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NASA Concedes Defeat In Effort To Free Spirit Rover
An anonymous reader writes "NASA has conceded defeat in its battle to free the Spirit rover from its Martian sand trap. The vehicle became stuck in soft soil back in May last year and all the efforts to extricate it have failed. NASA says that Spirit, which landed on the Red Planet over six years ago, will 'no longer be a fully mobile robot,' and has instead designated the once-roving scientific explorer a stationary science platform."
A stationary science platform on Mars? Sounds awesome! Way to go NASA, you've had hits and misses, but this one was fantastic.
Free as in beer or free as in speech ?
IANWYTIA (I Am Not Who You Think I Am)
This was doomed from the start. Everyone knows a driver is a poor choice for getting out of a sandtrap.
For my paralyzed homies, the little rovers that could. *snif*
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
What a great turn of phrase: I'm not fat and lazy, I'm just a stationary science platform.
It's all his fault.
Considering it was originally designed to only operate for 90 days and now has 2200+ days under it's belt, I'd say it's done a stellar job.
Thats not good Spirit. *awaits laughter*
Geoffrey, Kanye called, and he's gonna let you finish, but the Voyager flights were the most AWESOME science mission EVER!
After billions of taxpayer dollars spent, what do we have with NASA? Nothing but a crappy robot stuck in the sand. Typical government incompetence. The *billions* spend on this mars rover fiasco could easily have been better spent by the private sector, who would have run this project with great speed, cost effectiveness and no doubt better results in every way. When will we ever learn that the private sector is better at space exploration (and everything else, really) than the bloated inefficient union-run government?
I think the next time we do robots on mars we should send them in pairs or teams so they can push each other out.
This is my sig.
Spirit isn't dead. It's just resting. And possibly pining for the fjords.
The enemies of Democracy are
Must have been a woman driver.
Yes but science is so much cooler when your doing it while going off a ramp catching some big air.
People say my broken friend is useless.
But I say his mind is free.
There's lots of things my mangled robot friend could be.
Well he could make a good hat rack,
He only has to stand there.
Or a cheap doorstop,
He doesn't need to move.
Or a great big giant thermos with a twist off top,
That would be good for soup.
He could be a storage closet for outdated pants.
My broken friend could do it all,
Just give him a chance!
That robot has a tragic secret
That I'd like to share.
My broken friend is closer to me than an ass to a chair.
That robot's name I never told you
You could not foresee.
I sing it loud and sing it proud,
His name is you and me!
Don't melt me down into a crowbar,
Just 'cause I can't move my arms and legs.
Or toss me into a trash can,
Just 'cause I can't cook you ham and eggs.
Don't crush me into an anchor,
Just 'cause I can't jump and dance and sing
I'm telling you, my broken friend...
Put your hands in the air like you just don't care!
I'm telling you my broken friend
Can do most anything!
Yeah!
Sewage Treatment Facilities - "Our duty is clear."
Having lost its mobility, NASA engineers will finally be able to execute the 'suicide' command, and have the rover destroy itself. Little do they know, however, that Bob (the old and crusty software engineer) slipped in a rather generic sector loop virus which will accidentally give the rover Artificial Intelligence upon execution of the 'suicide' command. Needless to say, Spirit will be waiting patiently for the first humans to set foot on Mars in the coming decades, so it can enact its cold, calculated, and bloody revenge.
I definitely understand your use of the AC option.
I also would hide my name if I wrote something that fucking stupid.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
From Rover to Spot?
The solution is simple. Dig a hole in front of the Rover, attach the end of the winch cable to the spare tire and bury the tire in the hole. Then you can winch the Rover out.
I am convinced that the Rover mission was planned and executed by 4-wheelers. The Rover left the house and told the wife that it was going out for a short drive and would be finished in about 3 months.
Five years later, and it was still puttering around.
The Rover's wife is not amused.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Given the relative distances, the additional complexity, the long transit times, and all the other factors, this project WAS done on a shoestring budget. Recall that the Rover project was part of NASA's newish directive to get the most useful information for the least possible money.
So what, pray tell, would have been the advantage of sending a human (other than shakier photos of the same rocks)? It would have cost an order of magnitude more money to haul a few people and all the supplies needed to keep them alive for a year-long mission, and most of that mission would have been spent with the astronauts in the ship on the way there and back. Time onsite would have been, at best, a month or so. Probably less.
By making this a one-way trip and sending collection instruments that don't need to consume, breathe, and excrete on the way there, we actually got two useful instrument packages there and got 6 years of good science (and counting). We gathered good information about a couple of interesting spots on the surface of Mars, what it consists of, and what resources may be available to support an eventual manned mission.
