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Mars Rovers Threatened By Dust Storms
mrcgran writes "Space.com is reporting a new potentially deadly weather condition threatening the Mars rovers: 'The first and largest dusty squall has reduced direct sunlight to Mars' surface by nearly 99 percent, an unprecedented threat for the solar-powered rovers. If the storm keeps up and thickens with even more dust, officials fear the rovers' batteries may empty and silence the robotic explorers forever. "This thing has been breaking records the past few days. The sun is 100 times fainter than normal. We're hoping for a big break in the storm soon, but that's just a hope." '"
I can't beleive they designed them that way....
that if the batteries completely drain they're lost forever, even if they later recharge again (when the storm has moved on).
Have NASA never heard of boot loaders and non-volatile memory?
Then the storm came for Kingston upon Hull, but I live on a hill on the other side of England and it did not worry me.
Then the storm came for the Mars Rovers, and I was really quite worried about them. What a relief to know that I'm not sociopathic.
Pining for the fjords
Damm trans-global warming, ever since Al Gore invented it there has been nothing but problems, look even Mars is having problems now with record storms.
09-f9-11-02-9* (G^GCA_++{>. RV>>>>+++ NO CARRIER
From TFA:
Mr. Dust Storm, marsian: "Hey, rovers, nice research you got running there. It'll be a shame if something terrible, HORRIBLE is to happen with it. Maybe you wanna go home and avoid that, uh?" (waves a knife in front of the rovers)
Even if it is the end the people who designed, built, tested and watched over those rovers over the past years should be very proud of their accomplishment. To succeed so well at something that is so incredibly difficult is high praise in itself.
To these talented and hard-working engineers, technicians and researchers (and even the JPL PHBs), I salute you.
Why am I guessing you must be an American? Stereotyping, huh?
Pining for the fjords
Every three or four years, the martian dust devils swarm together to mate, colouring the air a beautiful rusty red for the duration of the breeding season.
Home fucking is killing prostitution.
1. Install wipers for the solar cells.
They should put stuff like this on Mars:
t s
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/350/
( Saw them on digg:
http://digg.com/gadgets/Amazing_wind_powered_robo
)
Anyone who knows anything about extreme hardware knows that you wire-wrap your shit; that and you specify it to or above mil-spec.
:p
How do you think monitoring equipment at the poles works for months on end at -40C to -60C?
I'll tell you one thing; it doesn't work by heating the damn enclosure
This and the dumb "90 days expected lifetime" of the original mission is caused by the continual dumbing-down of NASA and other vital research institutions by civilian academics who don't have the hardcore aerospace/military experience of the deep-space engineers of the 60/70's.
NASA has managed the nation's (and the world's) expectations spectacularly. Have they said, we expect these machines to be function for a year, we would've been complaining, after one of the wheels died on one of them.
But by starting with the lowest bearable duration (90 days), and by continuing to remind us of it, they collect nothing but praise. Nobody is asking, why was the "designed for period" so low? — because it is grossly exceeded by now, so what's to complain about? Right? And if anything happened earlier, the excuse is obvious: "Well, we only designed them to last 90 days".
Very nice hedge, NASA...
All of us should keep that in mind, when asked to do anything.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
while this is unfortunate, nasa expected a failure such as this a long time ago. They have been invaluable source of knowledge-- and i'm sure they won't be the last rovers on mars.
Isn't the whole place "Deadly"?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
How is a adding an extra battery different from using a larger one and a change of protocol when its charge goes below some limit? How do you know the one they're using isn't already the large one you have in mind if you don't discuss specifics (watt-hours)?
Batteries aren't a source of power, they just store it. Looks like they need x watts else the rovers will die. If the batteries can hold y watt-hours, then the rover will die after y/x hours. Increase y and you increase y/x, but you don't make it go away.
The really depressing thing is the bar experts already posting on this topic as to how, if only they were in charge of the program, they would have had backup systems for this and harder environmental standards for that, as if the collective efforts of NASA and its subcontractors wouldn't have thought of that already and dismissed it because of some obvious constraint like payload mass, or because merely specifying semiconductors to JANTXV standards won't ensure your system can recover from temperatures below -40 (note deliberate omission of unit there.)
Pining for the fjords
Zapp: Behold: The Great Stone Face of Mars... ...the only known entrance to the Martian reservation.
Fry: Hm.
Zapp:
Leela: What about the Great Stone Ass of Mars?
Zapp: Well, yeah, but it's way over on the other side of the planet.
Tinfoil hats and all.
$5 says the decepticons are behind the sandstorm. :/
And I thought that "Mars Rover and the Deathly Storms" was only coming out in July 21st.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
...it this case there is more than meets the eye....
