JPL: Spirit makes headway

[BMAONE23]

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ ... 0126a.html

[bystander]

That seems a little misleading. I thought maybe Spirit was going to get unstuck. But then I read this:

Now a Stationary Research Platform, NASA'S Mars Rover Spirit Starts a New Chapter in Red Planet Scientific Studies
NASA JPL Mars Exploration Rover Mission Press Releases, January 26, 2010

After six years of unprecedented exploration of the Red Planet, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit no longer will be a fully mobile robot. NASA has designated the once-roving scientific explorer a stationary science platform after efforts during the past several months to free it from a sand trap have been unsuccessful.

[makc]

I think they said they are waiting for more light or smth, probably using it as much as they can meanwhile, without wasting energy on "un"-digging attempts.

edit: here's the key phrase:

The rover team plans to use those remaining potential drives for improving the rover's tilt... If necessary, we can try to lower the front right of the rover by attempting to drop the right-front wheel into a rut or dig it into a hole.

[makc]

I hate to, but I have to...

[bystander]

RJN beat you to it: http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... 31&t=18101

[neufer]

------------------------------------------
___ Hamlet > Act I, scene IV

HORATIO: then it draws near the season
. Wherein the Spirit held his wont to walk.
------------------------------------------
___ Julius Caesar > Act V, scene III

BRUTUS: Thy Spirit walks abroad and turns our swords
. In our own proper entrails.
------------------------------------------
___ King Lear > Act IV, scene VII

KING LEAR: You are a Spirit, I know: when did you die?
------------------------------------------
___ Hamlet > Act III, scene III

ROSENCRANTZ: That Spirit upon whose weal depend and rest
. The lives of many. The cease of majesty
. Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw
. What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel,
. Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,
. To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
. Are mortised and adjoin'd; which, when it falls,
. Each small annexment, petty consequence,
. Attends the boisterous ruin.
------------------------------------------

[bystander]

That's a lot of motion for a "stuck" rover!
The Planetary Society Blog - 2010 Feb 06

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory posted a video to YouTube today showing what seems to be a remarkable amount of motion out of Spirit lately, especially given that she's supposed to be a "stationary science platform" now. The video consists animations from Spirit's forward and rear Hazard Avoidance Cameras -- the belly-mounted, fish-eye cameras that help Spirit understand the terrain immediately in front of and behind it.

Recent drives by the Spirit rover from Jan. 14 to Feb. 4, 2010 (Sols 2145 to 2165) moved the center of the rover approximately 13.4 inches (34 centimeters) backwards. Since Jan 26 (sol 2157), drive commands have concentrated on placing Spirit into a favorable tilt toward the sun as the Martian winter approaches. (Credit: NASA/JPL)

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[geckzilla]

Heh, that video makes it look like it's moving so fast.

Someone help me out here... I calculated that it's moving about .000000505 km/h but that sounds a little low. A garden snail moves 100000 times faster.

[neufer]

Heh, that video makes it look like it's moving so fast.

Someone help me out here... I calculated that it's moving about .000000505 km/h but that sounds a little low.
A garden snail moves 100000 times faster.

0.505 mm/h is a little slow.

I calculate 0.71 mm/h or 17 mm/day
A garden snail goes 13 mm/s or about 66,000 times faster.

However fingernails grow only 0.1 mm/day or 170 times slower.

[geckzilla]

Well, at least I wasn't terribly off... don't trust me to launch a rocket anytime soon, though. The garden snail is definitely winning.

[neufer]

The garden snail is definitely winning.

Perhaps the slowest land animals, however, are nematodes
which travel at 36 cm/h (i.e., 360 body lengths/hour)
or just 500 times faster than Spirit.

. Caenorhabditis elegans magnified x100 (real time)

• 

Caenorhabditis elegans made news when it was discovered that specimens had survived the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in February 2003. Later, in January 2009, it was announced that live samples of C. elegans from the University of Nottingham will spend two weeks on the International Space Station as part of a project to explore the effects of zero gravity on muscle development and its physiology. The emphasis of the research will be on the genetic basis of muscle atrophy. This has relevance to space travel, but also to individuals who are bed-ridden, geriatric or diabetic.

[bystander]

Mars rover Spirit could rise again\
New Scientist - 2010 Mar 02

NASA's Spirit rover should be able to wriggle free of its sandy trap on Mars after all, says a scientist for the mission. But the plucky robotic explorer will need to survive the bitter Martian winter first.

[makc]

Mars rover not responding
Discovery News, Thu Apr 1, 2010

The aging, sand-trapped Mars rover Spirit failed to make a scheduled communication this week and may have gone into a power-saving hibernation to survive the Red Planet's winter, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Wednesday... "We are checking other less likely possibilities for the missed communication, but this probably means that Spirit tripped a low-power fault sometime between the last downlink on March 22 and yesterday," Mars rovers project manager John Callas said in a statement.

[BMAONE23]

Killer GIF movie of Opportunity backing out of Victoria
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/spotlight/20100503a.html