Category: Missions

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The Spirit rover has now taken two sets of close-up images showing the ground where it has been stuck for several weeks. Spirit used the microscopic imager on the robotic arm to peer underneath her own belly in an attempt to determine how the vehicle is embedded, and if there might be something obstructing the rover. Sure enough, the images appear to show a rock or mound of dirt that might be in the way, but more pictures and tests are needed before the rover team can develop a strategy for getting the rover out of its current predicament. Rover project manager John Callas said using the robotic arm for this purpose was never in the original design book, but it appears to have worked quite well.

Spirit is dug in over halfway up her wheels in soil that varies from one side of the rover to the other. The rover engineers and drivers have been worried that Spirit has dug herself down so deep that her belly might be sitting on rocks, and one wheel may be jammed by a rock.

The camera normally take close-up images of Martian rocks and soil. The technique for using it to look underneath the rover was tested on Spirit’s twin, Opportunity, and it worked well. The first set of images are a little out of focus, but according to an article in New Scientist, Spirit took additional images on Tuesday which showed one possible obstruction, but it wasn’t clear whether it was a rock or just a mound of dirt, and it also wasn’t obvious if the object was hitting the rover’s underside.

In an article in Universe Today last week, Callas said that even though this is one of the worst predicaments either rover has ever been in, he is optimistic about getting Spirit unstuck. “We saw that even on the last drive that the rover was still moving, even though it was only fractionally, based on the wheel spin. So, that tells us material is still being transported underneath the wheels. Given enough time and enough wheel spinning we should be able to get out. If that changes, if we get a situation where we have a hundred per cent slip, then we’re in trouble. But we’re not at that point yet, — even if we’re at 99.9%, that makes a big difference between 100%.”

And if this latest attempt doesn’t work, Callas says they have some other ideas up their robotic arm sleeves. “There are some exotic things we would consider if the more traditional methods don’t work,” he said. We have a lot of arrows in our quiver, or tools in our toolbelt to try first. ”

Sources: New Scientist, previous interview/article with John Callas

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We’re all concerned about the Spirit rover, currently stuck in some soft soil on Mars. But some people are actually working hard to figure out how to rescue the rover. That includes a 7-year old boy named Julian who sent this drawing in to JPL with his idea of how help Spirit: use the robotic arm as a “tripod” to lift the rover up and help move it out of the spot where it is embedded. Julian, you have a bright future ahead of you as an engineer! “We are getting a lot of interesting suggestions from the public,” said JPL’s John Callas, MER project manager, “and we think that’s wonderful. It shows people are interested in these rovers. We certainly are canvassing the full range of possibilities to get Spirit unstuck.”

And Callas said they are actually planning to use the robotic arm to help get Spirit unstuck, but not quite the way Julian had in mind.

“We’re doing a parallel approach,” Callas told Universe Today, “doing things both on Earth and on Mars. Spirit is using her instruments to assess the terrain and the nature of the materials where she is stuck. Just last night we made the decision to use the robotic arm to look underneath the belly of the rover to see if we can determine how the vehicle is embedded and if it may be high centered on some small rocks under the rover. We’ll also look at the wheels to see how the middle wheels are dug in.”

Callas said this is a technique the robotic arm was never designed to do. “So, we tested it first on Opportunity and it worked quite well, so that’s the plan for what we’ll do with Spirit this weekend.”

Spirit has also been busy taking remote sensing images of the surrounding terrain with all its instruments to try to characterize the soils and their properties. Callas said “soils” because there actually appears to be two different types of materials where the rover is stuck, with a different type of soil on the left side of the rover from the right.

However, the test has been held up because of problems with work station that controls the test facility, but Callas said they are hoping by later today (Friday) to get started with the simulations.

They’ll start by putting the simulated Mars regolith, which is called baghouse dust, (ground basaltic material, Callas said) and use enough to test just one wheel of the rover. “If it exhibits the same characteristics we’re seeing on Mars, then we’ll truck in tons of that material to do the tests with the rover,” said Callas. If not, they’ll have to go back to the drawing board.

Callas said he is optimistic about getting Spirit unstuck. “We saw that even on the last drive that the rover was still moving, even though it was only fractionally, based on the wheel spin. So, that tells us material is still being transported underneath the wheels. Given enough time and enough wheel spinning we should be able to get out. If that changes, if we get a situation where we have a hundred per cent slip, then we’re in trouble. But we’re not at that point yet, — even if we’re at 99.9%, that makes a big difference between 100%.”

And if this latest attempt doesn’t work, Callas says they have some other ideas up their robotic arm sleeves. “There are some exotic things we would consider if the more traditional methods don’t work,” he said. We have a lot of arrows in our quiver, or tools in our toolbelt to try first. ”

And they always have Julian to rely on, too.

Source: Interview with John Callas
Julian’s picture on Twitpic — check out the comments!

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The Mars Science Laboratory rover, scheduled for launch in 2011, now has a new name, thanks to a sixth-grade student from Kansas. Twelve-year-old Clara Ma submitted the winning entry, “Curiosity” in the name-the-rover contest for schoolchildren, sponsored by NASA. “We have been eager to call the rover by name,” said Pete Theisinger, who manages the JPL team building and testing Curiosity. “Giving it a name worthy of this mission’s quest means a lot to the people working on it.”

For winning the naming contest, Clara gets to sign her name directly on the rover. But you can send your name to Mars with Curiosity, too.

Find out more about sending your name to Mars.

A NASA panel selected the name following a nationwide student contest that attracted more than 9,000 proposals via the Internet and mail. The panel primarily took into account the quality of submitted essays. Name suggestions from the Mars Science Laboratory project leaders and a non-binding public poll also were considered.

“Students from every state suggested names for this rover. That’s testimony to the excitement Mars missions spark in our next generation of explorers,” said Mark Dahl, the mission’s program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Many of the nominating essays were excellent and several of the names would have fit well. I am especially pleased with the choice, which recognizes something universally human and essential to science.”

“I was really interested in space, but I thought space was something I could only read about in books and look at during the night from so far away,” Ma said. “I thought that I would never be able to get close to it, so for me, naming the Mars rover would at least be one step closer.”

“Curiosity is an everlasting flame that burns in everyone’s mind. It makes me get out of bed in the morning and wonder what surprises life will throw at me that day,” Ma wrote in her winning essay. “Curiosity is such a powerful force. Without it, we wouldn’t be who we are today. Curiosity is the passion that drives us through our everyday lives. We have become explorers and scientists with our need to ask questions and to wonder.”

Source: JPL

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Of all the perilous situations and technological issues the two Mars rovers dealt with, soft soil wasn’t tops on my list of what might mean the end of roving on Mars. The Spirit rover is stuck in an area of soft sand-like soil, slipping severely during recent attempts to drive, sinking the wheels about halfway into the ground. The rover engineers and scientists has suspended driving Spirit temporarily while studying the ground around the rover and planning simulation tests of driving options with a test rover at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

“Spirit is in a very difficult situation,” JPL’s John Callas, MER project manager said Monday. “We are proceeding methodically and cautiously. It may be weeks before we try moving Spirit again. Meanwhile, we are using Spirit’s scientific instruments to learn more about the physical properties of the soil that is giving us trouble.”

Spirit has overcome problems with her flash drive, survived climbing and descending Husband Hill with a malfunctioning front wheel, and recently prevailed over problems caused by cosmic ray hit which caused memory problems and “amnesia.” Things were looking up for Spirit as three times in the past month, wind has removed some of the dust accumulated on Spirit’s solar panels, increasing the rover’s capability for generating power.

Spirit has been driving counterclockwise from north to south around a low plateau called “Home Plate” for two months. The rover progressed 122 meters (400 feet) on that route before reaching its current position.

In the past week, the digging-in of Spirit’s wheels has raised concerns that the rover’s belly pan could now be low enough to contact rocks underneath the chassis, which would make getting out of the situation more difficult. The right-front wheel on Spirit stopped working three years ago. Driving with just five powered wheels while dragging or pushing an immobile wheel adds to the challenge of the situation.

“The improved power situation buys us time,” Callas said. “We will use that time to plan the next steps carefully. We know that dust storms could return at any time, although the skies are currently clear.”

Opportunity also had problems with soft soil, running aground in a dune called “Purgatory” back in 2005. Extricating the rover from the dune required more than five weeks of planning, testing, and carefully monitored driving. So, don’t give up hope yet of the engineers figuring out how to get Spirit out of the bind she is in.

We’ll keep you posted.

Source: JPL

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Malea Patera isn’t the name of one of the One Hundred and One Dalmatians, but it is the designation of an ancient volcano on Mars located on the outskirts of the Hellas impact basin. This isn’t your typical Martian landscape — just where are the red rocks and soil? — but is reminiscent of the markings on a Dalmatian dog. So what is going on here? This image was taken in early spring for this location in the southern hemisphere and the ground is covered with bright frost except for some dark splotches found in discrete patches. This is where the sunlight has penetrated the frost and initiated defrosting around discrete spots. The HiRISE scientists say that clearly, something is different about the patches, with the defrosting taking place, while the other areas remain frosty. One possibility is that these are (frost covered) dark sand dunes that heat up more easily than the surrounding terrain. However, to find out for sure, HiRISE will need to take a new image in the summer time to really know what is happening here. See below for a full view of this region, plus a few more of a mega-huge batch of images that were released today from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

In other areas these radial troughs have been referred to as “spiders,” simply because of their shape. In this region the pattern looks more dendritic as channels branch out numerous times as they get further from the center. The troughs are believed to be formed by gas flowing beneath the seasonal ice to openings where the gas escapes, carrying along dust from the surface below. The dust falls to the surface of the ice in fan-shaped deposits.

Using the HiRISE images allows the MER scientists to plan out Oppy’s route in great detail, avoiding potential hazards and targeting features of interest (such as the small craters below and left of center). HiRISE images are routinely used by the Opportunity operations team for these purposes, and to plan the route to distant Endeavour Crater, the long-term goal of Opportunity’s mission, about 17 km to the southeast.

Opportunity has been exploring Mars for over 5 (Earth) years; it will probably take another two years to reach Endeavour.

Check out over 600 observations that were just released by the HiIRISE team — 2 terabytes worth of data! And all are Martian eye candy (or is that “Hi” candy?) Hats off to HiRISE and her team!

Source: HiRISE site