Universe Today

A little good news for Spirit! The rover successfully moved; not very much, but it's the first step of a planned two-step motion to try and get Spirit free from a sand trap on Mars. On Sol 2090 (Nov. 19), the rover spun its wheels for the equivalent of 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) in the forward direction, and the center of the rover moved approximately 12 millimeters (0.5 inch) forward, 7 millimeters (0.3 inch) to the left and about 4 millimeters (0.2 inch) down. Again, not much, but it's the first good news and good movement the rover has had in months.
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Mission managers sent the drive commands to the Spirit rover at 4 a.m. EST (0900 GMT) today, — Nov. 17, 2009 and Sol 2088 for the rover — but the data back from the rover indicates the rover stopped less than one second after it began moving its wheels when the rover automatically sensed more lateral tilt than permitted. A tight limit on vehicle roll and pitch of less than 1 degree change was set for this first drive, and as the rover began its first move, it sensed that its roll was outside the allowed limit and safely stopped the drive. Those driving the rover say they are starting cautiously, setting initial parameters with very tight limits with the knowledge that these hair triggers may stop the rover frequently. As the project gains confidence with extrication, these limits may be relaxed. From this limited drive the team now has a more accurate measurement of vehicle roll and pitch that will be used for subsequent drive planning. Analysis is continuing. The team hopes to completion their planning of the next drive on Wednesday, Nov. 18, with possible wheel movement again on the 19th (Sol 2090)
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On Monday, Nov. 16, NASA will begin transmitting commands to the Spirit rover on Mars to begin the extrication process to free the rover from where she has been stuck since April 23rd of this year. While members of the rover team have not given up on getting the rover to rove again, they were very guarded at a press conference Thursday in showing any optimism about removing Spirit from her predicament. "Spirit is facing the most challenging situation we have seen on Mars," said Doug McCuistion director, Mars Exploration Program. "We know a lot of people view Spirit with great affection, and have followed along with the mission and seen new vistas and landscapes along with the rover to uncover new knowledge about our sister planet. But I want everybody to be realistic. This is a serious situation and if it cannot make the great escape from this sandtrap its likely this lonely spot might be where Spirit ends its adventures on Mars."
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The Spirit Rover, which has had its wheels stuck for 145 Martian sols, has finally moved! Though she's far from being extricated from her current position, this is the first time that she's budged in quite a while. The Mars rover driving team is working on ways to get Sprit out, and this recent move was just them getting Spirit's wheels in alignment for an upcoming procedure to free her from the sand trap she's stuck in. But it's a start!

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To prepare for an actual attempt to extract the Spirit rover from its sand-trapped predicament, engineers using test rovers on Earth have added a new challenge. Until last week, those commanding and assessing drives by the test rovers were usually in the same room as the sandbox setup simulating Spirit's predicament, where they can watch how each test goes. That changed for the latest preparation, called an operational readiness test.
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After the Apollo Program successfully conquered the moon, figuring out what the next challenge would be was a no-brainer. Everyone pointed to Mars. So far, only unmanned expeditions have been sent to the Red Planet, the latest being two rovers – Spirit and Opportunity. One of the biggest challenges was to ensure the rovers had ample cushion for a safe Mars landing.

Some of the past landing attempts had ended in failure. As early as 1971, the Soviet Union already sent mini-rovers. They each were inside landers that were on board two probes: Mars 2 and Mars 3. The probes were able to deploy the landers successfully.

However, the landers weren't as fortunate. Although they touched-down on the Martian surface, the impact must have been too much since they only transmitted data for a few seconds. The mini-rovers inside them were never deployed. More missions were sent under the Soviet's Mars Program but none of them achieved a successful Mars landing.

Four years later, NASA launched the Viking Program. The Viking Program was successful as both Viking 1 and Viking 2 landed safely and were able to transmit data for a relatively long time. The colored pictures collected during those missions are still among the most widely used today.

As mentioned earlier, the most recent successful Mars landing was carried out by two rovers. Due to the success of the Viking landings, the same parachute technology from the Viking landings was used for the descent phase of the landers of both Spirit and Opportunity. The only difference was that, because the cargo was now heavier, the surface area of the parachutes were increased by as much as 40%.

As for the landing phase, which is where crashes obviously take place, the technology was borrowed from the Pathfinder landing. Pathfinder was the lander of a previous mission. To cushion its landing, Pathfinder was fully encapsulated by 24 inflatable lobes … just imagine a bunch of grapes.

Anyway, the bunch of lobes simply bounced and rolled upon impact, taking the rover into a well-cushioned ride.

The rover packages were also outfitted with rocket-assisted descent motors. These systems were designed to fire when necessary to ensure balance during descent. Spirit, having descended in a region where strong winds were blowing, had to use the rocket system. Opportunity, on the other hand, did not find it necessary to use its rocket system, having descended amidst calm weather conditions.

Will US soldiers go if given the chance to conduct a one-way mission to Mars? Find out here in Universe Today. We've also talked about how India is looking forward to a Mars mission.

Find out more about the Mars Exploration Rovers in their official website.

Here are two episodes at Astronomy Cast that you might want to check out as well:
Stellar Roche Limits, Seeing Black Holes, and Water on Mars
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

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A mars rover is a wheeled robot designed for exploration on the planet Mars. There are currently two operational rovers on Mars as of this day, September 25, 2009: Spirit and Opportunity. The two rovers were deployed on opposite sides of the planet; Spirit on January 4, 2004 and Opportunity on January 25, 2004.

Both robots belong to the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. The mission's main objective is to find and then characterize rocks and soils that may provide clues to the possible existence of water on the Red Planet.

As of this writing, Opportunity is departing from a large meteorite dubbed Block Island while Spirit, which has been stuck since May 1, continues to perform scientific investigations using its remote sensors and robot arm.

Each mars rover communicates with Earth-based scientists using omnidirectional antennas that transmit information to either Deep Space Network (DSN) antennas on Earth or to any spacecraft orbiting Mars, which in turn relay the information to land-based stations on Earth. Most of the data is sent through the Mars orbiter Odyssey.

Spirit and Opportunity are not the first rovers to have successfully landed and carried out their missions on Mars. In July 4, 1997, the mars rover Sojourner, along with its lander (which was later named the Carl Sagan Memorial Station), made a successful touchdown on the planet. Since that day until September 27 of the same year, over 17,000 images were beamed to Earth by the lander and the rover.

Both Spirit and Opportunity have the following basic instruments: a Panoramic Camera, Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer, Mossbauer Spectrometer, Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer, Magnets, Microscopic Imager, and Rock Abrasion Tool.

One of the goals of each mars rover was very modest (i.e. compared to what they have actually achieved) – to drive up to a total of 1 Km. According to the readings on their odometers, Spirit has already covered 7.7 km of Martian terrain while Opportunity has recorded an outstanding 17.5 km. Both distances are way beyond what was originally expected.

There were a couple of attempted rover landings on Mars in the 1970's. Unfortunately, they all failed to accomplish their missions after getting damaged during crash landings. One crucial innovation that led to the success of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission was the use of a multi-cell balloon that simply bounced and rolled on Mars' surface after impact.

Each mars rover was encapsulated by these balloons so that when they hit the ground, the force the robots absorbed were not enough to damage them.

We've got our own home-made Mars Rover articles here in Universe Today. Earlier, we mentioned that Opportunity was just departing from a large meteorite dubbed Block Island. Read more about that encounter by clicking on that link.

The Mars Exploration Rover Mission has its own site. You can even read each rover's latest activity there. If you'd like to read more about the Sojourner, here's a link to its own site too.

Tired eyes? Let your ears help you learn for a change. Here are some episodes from Astronomy Cast that just might suit your taste:

Nucleosynthesis: Elements from Stars
Advanced Propulsion Systems

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The Spirit rover has had memory problems, arthritic-like symptoms in her wheels, as well as her current dilemma of being stuck in loose Martian soil. But now, is she having psychedelic visions, too?! No, not to worry; she's not having hallucinations or smoking any mind-altering Martian weed. This image is just a combination of three images taken seconds apart through different colored filters to create a special-effects portrait of a huge, moving dust devil on Mars. It shows the dust devil in different colors, according to where it was on the horizon when each exposure was taken. 
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Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have intentionally driven their engineering rover into soft soil in a sandbox testbed, to simulate how the Spirit rover is stuck on Mars. And they did a good job of it, too, as the test rover, called SSTB1, is stuck, as well, with its wheels spinning and going nowhere. The science team has confirmed a rock on Mars, underneath Spirit is touching the underside of the rover, so engineers have placed a similar looking rock in the test sandbox, as seen above.

"We want to experiment with different extraction techniques down here on Earth before we actually do them for real on Mars," said John Callas, project manager for the Mars rovers. "Our expectation is that it will some time to get Spirit out, so we will be able to get a better feel for that here in this facility to see how well the techniques work and how long it will take for them to work."
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When your rover has abundant energy but can't go anywhere, what's a scientist to do? How about making observations of the evening and night skies on Mars? With the benefit of a boost in electrical power from a wind gust cleaning off her solar panels, the Spirit rover has more energy available than she's had for a couple of years. But unfortunately, Spirit is stuck in a patch of loose soil in the Home Plate region on Mars. While the engineers at JPL work hard at figuring out how to "Free Spirit" (see the new website dedicated to their efforts) scientists are making observations of her surroundings to aid in the effort to get her out. But there's also enough power to do additional observations, and astronomy was a logical choice. "Certainly, a month or more ago, no one was considering astronomy with the rovers," said Mark Lemmon, planetary scientist at Texas A&M University and member of the rover team. "We thought that was done. With the dust cleanings, though, everyone thinks it is better to use the new found energy on night time science than to just burn it with heaters." Besides, Lemmon added, using all the energy in the daytime might lead to overheating.
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