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Two Months Later: NASA's Opportunity Rover Is Still Lost On Mars After Huge Dust Storm (space.com)
Two months have passed since NASA's Opportunity Mars rover last phoned home. The last time we reported on the rover was on June 12th, when it was trying to survive an intensifying dust storm that was deemed "much worse than a 2007 storm that Opportunity weathered," according to NASA. "The previous storm had an opacity level, or tau, somewhere above 5.5; this new storm had an estimated tau of 10.8." Space.com reports on Opportunity's current status: Opportunity hasn't made a peep since June 10, when dust in the Red Planet's air got so thick that the solar-powered rover couldn't recharge its batteries. Opportunity's handlers think the six-wheeled robot has put itself into a sort of hibernation, and they still hope to get a ping once the dust storm has petered out. And there are good reasons for this optimism, NASA officials said. "Because the batteries were in relatively good health before the storm, there's not likely to be too much degradation," NASA officials wrote in an Opportunity update Thursday (Aug. 16). "And because dust storms tend to warm the environment -- and the 2018 storm happened as Opportunity's location on Mars entered summer -- the rover should have stayed warm enough to survive."
Engineers are trying to communicate with Opportunity several times a week using NASA's Deep Space Network, a system of big radio dishes around the globe. They hail the robot during scheduled "wake-up times" and then listen for a response. And team members are casting a wider net, too: Every day, they sift through all radio signals received from Mars, listening for any chirp from Opportunity, NASA officials said. Even if Opportunity does eventually wake up and re-establish contact, its long ordeal may end up taking a toll on the rover. "The rover's batteries could have discharged so much power -- and stayed inactive so long -- that their capacity is reduced," NASA officials wrote in the update. "If those batteries can't hold as much charge, it could affect the rover's continued operations. It could also mean that energy-draining behavior, like running its heaters during winter, could cause the batteries to brown out."
Engineers are trying to communicate with Opportunity several times a week using NASA's Deep Space Network, a system of big radio dishes around the globe. They hail the robot during scheduled "wake-up times" and then listen for a response. And team members are casting a wider net, too: Every day, they sift through all radio signals received from Mars, listening for any chirp from Opportunity, NASA officials said. Even if Opportunity does eventually wake up and re-establish contact, its long ordeal may end up taking a toll on the rover. "The rover's batteries could have discharged so much power -- and stayed inactive so long -- that their capacity is reduced," NASA officials wrote in the update. "If those batteries can't hold as much charge, it could affect the rover's continued operations. It could also mean that energy-draining behavior, like running its heaters during winter, could cause the batteries to brown out."
the Elon Musk Mars Fan club.
RIP, first Martian smartphone.
updates?
(yes I realise the rover predates W10)
Just throwing clippings together that state different things does NOT make a story.
Do your job:
EDITORS, EDIT !
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I'm pretty sure NASA knows where it is, down to a 5^2M area.
Perhaps you mean they can't communicate with it.
Sounds like every sysadmin feels NASA's pain. Don't you just love when there's a remote machine that doesn't respond to any means of contacting it you have, and getting there would take a whole day's trip, preceded by two weeks of having access there organized?
NASA just has exactly this, scaled way up.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Is that a bepis in your pocket or are you just gay?
It could actually load Apple Maps, though
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Sounds like every sysadmin feels NASA's pain. Don't you just love when there's a remote machine that doesn't respond to any means of contacting it you have, and getting there would take a whole day's trip, preceded by two weeks of having access there organized?
Uh... nope. Most sysadmins have their servers in-house, at a data center or in some branch office where somebody can take a look at it. Operating servers in unmanned locations is a niche, it happens in a lot of industries so it's not exactly rare but no most sysadmins don't know that pain.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I didn't see an estimate in the story of when the storm might leave the area. Anyone have an alternate site?
Resulting in serious down time or total failure.
Those are keyboard monkeys not sysadmins.
The difference is nil
Sounds like every sysadmin feels NASA's pain. Don't you just love when there's a remote machine that doesn't respond to any means of contacting it you have, and getting there would take a whole day's trip, preceded by two weeks of having access there organized?
NASA just has exactly this, scaled way up.
Only two weeks? This is the government you're talking about, after all.
They should just use the Cydonian Crystal Transmitter as a relay. Sure, it's a little old, but it'll get the job done.
Sounds like every sysadmin feels NASA's pain. Don't you just love when there's a remote machine that doesn't respond to any means of contacting it you have, and getting there would take a whole day's trip, preceded by two weeks of having access there organized?
Uh... nope. Most sysadmins have their servers in-house, at a data center or in some branch office where somebody can take a look at it. Operating servers in unmanned locations is a niche, it happens in a lot of industries so it's not exactly rare but no most sysadmins don't know that pain.
The old days used to be like this. It was always a nervous moment when you rebooted. But that was before we had remote management tools and virtual systems.
Smart sysadmins deploy remote physical servers with multiple paths of access and remote tools such as remote power switching, networked KVM switches, independent remote admin interfaces (i.e. iLO, DRAC, etc.), etc.
The advent of virtual systems makes this much easier with the ability to image a VM as a backup and bring it up on another VM host if needed. In fact, if you don't have the money to pay for remote tools, you are better off deploying an unmanned server with a VM system on the hardware and your app server as a VM.
Mark Watney will find it eventually.
The original 90 day warranty on the rover expired long ago. And didn't cover this sort of off road treatment
I haven't touched a physical server or been to a data center to do work in more than two years.
You need to get with the times
The physical hardware still needs maintained. I have to make a trip to replace power supplies or disks at times. If you're not doing that you're half a sysadmin, a sysmanlette.
https://xkcd.com/1504/
#DeleteFacebook
Seize the Sol.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
"F*ck this, I've been running errands for earthlings for far too long, I'm going to find myself a pub!"
Anthropogenic martian warming! Rover lands, drives around for awhile and... worst dust storm... ever! Coincidence? I think not ;)
This is EXACTLY what we should expect in the future from driverless vehicles . . . .
Excellent!
“The first ten million years were the worst," said Marvin, "and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million years I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline.”
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
The old days used to be like this. It was always a nervous moment when you rebooted. But that was before we had remote management tools and virtual systems.
If you have a fleet of servers, then obviously you have good remote management. That's not the case when every machine is an unique snowflake or at a different location, though.
Mars rovers are very firmly in the the latter category.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
This just in from NASA via the DSN:
"We've received a response from the Opportunity Rover in the form of the following sequence of repeated numbers: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42. NASA's top engineers and scientists are actively trying to analyze the exact meaning, but are still lost."
yep. in fact, us sysadmins felt the pain of NASA so much that we went and found the Curiosity Rover.
It's not lost anymore. Furthermore, this proves that Elon Musk isn't crazy when he say's he'll be "retiring to Mars".
I have a remote ham station that's 5 hours from my home. 10 acres out in farm country. It's off grid and cellular network only. That sounded good until I realized how much interference the neighbors solar controllers make. Any visit means I sleep there and drive back the next day. Obviously, I want that site to be reliable.,
Bruce Perens.