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Long-lived Mars Rovers to Keep on Roving
An anonymous reader writes with a link to a ComputerWorld article about the ongoing saga of the Martian rovers. They've overcome amazing obstacles and they show no signs of shutting down any time soon. "'After more than three and a half years, Spirit and Opportunity are showing some signs of aging, but they are in good health and capable of conducting great science,' John Callas, rover project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement. Since landing, the rovers have had to surmount a host of technical issues. Just a few weeks after landing, the Spirit rover had an out-of-memory problem that almost ended its mission before it began, but scientists were able to get the rover back into operation. In April 2004, both needed software updates to correct problems and improve their performance."
It's really nice to see a story of good engineering getting some play. It seems whenever engineering is in the news it involves a building collapse or something dreadful like that.
The thing that always seems to be missing is: why did these two robots continue to work so well, and, how do we go about repeating their success?
Lack of human safety issues and KISS.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
They continue to work so well because they got power, that was the 3mo limit where it was assumed the solar panels would be too clogged up to function. No, it's not as easy as having a windshield wiper. They figured they'd rather get more out of them in three months, and maybe they'd get lucky - which they did. You have to admit that over these three years it hasn't been very many scientific accomplishments they didn't do in the first three months, it's more like "hey, they survived this winter too" or "hey, they got to crater X, which is just like the last crater".
As for repeating the success, first of all you can't. Now we know you can keep continous solar power working on Mars, and that'll be the expectation from now on. Secondly, you need some luck - they're way past their design life and probably the only reason they're working is because it's massively overengineered with everyone thinking "like hell if it'll be our part that kills it after a week". I'm not sure how good setting a three year design life would help, because I figure they're already using pretty much the best they got. It's not like the cost of metal piece on the rover is anywhere near significant compared to the cost of getting it to Mars.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Look around the NASA / JPL sites (links not provided, I'm lazy and cranky besides Google needs the ad revenue). Lots of good, albeit plodding research. Much of this is just data collection - it will take years of analyzing the data and cross referencing it with other Mars probes and historical research but just sitting there and acting as a Martian weather buoy yields enormously important information.
We know so little of anything extra terrestrial that even low hanging fruit is satisfying.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Except the next rover will use a radio isotope power system. No Solar Panels on this thing.
It's also a behemoth, and doesn't use airbags to land.
Actually, most of the robotics comes from New York's own Honeybee Robotics. You can still see their logo on the side of the RAT in some shots.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Lamely replying to my own post, Honeybee logo in situ, Planetary Society article quoting Steve Squyres, the PI, on how cool that is :)
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
One of the projects that Golden didn't get his greasy, micromanaging little fingers very far into. When politicians and their drones stay at arm's length, NASA does a pretty good job.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
A talk being given by one of the geologists (Jim Bell) on the Spirit/Opportunity teams. (He was also selling and signing the book of the same name.) A few little tidbits from the talk...
One of the rovers (Spirit?) has blown a motor on a front wheel. As a result, it's normal mode of travel is now backwards. Also as a result, it tends to drag a groove in the Martian soil. In a recent transit, they were taking photographs of where they'd been and realized that the dragging wheel had exposed a different layer of soil, significantly different from the surface layer. Had the wheel not been dragging, they never would have discovered this.
Choosing a landing site is a tug-of-war between the engineers and geologists. The engineers want to land someplace safe, so they can make it in one piece and functional. The geologists want to land someplace interesting. Usually "interesting" and "safe" are opposites. It's a compromise.
Likewise, choosing what to look at is a compromise between safety and interesting. They've recently taken one of the rovers (Opportunity?) into a crater, realizing that they may not be able to get it out. But they've done all of the doable stuff nearby, the crater is compellingly interesting, and if they don't make it out, it's been a good run, and there's more to do in the crater.
The rovers are really slow. You may hear it, but it doesn't hit home until you've seen a visual demonstration of how slow those things are.
The rovers had been "wintering over," and they were worried about them getting enough sunlight to keep from getting too cold. While the Jim Bell was on the road for this book tour, and before the engagement I was at, they'd reacquired contact.
During the early days of the mission, the scientists were on Martian time, living 27 hour days. After the first few weeks, they settled out procedures and policies to allow them to go back on Earth time.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Actually GM has made a car model or two that is much like the rover. Exceeds expectations based upon experience with other models built by GM. You don't expect it to last long because it was a budget offering, but noooo... It just doesn't want to die.
Take a look at those old school Cavaliers/Sunbirds with 2L throttle body fuel injected engines. ('85 - '87 models?) Those things can take a beating. Only thing that kills them is rust or outright wrecking via negligent driving or maintenance. (Which has thinned out their numbers, being that's how most sub-$400 used cars or hand-me-downs get treated.) Of course everything on them would rattle these days, but in other aspects they're peers to the Energizer Bunny and Mars rovers, they keep going and going...
Also the "Made in Japan" thing doesn't apply to most new Hondas anyways. In case you weren't aware, most of their cars currently for the U.S. market are made in the U.S.
Because a private company would have sucked their profit out a long time ago and shut the whole thing down before it became interesting or enlightening or even heroic.
What precludes the possibility of the scientists being engineers? I'm a scientist and an engineer (though not involved with space exploration). It is entirely within the realm of possibility that the engineers that knew what needed to be done to increase the longevity also knew much of the science behind how to do so.
I believe that an understanding of both sides helps solve problems while dramatically reducing the need for engineers to translate to science and vice versa.
Of course manned exploration is not a waste. How long do you think we can chew up our own natural resources before we look around us and see the deser and the sea, and that's it! It's also a duty and an obligation to our specie. We are just taking baby steps. We don't know how to do it yet, that's all. The robotic spacecraft lead the way in showing landing sites, resources, really ancient histories and our possible future
With regard to the MERS, do you really think they are only running only on solar arrays? We haven't been doing that for ages. Solar arrays are good to a point, but then other forms of internal propulsion must be used.
They're due credit for much more than just getting the rovers out of many a tight squeeze. The Martian day is 37 minutes longer than a Terran day. This might not seem like much, but every day, their daily schedule is offset by 37 minutes. Over the course of a year, this can lead to a constant sense of "jet lag", with all the associated psychological effects. And their schedules not only impact their own lives, but that of their family and friends.
Way to go, team!
If you mean commercialization as in "Let's disband NASA and wait for private enterprise" then yes. If you mean as in "Let NASA push the frontiers, but try to make commercial ventures follow" then I disagree. Even though the government doesn't need to have a direct profit, there's very rarely money to do something just for the hell of it. Most of the time, it's to generate new technlogy, improve education or knowledge in a science, create a better understanding of our own culture or history and so on. Sure the Apollo program did a lot to improve ground-based science and technology, but I imagine over time it'll be less and less relevant to surface-dwellers and only relevant to space travel. If we can't find ways to make it profitable, if space travel is a constant money sink forever then it will be nothing more than the odd scientific expedition. So I'd say it's very important, but you can't put the cart in front of the horse - there must be something commercializable to begin with.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings