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Mars Rover Breaks Free
QuantumFTL writes "According to an MSNBC story Opportunity, the same rover that scored an interplanetary hole-in-one, has broken free of an interplanetary sand trap. The MER science operations mailing list was abuzz this morning with the news, as soon as the first rear hazcam image indicating success came down. Engineers were praised for working long nights and weekends to make this extrication possible. Good job, NASA!"
To simulate martian gravity, which is a third of Earth's, experimenters stripped one of the test rovers of two-thirds of its weight
Soon, the Opportunity team was ready for action. On May 11, Pasadena commanded the rover to straighten its wheels. Two days later, Pasadena ordered those wheels to rotate 2.5 times, or about 80 inches.
Since then, Opportunity has moved forward an average of 0.5% of the total distance that its wheels have rotated. That comes to 1.1 feet ahead out of 213 feet spun.
I'm really not trying to be a troll here, but I'm wondering: What was the rush? Sure, this needed to get done, but why the need to work extra-long hours to do it? What would have happened if it took an extra month or two? (I read the article linked to with the text 'engineers were praised' and was not enlightened)
Now I'll know who to call next time my car gets stuck in the snow this winter.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
To think...being able to wiggle out a remote control vehicle with no one near it...all I can say is Wow!
"C++ is to C as Lung Cancer is to Lung"
and was last seen heading for the border.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
This would have been a first post, but my packets got stuck in the router dunes and only now managed to free themselves!
if it gets stuck back in the sand tomorrow? It sorta would, in that schadenfreude way.
Anyway, I hope it doesn't, and props to the team for not giving up on it.
I bet there's some scientists who'll be wanting the rover to reverse back a bit - it looks like they've dug the deepest trench yet on Mars, and I wouldn't be surprised if they've already done risk assesments regarding getting the rover to peer in with its instruments... ;-)
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
is that they were so busy looking at the rear hazcam that they didn't see the giant water trap right in front of them.
Rove little rover, rove like the wind!
--Residential Interior Design
The rovers were supposed to run for 90 days, but they have been running for over almost 18 months. No one is sure when they're going to break down from dust and other long term problems, so it's a good idea to get as much info out of them as possible.
They could probably add or improvise something simple for later rover models to help get out of this situation? Sandbags...or maybe the wheels could lock and 'walk' out.
Rechargeable batteries cease to work. Solar panels get scratched and clogged by sand. Sand gets into the parts and joints. Did I mention this thing is basically sitting in a big pile of sand? Okay. Now did I mention that Mars, as a planet, is prone to really nasty windstorms?
Every second that passes is one second closer to the point at which this rover simply ceases to function. Until that point comes, we want to get absolutely as much use out of it as possible.
What I can't understand is, why didn't "management" come in and screw this all up? How could something that was supposed to last only for 90 days last for 18 months? Seems like with most things, if they are supposed to last for 90 days, they MIGHT make it to 93 or 94 days.
My hats off to the engineers. I wish I worked at a place like that.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
Why have we been wasting time with rockets when there's a (semi solid) interplanetary sandtrap we could travel on. Not to mention that it can not be that far when they managed to hit a golfball over it in one shot. Afterall the summary said that they scored an interplanetary hole-in-one.
Look a monkey!
If there was any question about Earthlings being the rednecks of the universe, that image of us rootin' up the martian surface oughta clear it up.
Lock the hubs and put 'er in low lock. YEE HAH!!
Me thinks it needs some fine tuning. Unless I have misunderstood the whole Red Hat thing.
------------
Red Hat Ladies
Elegant red hats, Victorian styles, ostrich plumes, bustles and more!
www.emilyway.com
Good old American Ingenuity. I am as unhappy with Bush et al as the next libertarian, but I can not help feel a sense of pride when, from hundreds of thousands of miles away, our space agency is able to free this stuck vehicle. All of this is incredible, and I am looking forward to the day when, like on the moon, I see the Stars and Stripes planted in the Martian soil.
It's only designed to work for X number of days. After that it might fall apart and they know it.
Mars has huge dust storms, it's freezing cold, the solar panels are getting scoured by the elements etc. If they don't get it out now, they might not get a second chance.
W00t!W00t!
Everybody knows that in situations like that you're supposed to KEEP MOVING for a long ways after freeing yourself so that you don't sink back into similar muck nearby, but those nerds apparently missed that life lesson. :)
Power to the Peaceful
Was it a bolt of mars lightning that did the trick?
" as soon as the first rear hazcam image indicating success "
Am I the only one who read that as "rear asscam" ?
i must be the only person here who cannot believe we have a vehicle on another planet! Its ashame that we take space for granted now, it truly is amazing!
What a gigantic universe we live in!
Basically, they gave up trying to think their way out of the muck and just floored the accellerator and kept it down - 212 feet of wheel spin. So, are they are stuck in the next dune yet?
