meter (13-foot) commanded drive for sol 466.
Sol-by- sol summaries:
Sol 465 (May 15, 2005): Opportunity rotated its wheels in a series of 10 steps, each step enough to roll 20 centimeters (7.9 inches) if there were no slippage. The wheels are slipping a great deal in the sand of the dune, but the rover advanced better than anticipated from simulated tests, covering 1.9 centimeters (0.7 inch). The rover used its panoramic camera for observations of the sky and dunes.
Sol 466 (May 16, 2005): Results from the sol 465 drive were good (some wheel cleats are clean and the rover is making forward progress), so the team commanded a drive that, if there were no slippage, would roll 4 meters (13 feet), consisting of ten 40-centimeter (16 inch) steps. Opportunity gained an additional 2.7 centimeters (1.1 inch). The panoramic camera made more observations of the atmosphere and dunes.
This is a shinning example that meticulous work and systematic thinking eventually gets the job done, even if it sounds boring and even if a "quick fix" seems really sexy
Good Job NASA.
They should have packed a trunk monkey on the rover. Even if he could only hold his breath for 30 seconds, he would have plenty of time to pull the rover out and still be able to squeegie the solar panels clean.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Just do like Homer and drive off with the clamp/boot still attached to the tire.
Eventually of course, something will happen to make a rover unusable, but it is interesting that the rovers have lasted this long.
dtach - A tiny program that emulates the detach feat
Maybe it's becuse it's a Friday afternoon following a long week... but wouldn't it be fun to sneak up to Mars and plays some jokes on the JPL guys? Wait for them to go to bed each night and move the rover 10 feet.
Is it time to go home yet?
Oh great! There goes the economy! If they're working free it's going to lower the bar on wages for the rest of us! How's a guy supposed to afford a gold-plated Ferrari when the rovers are working free?
Customer: "help, im stuck in a sand dune"
OnStar: "ok, you seem to be off our GPS grid for some reason, can you tell me where you are?"
Customer: "mars"
OnStar: "......."
Customer: "hello?"
OnStar: "just, uh, keep spinning your tires..."
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
It is a terrible shame when quite unbelievable stuff goes on, and is treated as mundane.
To me, being born before the space race, man on the moon etc., this is still fascinating. Why current the current generation is interested in the slightest, I don't know.
What all these guys are doing was totally unthinkable 20 years ago.
Lets hope we will get another 20 years when the next generation filter through.
So you say.
You may disagree with how the government spends your money, but at least NASA has to work for its pay.
This differs greatly from welfare, where you get paid for not working.
Wake me up when welfare recipients contribute half the science NASA does.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Hey zplork, looks like that funny car has a problem again.
What, solar panels dirty again? We just cleaned them last week!
Naw, it's stuck in the sand.
Fuggit - let AAA* take car of it!
(*AAA - Aries Automobile Association).
www.eFax.com are spammers
Trying to make fun of someone on slashdot by mentioning he has a girlfriend?
I think you should reconcider this course of action...
Doubling the components more than doubles the probability of a fault developing, so that's really a Bad Idea, although it sounds good at first. What would be better would be a way for system components to repair themselves (therefore making spare parts unnecessary), and for components to be over spec by enough of a margin that potential situations are within the design tolerences, rather than so close to the limits.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Not necessarily - a raid 1 (mirror) disk is much more reliable than a single disk, and it's exactly double the components - you're spreading the risk. By having two independant robot arms, each one is as likely to fail as having just one, but you still have a working arm. What you're talking about is double the complexity in a single system - I'm talking about fault tolerant redundancy.
Actually the whole point of my suggestion is just to have a more flexible platform for the ground team to work up solutions with, whatever form it might take. They seem to be pretty good at it, often going beyond the design limitations. Think of what they can accomplish with designed in freedom to reconfigure the mission while it's in progress??
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Sounds like the John Varley novel "Red Thunder", in which a magic power source removes any weight concerns WRT spaceflight payloads, and the first people on Mars are able to take along an actual hopped-up pickup truck to cruise around the dunes of mars.
6. Audible Alarm (not shown)
-from a Cuisinart product owner's manual.
Please note that the last report is from May 16. That is four whole days ago. There are some images of three days ago. I guess they haven't made any substantial progress in the past days. To me it seems that they did go backwards a little, but there are also signs that some of the wheels are digging in. And they are still not out of the track. I wonder if they will ever manage to get out of them. It seems to me that the top layer of the sand was actually a little stronger than the stuff below it, and I wonder whether they will be able to get on top of it again. I guess that there is still a substantial chance that Opportunity will not get out, and that this is going to be the resting place of the rover. And mind you, that does not mean the end of science work. There is still much to learn from the daily remote sensing operations. And of course, they will make every attempt to get the rover moving again. Time is on their side.
Sir Clive's "Great Idea" was to use wafer-scale integration to produce massive redundancy of any given electronic component, and then use filesystem/networking techniques for marking bad regions and routing round them. What you'd end up with is a chip that could take massive punishment and survive physical destruction of even large portions of the surface.
That would cover electronic systems, and mechanical systems could be duplicated with some sort of tie-in. For example, if joint A on robot arm A fails, and arm B is physically linked, then you can use joint A on arm B as a stand-by.
If, then, joint B on arm B failed, you could still use joint B on arm A, for the same reason, giving you fail-over at the component level, not the device level.
That would be something that NASA should definitely explore, and schemes like it, as ways to improve the flexibility and durability of the hardware it launches.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You mean:
"watch that mother burn silicon dioxide", which is in fact 'burnt' already, and wouldn't burn any more in the thin martian atmosphere.
Sorry for sucking the fun out of that one...
-=test-sig_0.1.5(NoWhitespaceVersion)=-
Actually, I believe both missions together cost only $800 million.
A mere pittance...especially when you consider all the "techno-wood*" that has been generated so far. God know how many geekitos and geekitas have been conceived since mission start.
*Techno-wood is copyleft 2005 NoseBag. Use it at your own peril. I did.
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.