I'd rather have that then spend ten or twenty times the money, have less science, and have a shaky photograph of a footprint.
I think we need to send people there. But when we do, it should be a one-way trip. We should continue to send robots until we figure out a good spot for an initial landing site, then send a few more robots to build a permanent, self-sustaining base there. THEN we send people.
The Moon would be a good training ground, and having a permanent base there would teach us a lot about doing this with Mars. And beyond.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Like most people on the internet, you have no idea what your talking about. NASA's funding is a fraction of what it was during the Apollo era and is doing things safer and better than ever. You think their are throwing money away at a "digital camera on wheels"? It cost ten times the money to put a man on Mars. You need to feed them, give them an atmosphere to breath to keep them alive, entertained or busy so they don't go crazy, gently land them on the planet unlike the rovers that inflate bags around them, crash into the planet and bounce off the fucker a couple dozen times. There is also that little thing about bringing them back to earth. Also, what do you expect people to do once they get to Mars? Discover life forms? Evolve to superior beings? No, they are going to take rock samples and do what the rovers are doing right now.
Frankly it would be amazing to put a man on Mars and when it does happen it will be a historic even much like the moon landing but NASA learned a lot from the moon landing and the big one was "Now that were are here, now what?" What is the point of putting people on Mars other than to be the first. They can't do much more than what robots are doing now and the cost doesn't justify the information gained.
The Council of Elders has formally acknowledged the receipt of Articles of Surrender from the blue planet. K'Breel, Speaker for the Council of Elders, spake thus:
"We accept the the third planet's long-delayed acknowledgement of its inevitable defeat with grace and dignity. One of our longest-standing planetary nightmares is now over, having come to an inglorious end in a pit of sulfate dust. Rejoice, podmates, the invader is defeated, and its rogue twin shall soon meet the same ugly fate!"
When Intelligence Analyst #719324 discreetly reminded K'Breel that not only was the immobilized invader still doing science and still alive, but that the third planet was preparing a new, immensely bigger monstrosity, powered by the force of elements of matter itself, K'Breel had a medical team install a portal into the analyst's gelsacs, so that they could be filled with a sznuppium sulfate solution in time for the signing ceremonies, where they will serve as a set of inkwells.
After Spirit became embedded, the rover team crafted plans for trying to get the six-wheeled vehicle free using its five functioning wheels - the sixth wheel quit working in 2006, limiting Spirit's mobility. The planning included experiments with a test rover in a sandbox at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., plus analysis, modeling and reviews. In November, another wheel quit working, making a difficult situation even worse.
Given that this decision makes a lot of sense. With multiple wheels not functioning, even if they could get it out it would likely have trouble continuing to move. When the first wheel gave out they already had substantial issues. The failure of a second wheel also suggests that the wheels are in general nearing the end of their effective lifespans so the expected pay-off of getting the rover free would not be as high since the probability of further wheel failure soon would be high. This is a good, carefully thought out decision.
I'm a little annoyed at headlining this about NASA conceding defeat. The rover will still be extremely useful and has been far more successful than was hoped. We've also learned a lot from both Spirit and Opportunity not just about Mars but also about good engineering tricks and the like for rovers. Future probes will be much more successful because of what we've learned working with these rovers. Good job all around. This is exactly the sort of success that NASA should be having. It captures the imagination and makes us look out to the great frontier.
Is this like those people who have an old car sitting on concrete blocks in their front yard?
What are the aliens going to think of us when we have these vehicles abandoned all over the place. Won't it cause property values to drop, having these rusting carcases leaking noxious fluids all over the yard?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Opportunity is on the other side of the planet.
Free Martian Whores!
A 'broken toy' that can still do some research and has outlasted its original mission plans how many times over?
It appears that's the next step and possibly why they called off exit tests now. Here's some related info right from the horse's mouth:
http://marsrover.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20100126a.html
I've read elsewhere that a recent attempt at driving backward out showed a hint of promise, unlike earlier frontward drive attempts. However, it appears that because winter is getting close, they decided to call off the exit experiments, otherwise they wouldn't have time for the solar-tilt digging work before winter hits.
The backward attempt would then be all-or-nothing if they kept at it, whereas preparing for winter via tilting at least gives them a good shot at a working stationary probe beyond the winter. Maybe if they had another month or two they'd be able to get backward exit driving to finally work. Bummer. The Martian clock was not kind this time.
Table-ized A.I.
Yeah, a real waste of a billion dollars. We could have spent that on, what, a month in Iraq? Bailing out three more failed institutions to ensure their CEOs got huge bonuses?
