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Mars Rover Down? Spirit Stays Silent
astroengine writes "One year after NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit stopped communicating with Earth, mission managers have announced that they will give the stranded rover one more month to send a signal before they scale back the search. But things aren't looking good. In the words of JPL-based Mars rover driver Scott Maxwell, 'Spirit was so close to us, just a year ago. Snap your fingers, and she's a hundred million miles distant and we can't even prove she's alive.'"
Obligatory xkcd reference: http://xkcd.com/695/
That's not luck, that's great engineering and great piloting on the part of NASA.
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Martian winter powered down the rover as it wasn't getting enough sunlight to run. They waited until the last few weeks because that's when peak sunlight hit the collectors again at its last position. They'll give it another month just in case it needs to warm up some more, but things aren't looking good.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
It's pretty simple. We are now moving into the Martian summer for the southern hemisphere. Spirit went quiet because of the Martian winter at her location, when it got colder and less sunlight per unit area was falling, thus, not enough energy to keep warm and keep operating. They transmitted/received off and on ever since losing communication, but the best chance was waiting until about this time because she should be warming up, getting more sun, and hopefully waking up as peak solar output at the site and for her orientation was reached (as the article mentions, this was on March 10th of this year). Unfortunately, nothing. They try all the backup plans (e.g., if the rover loses track of time it starts transmitting/receiving on specific time windows and communication modes), and if nothing happens after a practical amount of time, they give up, because from now on the amount of power would be in decline.
Closer/further from Earth is irrelevant because the best way to pick up a signal would probably be via the satellites in orbit of Mars as they pass over the site, and direction of the antenna is also irrelevant because they're using the non-directional antenna (i.e. low gain) for the initial communication. Regardless of Mars-Earth position, they're going to try when Spirit is most likely to have the power to communicate.
It's also a testament to the power of the Ubuntu operating system that ran all of Spirit's vital functions. I've spoken to a few insiders at NASA and they are all extremely positive about using Ubuntu in future missions, in fact the only complaint they had was that the Compiz compositor used up too much power (and was one of the first things to be disabeld should Spirit's batteries go low on power).
I'd be happy to volunteer my ex-wife to be launched to Mars to look for the missing rover. I understand and fully accept the risks of the mission.
As I recall, they put Spirit into hibernation for the Martian winter. I suppose they left it off all this time to charge the batteries as much as they could. I assume the issue isn't signal strength- it's a lack of power in the rover to pick up the signal and respond to it.
Also, Wikipedia disagrees with you about the communications.
The rovers also use the low-gain antennas to communicate with spacecraft orbiting Mars, the Mars Odyssey and (before its failure) the Mars Global Surveyor. The orbiters relay data from and to Earth; most data to Earth is relayed through Odyssey. The orbiters are closer to the rovers than the antennas on Earth, and have a view of Earth for much longer than the rovers.
Source
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They hate it when you do that.
Did you miss the title of the blog? "five years delayed." The blog posts are 2011, -5, meaning they're from 2006.
Actual report pertaining to first link from Sol 792: http://marsrover.nasa.gov/mission/status_spiritAll_2006.html#sol790
The most probable explaination is that Spirit died last Martian winter. The hope was that it was still alive but in deep hibernation mode and would eventually get enough power surplus to charge its batteries and reconnect with Earth. Now we're at peak power generation but Mars is still heating up a bit - just like in the northern hemisphere the summer solistice is in june but july/august are the warmest months. Normally it should have reconnected long before that, but if say the solar panels were partially damaged it could take this long for it to gather enough power. It's been a slim hope and it's getting even slimmer, pretty soon it's time to write off that possibility completely.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
We designed Spirit and Opportunity to last 90 days each. We've got one probably dead at just over 7 full years, and another fully healthy one after that same time. They were relatively cheap, too. These damn things WORK. NASA needs to mass-produce about 100 more of these, and get them to every solid surface in this solar system. If you know something's technologically sound, use it everywhere you can. Send them to all Saturn/Jupiter's solid moons, Mercury, Pluto, any asteroids who come near, the moon, Arkansas... any place where we might go looking for intelligent life.
What the fuck? Seriously. Why have a blog if it's 5 years delayed?
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
To visit http://marsandme.blogspot.com/ for a wonderful perspective from Scott on the regular dealings of being a Mars rover driver.
"If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet"
Five years delayed.
We pity malfunctioning Spirit, pity it's not Opportunity. NO.
Goddamnit, Spirit was a row of failures from day one, an epic struggle but a struggle nevertheless.
Meanwhile, Opportunity analyzed some nearby craters, climbed a hill, found one HUGE crater and began moving there.
It will reach it around 2015.
Yep, NASA made plans of some decade long trip for it, a couple years ago. Not "will it respond in next month?" style hope, but "Will it last 10 years more?" hope. Totally awesome and incredible.
Damn you, nothing Spirit was close to compares to the crater Opportunity tries to reach.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Although I don't disagree with you that having a rover anywhere on Mars is great, with so much to see, I must contest the idea that it is more interesting than any surface feature on Earth - Mars may be less understood, but I can go out into a field next to my apartment and entertain myself for an hour or two just by looking at the world. Bugs or plants I have never seen or that are odd in some way, the weather around me, things other people might be doing, etc. They are just all somewhat less remarkable when you get used to them and forget how amazing of a place Earth really is. Children are really good at it; I think most people I have met begin getting too used to the world around age 12 or 13. Plenty of people try to stay captivated, but it is hard when there are so many things like work, bills and chores around the house that keep you busy (and I definitely have this problem, too). I love that space exploration can keep this sense of wonder alive in people.
It wasn't the arrays per se but the dust. NASA knew from previous missions that dust would coat the arrays over time and make them less efficient. Engineers looked at ways to remove the dust which is very clingy due to electrostatic forces. After factoring mission parameters, they decided it wasn't worth the cost. Now cost meant to them more than money. Remember there are weight and space limitations. To add a system to remove dust, they might have had to remove an instrument or two and there was no guarantee of success. In the end, engineers decided the best option was to make the panels bigger but foldable. What NASA/JPL didn't know that periodic dust storms that would coat the rovers also had a chance to remove dust as well.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.