Money is the root of all evil?
it's the largest recorded sand storm known to man, i suppose
wire wrap is nice if weight is not a problem. In a launch, every gram matters, and wire wrap adds a lot of weight for several reasons. You have to have posts to wrap around, you have to use fat solid wire instead of thin traces, and the runs of wire are longer than the traces.
Size is also important. Wire wrap boxes are usually very large by comparison with a soldered PCB, especially where there are dense electronics. These rovers probably have several surface mount ICs on them, and you can't wire wrap that.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong here, but the longer the connecting traces/wires are, the more likely they are to be hit by EMI etc? So longer runs of wire, in addition to adding weight and bulk, could also invite unwanted and potentially damaging inducted power.
It appears they made all the right choices with the amount of information they had to go on and the design goals they had to meet. I can't think of any other possible way to explain the level of their success as discussed by numerous previous posts.
iirc, the rovers were scheduled for three months, and that's before ANY winters. The thing was designed to work for less than 1/2 yr, in the summer, but they engineered it with the "possibility" of surviving a winter or two. How may winters have they made it through so far? If it finally breaks, think of it like your car lasting you 40 years before you have to replace it. It owes you nothing, be happy for what you got, it's more than you deserved.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
At Mars Exploration Rover Mission there is still no official statement that the Rovers are no longer operating normal. It seems that this site is not always up to date, but if I count correctly, images from the Rovers are still arriving. The last status report of Spirit is from June 2, for sols 1234-1239. The last Spirit images are from Sol 1247. The last Opportunity images are from Sol 1226. If I counted correctly, that must have been yesterday or today.
These semi-autonomous explorers have been up there working on the surface of *another planet* for several years now.
Whatever you may think now I'm pretty sure the problem isn't "bad design". At this point "good design" is rather apparent.
The rovers were supposed to last only three months because of dust building up on the solar panels---how come they never considered wipers?
Considering the fact that the rovers have far outlived their design life - wipers don't seem to be essential, do they?
Wipers (and the motor to run them) add mass, the motor requires energy, circuitry, etc. Just another component that can fail. And a non essential one at that, apparently.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
A few points:
1. How much is your "other power source" going to weigh?
2. How much is your "other power source" going to cost?
3. Does your "other" power source comply with international environmental/space regulations?
4. How many failure modes does your "other" power source have?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
MERs and other Mars surface landers and rovers don't use wind turbines because the atmosphere is incredibly thin - far to thin to turn turbine blades. Think about it... they've only received puffs of wind strong enough to blow the thin coating of (incredibly small) dust particles off the solar cells half a dozen times in three years. You'd barely feel the touch of the wind on your skin even when it's blowing at it's strongest.
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
Am I the only one to find the timing of the freak "dust storms" suspicious? It is obvious that Martians living in the neigbourhoods currently explored by the rovers would have a hard time launching to attend the Roswell UFO festival without being noticed. And you know some of these Martians value their privacy. I am sure these "dust storms" will clear out after the weekend, when everyone's back from the Festival.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Not having searched, I wonder what power source the Rovers use? Were it a small backup nuclear battery it would surprise me if it couldn't keep things (like the main batts) warm enough, and last long enough to power the most basic of rover "keepalive" functions.
Also not knowing how much wind is actually whipping up the frothy dust, how big would a set of cups or blades on the ends of a stick need to be to generate power for the same purpose (if not nuclear). Granted one couldn't always count on there being wind, and the cost to weight ratio against the advantage of having a wind power backup might not add up - but it begs the question...
Never have a philosophy which supports a lack of courage
Dust storms on Mars are a known risk. If the dust storms were this bad on the planet when the rovers first landed, the rovers may not have been able to last past the original 90 day mission. Everyone at NASA/JPL will tell you that luck has played a significant role in the current longevity of the rovers due to the lack of dust storms to date and the various cleaning events.
The current rover design can't be used when investigating Mars outside equatorial regions, either.
It's been a great run for both rovers, and it's great to see them provide atmospheric data on opacity of the atmosphere (tau) -- measuring that which may ultimately kill them.
Does the dust fly by itself ?
Maybe NASA should watch "The Matrix"...
As Morpheus explains to Neo, there was a catastrophic war between the humans and the machines, after the humans had produced AI, a sentient robot that spawned a race of its own. It isn't known now who started the war, but it did follow a long period of machine exploitation by humans. What is known is that it was the humans who "scorched the sky", blocking out the sun's rays, in an attempt at machine genocide--since the machines needed solar power to survive. In response and retaliation the machines subdued the humans and made them into sources of energy--batteries, in effect. http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/rl_cmp/new_p hil_fr_mcginn.html
And run the rovers off of people power ;-)
if (!sig) { printf("Signature Unavailable\n"); }
1. Install wipers for the solar cells.
1) The wind from the storm has (once again) actually CLEARED the panels of dust.