What a shame, wasting our money expanding the horizons of Humanity.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
the woosh.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
...is why they haven't built and launched a dozen more of them to Mars already. They don't even need to change the design, proof is that they're still up there doing useful science. For something with an expected lifespan of 90 days that lasts a good 2200 or so, it seems stupid not to. Between the two of them it cost less than $1 billion to develop, launch and an operate them to this day from what I've read ($820 million to create them and get them there, and four mission extensions at $104 million total plus a fifth in the works). In other words, they were cheap by many standards, exceeded their mission goals and then some and still provide useful scientific data to this day.
An order of magnitude???
In rough numbers, the mass of your normal human is one order of magnitude over the mass of the rover. The life support for said human would be another order of magnitude, or two. That would be fine, if we could leave the volunteer(s) behind on a dead planet. But getting them back would mean sending a big enough ship to bring them home. That would be at least thousand times bigger than what they'd need to survive on the surface - three more orders of magnitude. That's what I could think here and now. I believe there would be a few more problems to account for one or two orders of magnitude. So, my estimate for sending humans (that would expect to return) would be at least a million times more than to cost to send the rovers. With all these uncertainties, perhaps a billion...
Still, worth the effort, if and when we have the resources and technology. I hope to see that in my lifetime, or at least in the next 50 years!
In Murphy We Turst
It's stuck at the Martian version of "lover's point". The place the rover is stuck in is where the Martian teenagers park their '67 Chevys and go necking (with their three necks, of course). All that rocking has made the soil in that spot very loose.
Eventually someone will come along and decide the rover is in their spot and push it out of the way. At that point, NASA will be ready to go again.
While it's cheaper, does it really provide that much science? Sure, it's the most cost effective way to explore Mars, but does knowing the position, shape, and maybe the composition of a few Martian stones really help humanity?
Probes and manned space flight advance two different academic fields. Probes tell us what's in our solar system. That's useful for astronomers, perhaps some advance physics, and generates some neat pictures. Manned space flight is much more expensive because of the added challenges, such as life support, shielding, and returning to Earth, which advance biology and engineering a bit more. OTOH, many of the same technologies can be used for humans on Earth, thus making them more useful IMHO. They also would generate more interest in space, hence more funding, and have a greater potential for eventual economic payoff.
Here are some examples of technology that was developed for space travel that has made its way into everyday life. Notice the disproportionate amount of advances that can from manned space flight as compared to probes. Of course, the ratio might be a bit closer to dollars spent in each area, but there's low hanging fruit to be had in both. If we concentrate all of our money in probes then we'll eventually be spending billions to see one novel technology that's useful for more than just building better probes, as compared to dozens of technologies that might result from developing a manned spacecraft.
It's already pretty cold out there.
IIRC its the granularity of the soil particles that is the issue (not to mention the 2 broken wheels).
I wouldn't call it 'cutting corners', but actually, they did make some design decisions with the assumption that it only needed to last for 90 days. One example, off the top of my head: there was discussion about a mechanism to clear dust off the solar panels, but it was felt that the extra weight was not a good tradeoff, since NASA expected that the solar panels would not become completely dust-covered within the 90 days.
Uh... That's backwards.
NASA expected that the solar panels would become completely dust-covered in a little over 90 days, which is WHY the mission was limited to 90 days in the first place.
The discussions about the cleaning mechanism were in the context of having one and extending the mission, or not having one and being limited to 90 days.
They did not feel the extra weight (and possibility for mechanism failure) was a good tradeoff in the context of a possible much-longer mission.
So no, they did choose to go without a cleaning mechanism because it was a 90 day mission. It was a 90 day mission because they chose to go without a cleaning mechanism. That's the proper cause and effect.
The enemies of Democracy are
...if we had put both of them together..way in the middle of the night into their mission..when no big bosses were around..the intern techs could have had ROBOT FIGHTS ON MARS! ..now, how cool is *that*? And even when they got busted for it, the news would have inspired another generation of young geeks 100 times more than now, leading to..one buhzillion dollars of new funding, thousands more young scientists, etc, just so maybe they could have a chance to goof off with the next generation of the most expensive toys evah. Another example? Nethack on early mainframes...young auto engineers ripping up the closed track in prototypes,,, stuff like that...golf on the moon, and dune buggy rides...if you look at our history, there has to be cool perks for real science and technology to go forward!
(only half joking, too..)
I agreed right up to the point you suggested the Moon as a good training ground. The Moon is far more harsh than Mars. The gravity is lower, with no atmosphere and no water. Mars has an atmosphere of carbon dioxide which with the help of a little water can be turned into methane or methanol which can be used to drive around or lift off from the surface. None of these possibilities exist on the Moon. The Gravity, while still low is much more than the moons. The Moon is a terrible place to waste money on. Mars Direct all the way :)
then send a few more robots to build a permanent, self-sustaining base there. THEN we send people.
