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Spirit Stuck In Soft Soil On Mars

Posted by timothy on from the it's-covered-in-jam dept.

cheros writes "NASA reports that the Spirit Mars lander is presently stuck in soft soil. The lander's wheels are halfway sunk into the soil and they are planning simulation tests to see if they can get it out again. I hope they can get it out of there because it's picking up enough new energy to operate; however, it only has 5 wheels left to get around on — one of the wheels hasn't been working for years. Fingers crossed."

5 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Inflatable Tires? by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder if they could put inflatable tires on rovers and then manually adjust the pressure for each one to accomodate different soil types, a la WWII DUKW http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DUKW It might help the rover to better adapt to different kinds of soils.

    Of course, it would have to be designed for the different pressures of the martian atmosphere.

  2. Re:When does this end? by NETHED · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've been wondering the same thing myself. I bet in the first 100 days, only very pre-planned experiments and moves were made.

    Now that we're what, 4 years in, I wonder if grad students are allowed minor joy rides in em. ("You published 2 Science papers, take Oppy for a spin").

    You know, now that I'm nearing the end of getting my PhD, it amazes me how science is done. And not in a good way. If you have not read the PhD Comic, you should, its funny because its (sadly) true.

    --
    --sig fault--
  3. Enough of these rovers... by Rog-Mahal · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Let's get some real people up there! Our unmanned rovers have given us a lot of valuable scientific data, but our space program needs some new life breathed into it. The days of the Shuttle are numbered, and technology such as ion rockets seems very promising.

  4. Re:Still the cheaper option? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Communications infrastructure maintenance costs and data warehousing maintenance costs probably don't come cheap for a project like this. I'm sure they don't communicate with these rovers over a walkie talkie.

    I don't know how many people are on the team that operate each rover, but lets assume five. I'm sure they're making a smidge more than $8/hr, so chalk up another million in pay and benefits right there.

    I read somewhere that your average local walmart has an operating cost between 1 and 1.5 million. These guys are performing science and maintaining a robot on another planet for a little less than 3 times that cost.

  5. Rover Driver's Blog by TrekkieTechie · · Score: 3, Interesting

    At night, there's a small red light in the sky. On that light lives four hundred pounds of thinking metal sent from Earth. I tell that metal what to do, and it does it.

    Scott Maxwell, one of the rover's drivers, has a blog detailing the events of the mission exactly five years behind schedule.