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Mars Lander Faces Slow Death
Riding with Robots writes "It's the beginning of the end for the Phoenix Mars Lander. As winter approaches in the Martian arctic, NASA says it's in a 'race against time and the elements' in its efforts to prolong the robotic spacecraft's life. Starting today, mission managers will begin to gradually shut the lander's systems down, hoping to conserve dwindling solar power and thereby extend the remaining systems' useful life. 'Originally scheduled to last 90 days, Phoenix has completed a fifth month of exploration in the Martian arctic. As expected, with the Martian northern hemisphere shifting from summer to fall, the lander is generating less power due to shorter days and fewer hours of sunlight reaching its solar panels. At the same time, the spacecraft requires more power to run several survival heaters that allow it to operate even as temperatures decline.'"
Hmmm, I wrote "who's" instead of "whose." Well, there's a reason I wasn't an English major as an undergrad I guess...
I still remember the day he came into class and told us about the rovers. He had literally just gotten off the plane from JPL, and asked if there were any reporters in the room (for the school paper or otherwise). He then told us that since there wouldn't be a public announcement of the MERs for another month or so, that everything he told us was "off the record." it was so cool to learn that and all the other insider-info.
So honest question for all you rocket scientists out there: Why are heaters needed? Which parts of the spacecraft (electronics?) need to be above a certain temperature to operate? Is it possible to let the lander "freeze" and then revive it, or if not what components are sensitive to this?
Rich.
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So you are saying that sending robots to Shackleton crater to search for water ice, or sending prototype plants to test out ISRU technologies like cooking oxygen out of lunar regolith would be rather pointless, just because a bunch of astronauts already made some footprints there ?
I am not disputing the accomplishments of Apollo, but to say that lunar robots are pointless is naive.
By the way, looking at the launch calendars, it looks like Indo-Russian joint mission Chandrayaan II might beat GLXP to the lunar surface.
Its been sad that our closest neighbour has been basically forgotten for so long, and now with Chinese, Indians and Japanese entering the lunar exploration, things are looking up.
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What I'd like to see is the development of cold-resistant electronics. Can we use solid capacitors and batteries for that purpose?
Then the power-draining heaters won't be needed anymore and the power can be routed to more useful instruments (or the probes can be lighter, with lower launch costs).
Some amateur satellites actually USE steel tape-measure as antennas. Here's a shot of PC-SAT. (Full site article)
No, but they do have Holden.
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