Mars dust storms suck life out of rovers

[JohnBoucher]

From MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19872945/)

A raging dust storm on Mars has cut power to Nasa's twin rovers to dangerously low levels, threatening an end to the mission.What a ride it has been. I hope this is not the end for these remarkable machines.

[Andrew Schuetze]

Here is a nice Quicktime (http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/video/movies/opportunity/mer20070720-480cc.mov) movie from NASA describing the situation for Opportunity. More information and other movie options can be found on this NASA (http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/video/opportunity01.html#Dust) page.

[JBotAlan]

So I have to wonder, what does the rover need to maintain? I've never built a rover and sent it to Mars (:D ), so I obviously am not familiar with the intricacies of such, but I am just purely curious; why not just cut the power for a period of time?

That's crazy that they have lasted so long, though.

[Jay H 237]

Hopefully they will pull through but if they don't then they don't owe NASA anything. Running over 2.5 years longer than they were ever designed NASA has gotten thier money's worth from them and should be models for the engineers who designed them when they design the next machines knowing what design and parts have worked well. They were also a nice boost for NASA in light of previous craft failure.

[Andrew Schuetze]

From what I've read, the nights are sooo very COLD that the electronics must be kept warm or else they won't survive. So if the Rovers cease to recieve enough solar energy to power their electronics heaters, they will Freeze over. Appearently, it can get cold enough that contraction of the different metals at solder points will crack and lose connection. There also has to be enough power to keep the basic operating system running or what would tell it to wake up?

Others more knowledgable folks can provide more specific information or correct any of my mistakes:)

[Kevin Sevcik]

I imagine that it also gets cold enough to freeze the electrolyte in the Li-ion batteries unless they have some very specialized formulations and engineering compromises to prevent freezing damage.

[Andy A.]

From what I've read, the nights are sooo very COLD that the electronics must be kept warm or else they won't survive. So if the Rovers cease to recieve enough solar energy to power their electronics heaters, they will Freeze over. Appearently, it can get cold enough that contraction of the different metals at solder points will crack and lose connection. There also has to be enough power to keep the basic operating system running or what would tell it to wake up?

Others more knowledgable folks can provide more specific information or correct any of my mistakes:)

You're correct- The main concern is keeping the rovers warm. I couldn't say what the power requirements are for that but it sounds like there is a shortfall, and the temperature is falling below acceptable limits at night. The rovers computer and at least one transmitter also have to operate in order to make contact with Earth and do stuff like run heaters, charge batteries and such. Maybe Dave L. can chime in with some inside info.

I wonder if some instruments like the camera mast and arm, that are not in the central 'warm box', are also heated. If so, at what point do ground controllers decide not to heat instruments in order to save core functions like communications? Is it worth having a rover with no arm? One that can't drive?

[artdutra04]

With any luck, the storm will clear enough to let sufficient light get to the rovers' solar arrays. But if this storm does bring their extensive career on Mars to retirement, then I think it would be a proper goal for us to retrieve one (or both) of the rovers when humans finally go to Mars for preservation and display in the Smithsonian. They've worked too hard over there on Mars to just be left there forever.

[DonRotolo]

Maybe I'm too old, but I volunteer to go out and get one of them. (I might need to borrow a hand truck, though)

Don

[JohnBoucher]

From MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19916977/)


"Both came through the weekend beautifully," Squyres said in a telephone interview. "They were both power positive over the weekend, meaning they were generating more power than they were consuming."

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Great news! Does this mean they will be fully functional again and providing more insight to Mars soon?

[Richard Wallace]

Great news! Does this mean they will be fully functional again and providing more insight to Mars soon?Did you read something that I didn't? I saw reports that battery energy was getting low, but nothing to indicate that less that full functionality.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Did you read something that I didn't? I saw reports that battery energy was getting low, but nothing to indicate that less that full functionality.

I guess I was under the impression that because of the storm, they had to shut down much of everything. There was a chance they wouldn't have been functional afterwards, right? :confused:

[Schnabel]

Even if the storm does settle, wouldn't the dust settle on the solar panels thus rendering them useless?

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Even if the storm does settle, wouldn't the dust settle on the solar panels thus rendering them useless?

I'm not sure that it would settle enough to stay on the solar panels. Isn't there a constant wind on Mars? Is there enough to keep the panels clean and dust free?

[JaneYoung]

Even if the storm does settle, wouldn't the dust settle on the solar panels thus rendering them useless?

One of the things the rovers always have to contend with is dust. One of the things that helps with that is wind.

The article that John linked us to shows the darkness the rovers were contending with and in the rover threads, there are some discussions/links regarding the dust, wind, dust devils.

I love the names of those rovers.

[JohnBoucher]

This is from 2004 New Scientist (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6824) that describes the problem back then.


If the crater does provide a natural, wind-driven car wash then Opportunity's days as a clean machine could be at an end. On 12 December, it drove out of the crater to explore the terrain beyond. "If in three or four months Opportunity is still operating and hasn't had another power boost that would suggest the crater was the key," Erickson says.


If they only knew we would still be following this.

[David Brinza]

I'm not sure that it would settle enough to stay on the solar panels. Isn't there a constant wind on Mars? Is there enough to keep the panels clean and dust free?The winds vary with time-of-day and with the seasons. Dust does accumulate on the solar panels causing gradual loss of power. About 15 months after landing, the solar panel output on Spirit suddenly increased. The next day Spirit captured an image of a "dust devil" - most likely one of these cleared the dust from the rover deck. There have been several of these cleanings on both rovers since that dramatic event.