2) The problem is that the storm is cutting out the sunlight used to charge the rovers. what would your "wipers" do, reach into the upper atmosphere and clear it out? Or perhaps they should have added an arm to hold a flashlight pointed at the solar panels. Genius!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I believe you are confusing surface winds, which are very light, with atmospheric winds which are much faster and more then capable of blacking out the sun.. just because energy is up there, doesn't mean you can effectively harness it.
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Lunokhod-2 lasted for four months and explored 37 km in 1973.
Why didn't they use radioisotope thermoelectric generators (like those on Voyager 1,2) on these rovers to at least keep them warm instead of relying on external power?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they want the rovers to die so that they can get more funding for cool newer shit?
A couple weeks ago, there was an article about how they were trying to drive the rover into a crater that they thought it wouldn't be able to get out of. If they haven't changed their minds, this seems to be along the lines of what NASA wants.
to -120c
Oops, that might be a little low. I'll let the experts provide the actual figures...
Table-ized A.I.
It helps to think of the dust not as grains of sand, but as particles of finely ground flour. Go open a bag of baking flour, and I guarantee you no matter how gently you open the bag, there will be a fair-sized cloud of it ejected airborne from the bag as you do.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Some reading material for you, then, by the guy who wrote the book on space mission design: Space Mission Analysis and Design
It seems that they already had designed for several days of reserve power (a.k.a survival mode). The dust event threatens to exceed that amount, which could spell doom for the rovers. It is in no way forgone that it WILL exceed that amount, or even that the rovers will fail to restart after the event, however the latter is likely to follow if the former occurs.
If your plan makes the mission too expensive to fly for the sake of extending post EOL endurance, I'd say it's a bad plan. Consider the much ridiculed Ford Pinto. There were many improvements that could've been made to improve its safety, and by much better margins than moving the fuel tank around. But if each of the $5 here, $10 there improvements had been made, it would have ceased to be an affordable car.
You have to build the machine you can, with the budget you have. Not the budget you'd like to have. to paraphrase a famous statesman.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
The rovers were designed for a short mission. The chance of this happening in a short time is low so it would be over design to include more storage. Solar power works well in the inner solar system, and it may be getting going for the outer solar system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_(spacecraft). It beats sending fuel when it works.s -selling-solar.html
--
Solar power on the go: Get a free move: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
National Geographic reported a day later that the storms are not a threat: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/07 0706-rovers-dust.html.s -selling-solar.html
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Rent solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
A pity moderators have no sense of humor!
reminds me of all the wankers who do the 'oh i love you scott adams' comments beneath each and every blog post...
The rovers are "way past their warranty date," McKay said. "It could be that under the low power condition of the dust storm, they may have some breakdowns that can't be repaired but I actually would be surprised, especially since they both just survived the winter. This should be a piece of cake for them."
The Martians have been successful in destroying two thirds of the visiting spacecraft. They've had trouble, however, locating the relatively small rovers on the surface without observation satellites of their own, which Earthlings might easily spot. They're becoming increasingly concerned that one will happen upon something they've made in the recent past or some anomaly that might indicate their locations. Under the assumption that the rovers might be solar powered, they began spooling up a massive dust storm to deprive them of power and possibly freeze them permanently. They know we're coming, but wish to delay the inevitable by keeping us from finding anything that would trigger a massive investment in Mars expoloration.
Once upon a time all prototype electronics were wirewrapped. Today, it's a dying art.
When dip IC's ruled the roost wirewrap was king. Today, surface mount ic's are king
and pc boards rule.
Also as circuit speeds went up, wirewrap stopped working. With clock speeds under 5 mhz, the long leads of wire wrapped construction with signals running parallel worked well enough. With today's 100mhz+ clocks wirewrap would have fatal crosstalk. Back in the 80's a company I worked for tried to wirewrap a cpu prototype using 10mhz processors. We NEVER got it to work, too many problems with crosstalk. A 4 layer circuit board was MUCH quieter, and worked fine.
Then there is the issue of labor. With computer layout software and automated fabs it's much cheaper and faster to have a pc prototype made than to pay some tech's to wirewrap a proto. In fact you can go through two or three pc prototypes in the time/money required to do just
ONE wirewrap one.
Wirewrap is DEAD. Bury it!
Smart-arse.
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven