Squyres Update

01101001 · #1 (**permalink**) 12-June-2005, 05:29 AM

Maybe we need a topic for Steve Squyres Mission to Mars Updates, since he usually talks about both rovers. We'll see if its worth continuing.

June 11 Update

Opportunity is partway through a turn to investigate Purgatory Dune, with little slip, and the compacted soil falling off the wheels. Its Mini-TES is working again after the long layoff.

He wrote of increasing duststorm activity. The threat isn't wind or buildup on the solar cells, but less sunlight through the atmosphere. Both rovers now have fairly clean arrays. It may not be needed, but they do have strategies for surviving duststorm season.

But, he says it all much better.

01101001 · #2 (**permalink**) 16-June-2005, 12:44 AM

June 15, 2005

Quote:

Spirit's on the move. We've finished up our work in the whole Larry's Lookout/Jibsheet/Methuselah region and begun the long climb up and around to the south side of Husband Hill.
[...]
Despite being in restricted sols, we've gotten Opportunity through most of the three-point turn we're using to get her facing back toward Purgatory Dune. The next step will be to get into a safe position on the dune to try some arm work on it before we move on.

01101001 · #3 (**permalink**) 25-June-2005, 08:52 PM

June 25, 2005

Quote:

We've got most of our safeguards on as we approach Purgatory, and we've been setting the limits very conservatively, to make sure we keep the vehicle safe in this treacherous terrain. Of course, the unavoidable consequence of staying safe in a situation like this is that you also tend to go slowly... occasionally tripping one of the limits and aborting a drive. That has happened to us a couple of times recently, and we're still a few tens of centimeters short now of the place where we want to do the arm work.

Spirit:

Quote:

We've been spiraling up and around the west side of the hill, heading generally south and gaining elevation as we go. I've been surprised, as I think the whole team has, at how well this part of the climb has gone so far.

01101001 · #4 (**permalink**) 30-June-2005, 08:56 AM

June 29, 2005

Quote:

Our drive last weekend with Opportunity was perfect, and it put the part of Purgatory Dune that we wanted to study right into the arm's "work volume" -- the territory that the arm can reach. We then developed a very aggressive three-sol plan to learn everything we can about the dune: Microscopic Imager, APXS and Moessbauer in the old wheel tracks, MI and APXS out on the surface next to the tracks so we have something to compare it to, and Mini-TES to tell us about the thermal inertia of the soil.

And the next day they'll bid adieu to Purgatory. They'll start going south by heading north a few days to take pictures to figure out the best route down to Erebus.

Spirit:

Quote:

[...]we seem to have found a nice piece of layered bedrock. This turned up right underneath the rover early this week after one of our long drives, and the timing was perfect. We've named it "Independence Rock", and we've maneuvered into position on it to do some arm work over the coming holiday weekend.

01101001 · #5 (**permalink**) 23-July-2005, 09:31 AM

July 21, 2005

Spirit:

Quote:

...we had a drive this week in which we covered five meters vertically. That's five meters of elevation gain, over a drive that totaled something like 30 meters horizontally. It's amazing to me how solid the ground has gotten as we've begun to approach the summit of the hill.

Opportunity:

Quote:

We're covering a solid 30 meters a sol with our new drive techniques now, and as we look around us we're starting to see more and more little tiny outcrops of rock.
[...]
Oh yeah, and we've just had another one of our lovely "cleaning events", with gusts of wind sweeping dust off of Opportunity's solar arrays.

Manchurian Taikonaut · #6 (**permalink**) 24-July-2005, 07:12 PM

Thanks for posting it 8)

ToSeek · #7 (**permalink**) 29-July-2005, 11:00 PM

July 29, 2005

Quote:

Spirit spent the week working over the fantastic outcrop called Voltaire that we found last week. You only have to look at the pictures to see that the Voltaire region is one of the most interesting places we've found on Husband Hill. There's an incredible amount of variety here, including some things we've never seen before. Voltaire itself is a new rock type for us, composed of very large, often angular grains embedded in a fine-grained matrix.
...
we're really starting to see serious amounts of bedrock with Opportunity now. The farther south we've gotten the more common these little outcrops have become, and as we look southward we see more of them still. For a long time, we were worried that the bright, mottled stuff that we see from orbit in the etched terrain might just be dust. If that were the case, our chances of ever getting to Victoria Crater might be pretty close to zero. With all this rock we're seeing, though, it has greatly buoyed our hopes that we'll find firmer ground, better driving, and more science as we work our way into the mottled stuff. It's a good feeling.