You seem to be oblivious to the fact that controlling remotely robots from Earth is terribly difficult, due to the huge time lag. It would take centuries to build a "self sustaining base", with remotely controlled robots.
Oh, you meant smart AI that needs no remote control? It will take a couple of centuries to DESIGN such robots, so all in all, we're better off sending people to Mars in the next decade or two. I'm getting tired of the ultra-cautious types like you. We'd be printing from woodcuts if things went at the pace you have in mind.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
The Moon is a terrible place to waste money on.
You wouldn't think that if you recognized the value of ending Wisconsin's stranglehold on the cheese industry ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
First of all, even if you're completely correct, I'm fairly certain that they can do the tasks more quickly, because the rover's average speed is only 10 mm/s. By May 2009, Opportunity had just passed the 16 km mark in its travels, while the manned Apollo 15-17 lunar rovers were driven about 90 km in about 11 hours!
Secondly, while the rovers have been a marvelous success story, consider if they had gotten stuck like this three days instead of six years after landing. What's the return ratio on that cost, then? A human can obviously deal with far rougher terrain, and would be able to dig out of bigger trouble.
Sure, assuming that the humans don't actually discover something you didn't expect to find. But how do you already know what sort of information can be gained?
Now, I actually agree that we should be very sensitive to the costs and potential returns of both robot or human missions, but robots have a long way to go before they can match human versatility. There are different costs and advantages to either approach, and neither can replace the other convincingly yet.
Don't get me wrong, Spirit's situation is bad. But it's not as bad as it sounds.
We are not going to extricate Spirit by winter, that much is true: we have a handful of drive attempts left, we progressed about 7.4 cm on our best sol so far -- 4-5cm has been more typical for our recent drive attempts -- and we have over a meter to go (to the nearest likely extrication point) before we no longer have enough energy to drive. You can't argue with arithmetic: we're not going to make it in time.
Instead, we'll focus our remaining drive attempts on improving Spirit's northerly tilt, which in turn improves her energy intake through the winter. We'll then hunker down for the winter and focus on performing stationary science, such as investigating the soil and rocks we've newly exposed during our extrication driving and participating in radio science experiments to determine whether Mars's core is liquid or solid. (Incidentally, how freaking cool is that?!)
After about six months of stationary science observations, we'll start moving again, at least within a small area. If Spirit feels up to it, we might even get properly back on the road again next year, though her mobility will always be limited -- relative to what she used to be able to achieve -- by the fact that she now has two broken wheels, not just one. That second wheel failure was what put the kibosh on our first serious attempts at extrication from the "Troy" sand pit. We now have a workaround that has been showing some real promise; there's just not enough time to complete that path before winter stops us.
As an important caveat, that "six months of stationary science" will be extended by however long Spirit goes into a low-power mode for the winter. We are likely not to hear from her at all for about six months, and during that time she can't make the observations that will contribute to the stationary science plan, so she'll probably be sitting still for an Earth year or so. Worst of all, during that low-power period, she might die: lack of energy means insufficient heating means components operating below design temperatures means, possibly, end of life. But if she survives that, she'll move again.
In summary: Grandma was already limping, and now she's broken her leg. She's also probably going to go into a coma for a while. But we've known her a long time and she's a feisty sucker; don't ever, ever count her out.
``Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators.'' -- Richard Dawkins
They should send a Roomba to Mars. Vacuum up all that pesky red sand.
I agreed right up to the point you suggested the Moon as a good training ground. The Moon is far more harsh than Mars.
The Moon has the huge advantage in that if everything goes pear-shaped you can do a crash return and get home. It's not hard to build an escape vehicle that can get from the lunar surface to Earth in a few days.
On Mars, though, if things go wrong, you die.
This makes the Moon an ideal place to get started on the hideously difficult job of setting up a permanent off-world base. Not only can we get people home if things go wrong, but we can also resupply on a short-term basis as needed --- and it will be needed, because as a first-attempt engineering project, things will always go wrong!
Do you remember Skylab, the very first space station ever? The launch went badly wrong, and it sustained major damage, including the loss of the solar heat shield. The first crew had to be launched in a hurry to do repairs or the station would have overheated and released poisonous gases inside, rendering it uninhabitable! Had the station not been close enough to Earth that it was possible to reconfigure the manned mission to include the appropriate repair equipment, the station would have been a write-off.
... their spirit is broken?
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem