Great news: Spirit gets back to work

ToSeek · #1 (**permalink**) 30-January-2004, 12:37 AM

JPL news release (via email):

Quote:

NEWS RELEASE: 2004-044 *January 29, 2004

Healthier Spirit Gets Back to Work While Opportunity Prepares to Roll

NASA's Spirit rover on Mars has resumed taking pictures as engineers continue work on restoring its health. Meanwhile, Spirit's twin, Opportunity, extended its rear wheels backward to driving position last night as part of preparations to roll off its lander, possibly as early as overnight Saturday-to-Sunday.

Spirit shot and transmitted a picture yesterday to show the position of its robotic arm. "The arm is exactly where we expected," said Jennifer Trosper, mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. It is still extended in the same position as when the rover developed communication and computer problems on Jan. 22. A mineral-identifying instrument called a Moessbauer spectrometer, at the tip of the arm, is positioned at a rock nicknamed Adirondack.

Engineers have been carefully nursing Spirit back toward full operations for the past week. They are sending commands today for the rover to begin making new scientific observations again, starting with panoramic camera images of nearby rocks. Today's commands also tell the rover to send data stored by two instruments since they took readings on Adirondack last week -- the Moessbauer spectrometer and the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, which identifies the chemical elements in a target.

"We know we still have some engineering work to do, but we think we understand the problem well enough to do science in parallel with that work," Trosper said. Several attempts to get a full trace of data related to the rover's problem have only partially succeeded. The engineers might choose to reformat the rover's flash memory in the next few days.

A health check of Spirit's camera mast is on the agenda for today. Another health check, of an actuator motor for a periscope mirror of the miniature thermal emission spectrometer, is planned for Friday.

Halfway around Mars from Spirit, Opportunity's lander platform successfully tilted itself forward by pulling airbag material under the rear portion of the lander then flexing its rear petal downward. "What this did is drive our front edge lower," said JPL's Matt Wallace, mission manager. "The tips of the egress aid (a reinforced fabric ramp) are now in the soil. That makes egress look perfect. It's going to be an easy ride." The rover also retracted a lift mechanism underneath the rover, to get it out of the way for the egress, or drive-off.

During Opportunity's sol 6, the martian day that started today at 10:26 a.m. PST, the rover will be commanded to lower the middle pair of its six wheels and to release its robotic arm from the latch that has held it since before launch.*
*
Yesterday, Opportunity used its minature thermal emission spectrometer on a portion of the landing neighborhood that includes a rock outcrop. The instrument identifies the composition of rocks and soils from a distance. Opportunity did not return the data from those observations before going to sleep for the martian night, but may later today.

The rovers' main task in coming weeks and months is to explore their landing sites for evidence in the rocks and soil about whether the sites' past environments were ever watery and possibly suitable for sustaining life.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Images and additional information about the project are available from JPL at <http://jpl.convio.net/site/R?i=KPUhh5meSFBO-3BCLCXxIg..>http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov and from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., at <http://jpl.convio.net/site/R?i=anB-gc5To6NO-3BCLCXxIg..>http://athena.cornell.edu .

-end-

Jigsaw · #2 (**permalink**) 30-January-2004, 03:30 AM

=D> =D> =D>

cyswxman · #3 (**permalink**) 30-January-2004, 07:54 AM

I'm curious, has research time been lost while Spirit has had this repair work done on it? Or can they just pick up where they left off, as far as they are able?

Snowdog · #4 (**permalink**) 30-January-2004, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cyswxman

I'm curious, has research time been lost while Spirit has had this repair work done on it? Or can they just pick up where they left off, as far as they are able?

Somebody asked that exact question in a press conference. Squyres explained that not only had they worked delays like this into the overall 'schedule' through extremely conservative estimates on the vehicle's life-span, but they also, for planning purposes, use a 2-on 1-off (or maybe even 1-on 2-off) 'day' schedule in their expectations for workability. In other words, barring other significant problems, he didn't feel that this problem would cost them anything that wasn't already accounted for in the work schedule. Even additional problems may come out in the wash, if their original operational estimates were conservative enough.

He also mentioned that based upon initial observations about the health of the power systems and their (relative lack of) performance degradation, he expects that the machine will greatly exceed the usability limitations that were accounted for in the Science plan.

Didn't Sojourner also exceed it's original operational duration estimates? By some time, I thought?

banquo's_bumble_puppy · #5 (**permalink**) 30-January-2004, 12:27 PM

I think Sojourner was supposed to last for 30 days, but instead lasted for 3 months I think. So, if one follows that formula; then the Spirit & Opportunity rovers should last for 270 days, (supposed to have a lifetime of 90 days). Wait and see...

Betenoire · #6 (**permalink**) 30-January-2004, 01:08 PM

Then we may reach those hills yet. Anybody know how many days away they are?

Amadeus · #7 (**permalink**) 30-January-2004, 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Betenoire

Then we may reach those hills yet. Anybody know how many days away they are?

I suppose it depends on how much it stops to look at on the way.

Betenoire · #8 (**permalink**) 30-January-2004, 01:25 PM

And, you know, if the press doesn't stop asking "Are we there yet?" the Spirit might just turn right back around and go home.

Swift · #9 (**permalink**) 30-January-2004, 01:28 PM

I don't think there is a connection, but I heard the software engineer from IBM that came up with Control-Alt-Delete as a reboot is retiring. Maybe he can help with rebooting Spirits memory. :-?

ToSeek · #10 (**permalink**) 30-January-2004, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Betenoire

Then we may reach those hills yet. Anybody know how many days away they are?

Rover mechanical top speed = 180 meters/hour
Rover speed with hazard avoidance enabled = 36 meters/hour
Expected top travel distance per day = 40 meters

Distance of hills = 2-3 kilometers

So the hills are either 50-75 days away, 7-10 days away, or about 2 days away, depending on how you look at it. But the 50-75 day figure is probably the closest to being accurate, and, as someone else pointed out, it also depends on how many interesting things they run into on the way.

Keep in mind also that the mission success criterion is a total travel distance of 600 meters, so Spirit would be well out of warranty long before it gets to the hills. But we'll see - NASA spacecraft tend to last well past their "sell-by date," as a rule.

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