Lord Jubjub · #8 (**permalink**) 01-August-2005, 12:47 AM

Here's a serious suggestion. Why don't they submit Purgatory Dunes as an official name for this whole dune complex?

tlbs101 · #9 (**permalink**) 08-August-2005, 05:54 PM

August 7

Low iron content in a rock means longer Mossbauer integration time, means longer wait to drive to the summit.

01101001 · #10 (**permalink**) 18-August-2005, 06:56 AM

August 17, 2005

A quick one.

Spirit:

Quote:

[...] we're bound for Summit 1 now, instead of Summit 2. Near as we can tell, we're only about six vertical meters below it, and the path from here to there does not seem to present any impassable barriers.

Opportunity:

Quote:

Oh, yeah, and the cobble we looked at with Opportunity isn't a meteorite, it's a martian rock... and one that's very different from anything we've ever seen before.

Kullat Nunu · #11 (**permalink**) 18-August-2005, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 01101001

Opportunity:

Quote:

Oh, yeah, and the cobble we looked at with Opportunity isn't a meteorite, it's a martian rock... and one that's very different from anything we've ever seen before.

He keeps repeating himself.

Which is cool in this situation, of course.

01101001 · #12 (**permalink**) 01-September-2005, 06:56 AM

August 31, 2005

Spirit:

Quote:

We've got a list of things we want to get done in the summit region, and it's pretty long! We're prioritizing, and within a week or so we should be able to set a date by which we'll be ready to start downhill. It all looks pretty tempting down there.

Opportunity:

Quote:

At Meridiani, you may have heard that we had a strange glitch with Opportunity the other day... a "reset", which is basically a reboot of the onboard computer. We're still working out why it happened, but all seems to be well now, and we're back in business and eager to get on to Erebus crater.

ToSeek · #13 (**permalink**) 01-September-2005, 04:23 PM

This is really something:

Quote:

On Sol 581 -- more than nineteen months after we landed -- the solar array output for Spirit was 956 watt-hours. Insane. We have to shut her down every afternoon these days so she won't overheat.

considering the solar arrays were supposed to be nonfunctional by now.

Superluminal · #14 (**permalink**) 02-September-2005, 01:04 AM

How much further to Erebus?

01101001 · #15 (**permalink**) 16-September-2005, 09:27 AM

September 15, 2006

Off the book tour and back in Ithaca.

Spirit:

Quote:

Irvine seems really to be a different rock type from anything we've seen before. If this holds up, we're now up to eight or nine different rock types in the Columbia Hills. [...] With Irvine done, we have just a handful of remaining tasks to complete during our "summit campaign". [...] And with that, it'll be time to head south and downward toward new adventures.

Opportunity:

Quote:

Life has been a bit more frustrating lately over on the other side of the planet. [...] So over a number of sols we put Opportunity through each of its paces, checking to see if we had another reset. The good news is that the whole rover now has a clean bill of health, as far as we can tell, because no new resets were triggered. [... Rodent gnaws through Deep Space Network cable and they lose another day. ...] Opportunity is now healthy, happy, and solidly on the "Erebus Highway", and her job is to pick up the pace and get to Erebus Crater, pronto.

01101001 · #16 (**permalink**) 24-September-2005, 05:57 AM

September 23, 2006
[Hey! Squyres writes a year in the future!]

Spirit:

Quote:

[...] the remaining items in the summit campaign are to finish up the long-baseline stereo imaging of Tennessee Valley, and to do some IDD work on the rocks at the true summit. This weekend we're driving to the position for the next position for the Tennessee Valley stereo, and by early next week we should be ready to pick a target on the true summit and go after it.

And with that, we'll then face a decision at Gusev much like the one we now face at Meridiani: Which way do we go?

Opportunity:

Quote:

[...]at the northern rim of Erebus Crater. We're currently parked on a large outcrop named South Shetland, and we're going to spend the weekend working it over with the instruments on the IDD.

After that comes the big decision... which way do we drive to attack Erebus?

01101001 · #17 (**permalink**) 27-September-2005, 09:47 AM

September 26, 2006
[Squyres is still a year in the future. This is a short one.]

Spirit:

No news.

Opportunity:

Quote:

[...] going to go west, counterclockwise around Erebus Crater

ToSeek · #18 (**permalink**) 27-September-2005, 05:01 PM

Going the long way around. They either must be really optimistic or really pessimistic about getting to Victoria - or else there's something really cool on the west side of Erebus.

harlequin · #19 (**permalink**) 05-October-2005, 05:00 AM

October 4 Update