Mars is a very tough environment for the rovers: Extreme Planet Takes its Toll (http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/spotlight/20070612.html). Eventually, the rovers' mission will come to an end. Already, they have provided a wealth of data regarding the Red Planet. A long time ago, it had lots of liquid water on it's surface, and may have been quite habitable. It's quite possible that life on Earth originated on Mars - meaning we could all be Martians (not unlike Team 494);) .

[Cynette]

Any update on the Rovers and the dust storm impacts? I think I heard that they were still hanging in there. Is that right?

[JaneYoung]

Any update on the Rovers and the dust storm impacts? I think I heard that they were still hanging in there. Is that right?


I came across this article:
http://www.space.com/news/070816_rovers_update.html

(Dr. Lemmon is the planetary scientist that LASA Robotics had the privilege of spending some time with for the American Mural Project this past year:http://www.met.tamu.edu/people/faculty/lemmon_index.php)


I also came across a photo of one of the arms on the rovers that was back in action on August 6 after a period of 20 days. (that is what the caption says) It is in a group of photos on MSNBC.com called Sublime space shots, photo #16.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10913792/displaymode/1107/s/2/

[David Brinza]

Any update on the Rovers and the dust storm impacts? I think I heard that they were still hanging in there. Is that right?
The best source of information on status of the Rovers is the MER mission website (http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html).

The latest update (about 10 days ago) indicated that the skies were beginning to clear, the rovers are producing enough power to fully charge their batteries, and Spirit had even resumed science operations with its arm. Of course, it's possible that the dust conditions could reverse and put the rovers in danger again, or some other problems could arise, but now it seems things are pretty encouraging for the rovers to continue their extended exploration of Mars.

[EricRobodox]

The skys are clearing, best page is this...
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status.html

Oh, and I am now on the People page of the Mars Exploration Program :)

http://zipcodemars.jpl.nasa.gov/bio-contribution.cfm?bid=6536&cid=396&pid=379&country_id=US&state_id=CA
Only Intern!!!! lol.

The picture was candid inside the cleanroom i worked in. for those familiar with JPL, its the clean room in the In-Situ Instrument Laboratory, i was next to the sandbox where they do surface testing with the mars rovers.

[JaneYoung]

Oh, and I am now on the People page of the Mars Exploration Program :)


How very cool is that! :)
A spot well earned, I'm sure.

[David Brinza]

The picture was candid inside the cleanroom i worked in. for those familiar with JPL, its the clean room in the In-Situ Instrument Laboratory, i was next to the sandbox where they do surface testing with the mars rovers.Hey! I've been in the ISIL cleanroom supporting early interface tests of one of the science instruments on MSL with the Rover Compute Element testbed. Our previous test was in May and the engineering model for the instrument will be delivered in early October, so I don't think we'll be working together. It's really cool that you've had the opportunity to work on the MSL Project and gain some insight into the level of detail required to get a spacecraft flight system functioning.

So tell me, will your experience at JPL affect your FIRST robot building and test approach?

[EricRobodox]

AHAHAH, yeah. In a weird way. Not really the mechanical aspect of the team, because most the stuff i was doing is ESD sensitive, and FIRST doesn't really have much stuff that requires you to plug yourself into a grounding port to work with it. But management wise i have already incorporated a lot of stuff. It was the time of my life there. It was really cool. Yeah, we had two RCE's in the testbed, one for the two testbeds that are currently available. I can not really say that nothing from JPL will get incorporated into mechanical stuff my team will do, but that is pending what the team wants. I got some cool pictures of me at the place though that i will always charish. I just emailed the MSL Testbed team that i was a part of for 6 weeks like 20 minutes ago. It was so cool, they were like the dream team. Each person was different and had like their own like awesomely genius like but cool background.

Enough about me though... unless people would like to talk about my experience (I can probably go on for a long time about it).

MER seems to be doing better, which is nice. Can not wait for Opportunity to enter that crater.

[David Brinza]

Things are looking much better now for the rovers.

See: Rovers Resume Driving (http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20070824a.html)

Also, the Spirit rover has just surpassed the Viking 2 lander in the number of martian days (1290 Sols) operating on the surface of Mars: Spirit Surpasses '70s Superstar (http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20070823a.html). Opportunity will pass the Viking 2 operating record in about 3 weeks.

[Roger]

Summer vacation is over (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070904.html) ... Opportunity is shaking the sand out of its shoes and going back to work. Though what I really thought was cool was the link it gave to Google Mars (http://www.google.com/mars/#lat=-2.052630&lon=-5.500030&zoom=10&map=infrared) -- I think that's a map of the area (the search engine is rather primitive).

BTW--

My other car is being built to go to Mars in 2010

My OTHER CAR is still on Mars!!!

-- do they hand out special bumper stickers for your cars? I'm waiting for something named "Alice" to be sent to the Moon -- just so everybody gets bumper stickers with "I sent Alice to the Moon!" :D

[EricRobodox]

I did it as a joke to Dave's signature. I did get a sticker with the mission logo. To my knowledge, its not out for sale yet. Also ordered a couple of shirts (polo and t-shirt) that JPL offered for MSL employees.


Back on topic, its exciting that Opportunity, or MER2, is entering the crater.
Hopefully the rovers wont experience a dust storm like that in the near future, or in their future in general.

Astronomy picture of the day is so cool. A few days ago was crazy cool...
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0709/lunation_ajc.gif