Mars dust storms suck life out of rovers

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Originally Posted by Richard

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?

[Schnabel]

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

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Originally Posted by Schnabel

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?

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by Jeremiah Johnson

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. 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]

Originally Posted by 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?

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...mode/1107/s/2/

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by 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?

The best source of information on status of the Rovers is the MER mission website.

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]

Originally Posted by EricRobodox

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]

Originally Posted by EricRobodox

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

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. Opportunity will pass the Viking 2 operating record in about 3 weeks.

[Roger]

Summer vacation is over ... 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 -- I think that's a map of the area (the search engine is rather primitive).

BTW--

Originally Posted by EricRobodox

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

Originally Posted by dlavery

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!"

[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/ima...nation_ajc.gif

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Schnabel

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.