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Rough Roving: Curiosity's Wheels Show Damage
astroengine writes "In a recent batch of images beamed back to Earth from Mars rover Curiosity's MAHLI camera, obvious signs of wear and tear could be seen in the 'skin' of the robot's wheels. Considering Curiosity is only 281 sols (Mars days) into its mission and roved less than a kilometer after landing, surely this doesn't bode well? Fortunately, there's good news. 'The wear in the wheels is expected,' Matt Heverly, lead rover driver for the MSL mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., told Discovery News. 'We will continue to characterize the wheels both on Mars and in the Marsyard, but we don't expect the wear to impact our ability to get to Mt. Sharp.'"
There's a fun fact about the wheels of Curiosity. They spell out "JPL" in Morse Code in the sand of Mars. :)
--- rapper/producer/bachelorette party stripper
If they find a Les Schwab center to fix the tires, we'll know there's no intelligent life on mars.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
These wheels aren't like your normal car wheels. The very thin atmosphere means that the soil is more like lunar soil than Earth soil. Atmospheric erosion tends to smooth out sand particulate so it has a rounder shape -- it is less sharp. Lunar soil is incredibly corrosive. Think of all the problems our troops had operating in Iraq with their equipment, now multiply that by a hundred. It's like walking on microscopic needles. Martian soil isn't quite as bad, thanks to having had an atmosphere at one point, and retains a minimal one now, but it's still inhospitable.
The rover was designed with multiple wheel-sets to operate independently, and the wheels themselves designed to wear somewhat more gracefully in the face of these obstacles. But yes, they're going to look ugly fast.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
false freak out alert. I fail to see similar level of damage anywhere else on the wheels so maybe its just one area on the wheel that got dented during the landing.
Since those 2 rovers outlasted their expected mission life by a factor of 20ish, everyone now expects every science mission to do similar. When they last for the amount of time they were engineered for people are disappointed. That's the danger in overachieving and the reason people feel compelled to use their full budget each year - if they're frugal for a year people expect that they'll be able to do the same every year and cut the budget. Some aspects of human nature stink.
Otherwise, it's a hell of a long wait for the AAA. And who's going to to stand there next to the rover with their card?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
From the article:
This sounds an idea from the same people that brought us the Mars Climate Orbiter crater.
The problem with this is that Curiosity weighs 342kg but masses 900kg. Scarecrow weighs and masses 342kg. Whatever Curiosity weighs, it hitting a rock at 1m/s is still 900 newtons of force. Scarecrow hitting a rock at 1m/s is 342 newtons. The fact it drove 12km and has serviceable wheels does not make me feel better.
It must have been rougher than normal driving. Can a comparison be made with images taken right after landing?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
My tire-skin brings all the rovers to the marsyard
And they're like,
Its worse than yours,
Damn right, much worse than yours
I can teach you,
But I'll eat your sols
A Penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
Really? I think its more a testament to just how well NASA over-engineers and builds everything for the absolute worst case scenario that we get so much extra use out of these things. I mean look at how long Voyager has lasted way the hell out in the cold depths, that's a tough built ship right there.
But this is why I've always supported the robotics space exploration programs, with our current tech "meatbags in spaaace!" really doesn't make much sense. I mean when you figure in what it would take to get a crew of five to mars and back its just insanity, I remember seeing a video where they did the math and for a 3 month stay on the ground and round trip from here to there you'd have needed a ship bigger than the empire state building just to carry all the consumables and fuel needed, I don't even want to know how much it would cost for a stay as long as these rovers have had there. At the end of the day we can just get more done with the machine than we can with the man, our tech just isn't good enough right now to make "meatbags in spaace!" viable.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I remember seeing a video where they did the math and for a 3 month stay on the ground and round trip from here to there you'd have needed a ship bigger than the empire state building
Your "math" is incredibly bad. Read any book on Mars from Zubrin and become educated.