Oh well, what the hell...
Good idea. I personally think they should've gone with a more Metroid Prime robot style, so that it could just roll like a ball, then when it got stuck it could unwind itself and start walking and hopping around. That'd be pretty entertaining as a battlebot too.
You're not a real redneck! A real redneck would've said "YEE HAW!!" Now go on and git!
I could swear I've been to this exact spot during one of my frequent walks on the beach... in a fish-eye view kinda way.
The Chronic *WHAT* les of Narnia!
It is obvious from the "according pattern" of ...
Sorry, I meant "accordion". And, here an image illustrating the gradual increase in slippage. You start to see crescent-shaped slip marks which gradually grow more distinct and closer together until the crumbly soil pattern eventually emerges.
Table-ized A.I.
similar to the mexican jumping bean, but a bit geekier.
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
...to remove a group of 3 martians with dust all over them, high-fiving each other :-)
The printed URL as it appears in the previous post was incorrect; here's the corrected version:
1 .htm?aol4257
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast16jul_
NASA's Opportunity rover has broken free from the Martian sand dune where it had been stuck for more than a month,
Now that's a whole lotta floorin'
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
In English, the possessive of a singular noun like Bush is formed by adding an apostrophe and an s, to make Bush's. "Bushes" would be several people named Bush.
There's some good discussion about this going on in #space at irc.freenode.org, I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in the topic. Also we've been talking about software issues affecting the rover (if we get to sol 1000, just about every piece of ground software will be inoperable). It's a cool place, check it out.
Cheers,
Justin Wick
P.S. First accepted story! w00t!
They have weekends on Mars? Bush can send us to Mars, but we've still got to do honeydo's on weekends? What's the use of being a geek?
I'm afraid so.
"Objection, your honor. zippthorne answered the question for the witness."
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
"Consider Voyager. Still costing the taxpayers money after all these years. If you threaten to turn it off; you could hear the anguished screams all the way to the edge of the solar system."
What a fArking troll. The absolute pittance that the Voyager program costs (a few million a year) is so far below the background it's not worth discussing, no wonder it was posted AC. One debate on the floor costs more than an entire years worth of funding. Just cancel the debate and boom... Voyager is free for the year.
"Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations"
> How could something that was supposed to last
> only for 90 days last for 18 months?
Suppliers over-engineered the parts so they wouldn't have to issue an RMA. FEDEX to Mars is prohibitively expensive.
Hey -
:
e r_main.html
On the Nasa Home Movies page, there is a very nice photo montage called
"Rover Team Album" 2:49 at 11meg
It has some very cool electronica music to go with it. I've been searching, but can't find any indication as to exactly what the music is.
Anyone have any ideas ?
You can get to it from here
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/m
Select the "One Year on Mars" (View Flash Feature) link at the right, then choose "Home Movies" from the set of image links in the popup window.
94TT
Everything up to the last paragraph made perfect sense...but the last paragraph blew it.
Guy, Hubble is a dead scope walking. We won't be fixing it, ever. The rovers are doing interesting science, and they've captured the nation's interest...without taking pretty picture along the way. Let's figure out how to get things out of that.
Sheesh!
Is the MER science operations mailing list (mentioned in the slashdot story) open to the public? Anyone know how I can sign up to it? I could find a Mars Missions list on the JPL site, but couldn't see a MER specific one.
Thanks,
-James.
www.virtualaerodrome.com
Where are the tracks which put it in this position? Since it is the backward looking camera, were they driving backwards into this sandtrap, and driving back exactly how they came in?
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
That must be one big-ass sandtrap...
Mine was one of the screams when they threatened to cancel the program. NASA does have a serious problem with its budget.
anyone else getting the joke?
surely that's tin foil hattitide then?
On the other hand, I agree that the back end mission costs are negligable compared to the cost and risk of getting there in the first place.
See my journal, I write things there
I know that your typical Jeep etc doesn't have wheels that can do a 360 vertical pivot, but maybe this might have some application for some earthbound specialty vehicle. Even 4 wheel drives get stuck - this could be a new strategy.
The total cost of Voyager support is 4.2M USD per year. The equivalent of just 10 full-time NASA employees work on the project.
$4.2M is the bar tab for one Congressional committee. And most Congressmen have 10 people on staff just to cover up their illegitimate children and get the stains out of their $5k suits. Those fat, ignorant pigs make me sick.
Explain to me again what an interplanetary sand trap looks like.
My UID is prime. Hah!
If you look closely at the picture in the first link, you can see what appear to be tracks.. perhaps some sort of Martian tank? I can't believe nobody at NASA noticed those.. or maybe they're just hoping we won't notice.
The other obvious answer is that they're faking the whole thing. Obviously there can't be tire tracks on Mars.. that picture was taken on Earth!
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