What you are overlooking is that one human in one day could day about 100x the total research done so far by all of the rovers combined. What doesn't make sense is to continue to send very expensive robots to learn less and less... we've reached the point where we simply need to send humans to really study the place.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's taken nine years for the Opportunity rover to equal the distance traveled by the astronauts on the final Apollo mission in under a week. A human can turn over a rock, dig more than four inches deep, climb on top of a boulder, recognize when something looks unusual and should be investigated, or cobble together an experiment from duct tape and cleaning materials.
Perhaps the most important reason for humans to go exploring is because the only way to learn how to live in space is to do it.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
They checked the wheels. This is not from the landing, this is anticipated normal wear.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
They have a marsyard? Where can we get one?
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
the wheels wear as expected...
In other news: Car tire worn out. "To be expected" claims manufacturer.
Doesn't anybody find it curious that it looks in one of the shots that the holes go from the inside to out? How is that even possible? I mean, dents on the outside are reasonable but how did the ones (and there are several deep ones) on the inside happen?
Spelling errors were made for your amusement only...
The amount of research and observation the rovers did in all these years is ridiculously small compared to what one person on site could have done in one single day. Just the fact that there is no 40 minute roundtrip for every single little command, like with the rovers, is a HUGE advantage of someone being there vs. remote-controlling a rover.
Don't worry, it's all according to the plan.
Considering the continued cost of maintaining Opportunity (and until not so long ago, Spirit) still running strong many years past expected "expiration date", all new mars rovers have "planned obsolescence" features built in; they are designed to break soon after their planned mission time is past. /tinfoilhat
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
If the command loop is too long, then send the astronauts to orbit and control rather than land - the fuel used to leave mars is orders of magnitude more than that required for Apollo so unless we plan to return large amounts of samples from Mars to Earth, it makes little sense to land a human. Better to send improved rovers - with the increased capability of terrestrial robots, our explorers should have similar increases in capability in the near term.
So robot bodies are durable but slow, human bodies versatile but fragile...
can't we send zombies?
Dude, relax, it's just science fiction. There was no caretaker, and no one was pulled into the Delta quadrant.
sure, humans would be productive, but orbital mechanics, assuming current and near term rockets, means that you're still looking at 8-9 months on the way out there, and 8-9 months on the way back plus the year or more on the ground while you wait for Mars to get back into the right position for the short trip back to Earth.
You leave about 4-5 months before closest approach and get there 4-5 months after. It's another 2 years until the next closest approach.
there's no "zip out to the moon in 3 days and zip back in another 3 days and hope there's no solar flares that week" kind of thing possible.
Sure the vertical force on the tires is the same when standing still, but what about the force required to stop 342kg vs 900kg of inertia if you hit a large pointy rock at 1m/s?.
1 m/s? Are you kidding? Curiosity has a top speed of less than 0.04 m/s on flat ground, it literally crawls along. Force due to gravity will be by far the dominant force on the rover's wheels.
Could be an optical illusion, all the dents I can see on the images go from the outside in.
You're still talking about a period of time much shorter than a PhD.
Yes but robots don't inspire the public nearly as much as sending a "Joe" or "Jane". That's how an agency survives - by being relevant to all those people who pay taxes and will write their Congressmen to keep funding NASA.
Oh, the wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'
Don't know where I'll be tomorrow.
Oh the wheel in the sky keeps me yearning...
For tomorrow!
But for the same cost as sending a human on a round trip to Mars you could build a fleet of rovers. Design and testing is a significant part of the cost so building extra rovers lowers the average cost dramatically.
A human can do 100x more in a day? For the same cost I'd bet you could send may more than 100 rovers and explore a much larger area of Mars.
The rover loses 30% of its value as soon as you drive it off the lot. And if NASA tries to trade it in I bet a lot of "damage" will be discovered to drive down the price.
sure, humans would be productive, but orbital mechanics, assuming current and near term rockets, means that you're still looking at 8-9 months on the way out there, and 8-9 months on the way back plus the year or more on the ground while you wait for Mars to get back
Back back back back back.
It's pretty damn obvious at this point there is no "back" for the first people going. When you ignore that part, especially having to launch from the surface, the whole trip is far simpler and cheaper even if you plan for what are essentially colonists to try and stay for 10 years.
There are more than enough people perfectly willing to go so lets do what makes the most sense here.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley