[Space] NASA - Mars Exploration Rover MER-A "Spirit" - Update Thread

[Rand]

Originariamente inviato da jumpjack

un processo lento e lungo, che potrebbe richiedere settimane o addirittura mesi???

- Viste tutte le possibili incertezze è facile che siano conservativi nelle stime dei tempi, anche al fine di evitare troppo "sensazionalismo" sulle date.
- Per liberarsi dalla "Purgatory Dune" ci sono voluti 21 sol di guida. Questa situazione è più difficile.
- Sono tutti ben consapevoli che i rover non dureranno in eterno (insomma se "ci mettono molto" lo fanno a ragione )

[Rand]

Prima di iniziare l'estrazione vera e propria (che rimane "very soon") il team dei MER sta cercando di risolvere i problemi di amnesia di Spirit:

@spaceguy87 Date extrication starts isn't quite certain, but happening very soon. Want to fix "amnesia events" first if we can. #FreeSpirit

Una spiegazione dettagliata è disponibile in questo articolo:

the rover on Sol 2065 (October 24, 2009) suffered another minor setback when it suddenly rebooted itself and then had a problem "with mounting its non-volatile flash memory," as the official confirmation put it. The data Spirit sent data home from that sol through Sol 2068 (October 27, 2009) indicated that it hadn’t used its flash memory. In other words, for four sols the rover forgot to record and store the data gleaned from the tasks assigned.

Spirit first exhibited this bizarre behavior back in April of this year, when its experienced a couple of resets and four bouts of amnesia over the course of several weeks, but the team was unable to figure out exactly what triggered them. They were waiting for this event and may well get to the bottom of it as a result of it happening again.

"We still don't have information about what causes these amnesia events," said John Callas, MER project manager yesterday. "If they are intermittent and infrequent, they are a nuisance that would set us back a day or two when they occur. If the condition becomes persistent or frequent, we will need to go to an alternate strategy that avoids depending on flash memory."

The MERs, of course, have alternate memories so even if the flash memory was lost, it would not be mission threatening. The memory however is volatile random-access memory or RAM. That means the rover can save data there for communicating to Earth as long as it is awake. In other words, it must beam up the data the same day it collects it, or at least before it goes to sleep. If the mission had to relay on the rovers' RAM they would only get data collected the same day. Any unsent data from an earlier day would be lost, Callas noted. Nevertheless, he added: "The total volume of data returned by the rover is expected to be about the same."

Earlier this week, Spirit resumed activities using only its RAM to store telemetry, so the team instructed the rover to stay awake until its afternoon relay pass with Odyssey so it could return the day's data before napping and losing the goods.

It's another bump in what has been an unfairly bumpy road for Spirit and it may delay the start of the rover’s coming extraction. But from all appearances and nearly six Earth years of past history, it’s certainly not enough to stop this rover or this rover team.

As engineers at JPL prepared to reformat the rover's flash memory file system and restore it to normal operation, Spirit hung in, otherwise in good health and maintaining strong power levels. The setup for reformatting flash was uplinked in the Sol 2072-2074 plan and should have arrived today, if everything went as planned.

"Flash is partitioned into two parts," said Nelson. "One part is simple memory; the other is configured as a disk drive. In fact, we licensed the disk drive technology from Sandisk. We believe the configuration area of Flash is corrupted and this is why the file system or disk drive won’t 'mount.' We note, however, that the other part of flash, the regular memory part, holds most of the flight software which has been operating normally," he added. "By reformatting flash -- which only reformats the file system area so we won’t lose the flight software -- we believe the process will identify the old configuration area as bad, mark it so, and build the new configuration area elsewhere. This should allow the system to be configured and mounted and thus restore normal operation."

[Xile]

Qualche giorno fa ho letto che per non perdere i dati di Spirit mandano i segnali a Opportunity che li manda a Mars Odissey che li manda alla Terra

[Rand]

Originariamente inviato da Xile

Qualche giorno fa ho letto che per non perdere i dati di Spirit mandano i segnali a Opportunity che li manda a Mars Odissey che li manda alla Terra

Penso tu abbia capito male (o la fonte si è confusa) visto che Spirit e Opportunity sono essenzialmente uno dalla parte opposta del pianeta rispetto all'altro.

La sequenza di trasmissione normale è MER ->uno degli Orbiter (quale/i dipende da questioni "di pianificazione") -> Terra. I MER possono comunicare direttamente con la Terra, ma non è una modalità normalmente utilizzata visto che permette di trasmettere meno dati rispetto a quella che sfrutta gli orbiter.

[Rand]

On Nov 12, there will be a press conference on upcoming Spirit extrication. Expect news stories shortly after, everywhere. :-)

Scott Maxwell

NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EST on Thursday, Nov. 12, to discuss attempts to free the Mars rover Spirit from sandy soil where the venerable robot has been stuck for the past six months.

fonte

[Rand]

A depression called "Scamander Crater," about 8 meters (26 feet) wide and 25 centimeters (10 inches) deep, dominates the terrain near NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit in this map that emphasizes local topography by removing the regional tilt to the northwest.

The total relief indicated by the color differences is about half a meter (20 inches) from the higher ground (color coded red) to the lower ground (color coded black). The map covers an area 12 meters (39 feet) wide from west to east. North is to the top.

The topographic information was generated from stereo image data using exposures taken by Spirit's navigation camera during the 1,870th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (April 7, 2009). At that time, Spirit had not yet reached the rover location indicated on the map. The indicated position is at a site called "Troy," where Spirit became embedded by the end of April and remained for more than six months. From its embedded position, the rover used its robotic arm to examine the patch of bright soil it had exposed, called "Ulysses."

The map indicates that Spirit is situated with its left wheels within the crater and right wheels outside the crater. Rover-team scientists hypothesize that the left wheels broke through a thin, sulfate-rich crust and encountered underlying loose sulfate sands that fill the crater.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ohio State University

Non ho ancora trovato un resoconto vero e proprio della (tele)conferenza.

[Octane]

Davvero notevole il dettaglio della mappa!

[Rand]

Prime impressioni/dichiarazioni dalla conferenza:

Highlights from today's Spirit press briefing

Since A. J. S. Rayl was also listening in on today's press briefing about the efforts to extricate Spirit from her predicament at Troy, I'll just hit the high points and send you over to her story when she has posted it.

But first, an amused comment on the makeup of the panel. It was opened by Doug McCuistion from NASA Headquarters, whose script seems to have required him to knock out all hopes for success among the listening audience. He said such things as "Unfortunately, Spirit may have met its match" and "This could end up being where Spirit remains" and "The plan is to send the first commands on Monday, but this process could take quite a while, if it's possible at all to get Spirit out of its predicament." His comments sounded like the warmup to a eulogy. Project manager John Callas and rover driver Ashley Stroupe were more focused on the present: here's the situation, and here's what we're trying next. And then there was Ray Arvidson, deputy project scientist, who neatly balanced McCuistion's pessimism with equal and opposite optimism: he said that while the science from their current position was exciting, "We're ready to button up here and start driving Monday and head to points south."

What they have learned is the following.
* Spirit's left wheels appear to have broken through a "duricrust" into a soft sand that is the most sulfate-rich material either rover has studied on Mars.
* That soft sand appears to fill a small crater that was invisible visually and which is only revealed by looking at its subtle topography.
* The right-side wheels, which include the stuck right-front wheel, are outside the crater, on firmer ground.
* The contrast between the two types of soils -- inside the crater and outside -- has been confirmed by using the RAT brush to expose fresh soil in two spots in front of the rover. Toward the rover's left, the RAT brush exposed sulfate-rich soil; toward the rover's right, it did not see this sulfate-rich soil.
* After all their testing, John Callas said, "We haven't found a clear solution to how to get Spirit out of its predicament." But he went on to say "if there is a way out, we will find it."
* Their best plan now is to attempt to drive the rover forward -- which is to say, to drive over the tracks it left as it entered Troy, since the rover was (as usual) driving backward at the time it got stuck.
* Forward is better because that way it doesn't have to climb vertically up onto unbroken duricrust -- they will be going over level ground of the previous tracks, and eventually will even be heading downhill (assuming they make some progress).
* The first wheel motion I noted earlier this week was to straighten wheels into the direction they need to roll next.
* The first drive will be attempted late Monday night, California time, and will consist of just a few meters of commanded drive. They'll have the results back on Tuesday and will take "at least a day" to analyze the results of this first cautious drive.
* This process will take a very long time, even if progress is being made. The next time Headquarters will get involved is at the previously planned Senior Review in February. Rover team will present their progress then and a decision will be taken whether to continue extrication efforts or operate Spirit as a lander mission. Shutting Spirit down is not currently on the table.
* If they do get out, the plan remains to continue south to Von Braun and Goddard.
* Under current conditions, Spirit should have enough power to survive the next winter.

More from A. J. S. Rayl to come.

In sostanza (traduzione veloce):

- Le ruote di sinistra di Spirit hanno rotto una "duricrust" (che interpreto come una "crosta" superficiale del terreno) e sono finite in della sabbia morbida.
- Questa sabbia morbida riempie un piccolo cratere che è sostanzialmente invisibile ad un analisi visuale ed è stato individuato solo dopo un attenta analisi del terreno.
- Le ruote di destra (compresa quella bloccata) sono su un terreno più solido.
- Non hanno trovato una soluzione evidente per disinsabbiarsi. Se c'è una via la troveranno.
- I test hanno evidenziato che è meglio guidare in avanti (il rover guida tipicamente in "retromarcia" quindi "in avanti" equivale a tornare sulle proprie traccie).
- Il motivo è che in questo modo non bisogna risalire in verticale della "duricrust" non spezzata.
- La prima guida avverrà Lunedi e sarà relativamente piccola (alcuni metri di percorso comandati). Poi analizzeranno i risultati.
- La procedura richiederà tempo. Se non si libera per Febbraio si prenderà la decisione se continuare o operarlo come missione fissa.
- Spirit ha al momento abbastanza energia per superare l'inverno.
- Se si liberano l'obbiettivo rimangono Von Braun e Goddard.

[Rand]

Originariamente inviato da Nikka93

ma non possono semplicemente muovere le ruote non affondate?

Il terreno sotto le ruote di destra è più solido di quello a sinistra che ha pochissima consistenza, ma è comunque cedevole. Se non ricordo male la ruota che avrebbe più trazione è quella anteriore destra, che però è rotta.

[gpc]

Originariamente inviato da Rand

Il terreno sotto le ruote di destra è più solido di quello a sinistra che ha pochissima consistenza, ma è comunque cedevole. Se non ricordo male la ruota che avrebbe più trazione è quella anteriore destra, che però è rotta.

In ogni caso se le ruote cedute lo bloccano, rischia di fare l'effetto "donna che preme a paletta l'acceleratore per spostare la macchina dalla sabbia" e finire completamente dentro...

[Rand]

Originariamente inviato da gpc

In ogni caso se le ruote cedute lo bloccano, rischia di fare l'effetto "donna che preme a paletta l'acceleratore per spostare la macchina dalla sabbia" e finire completamente dentro...

Al limite possono spedire questo



a liberarlo

[gpc]

Originariamente inviato da Rand

Al limite possono spedire questo



a liberarlo

Buahaha e questo da dove salta fuori??

[Rand]

Originariamente inviato da gpc

Buahaha e questo da dove salta fuori??

L'ho scoperto oggi . E' Robonaut

[entanglement]

Originariamente inviato da GioFX

The hill dedicated to White as seen by Spirit's panoramic camera. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell

sembra Lignano Sabbiadoro d'inverno

[Rand]

Tilt Parameters End First Extrication Drive

The preliminary results from the first extrication drive for Spirit on Sol 2088 (Nov. 17, 2009) indicate the rover stopped less than 1 second after it began, sensing more vehicle lateral tilt than permitted.

A tight limit on vehicle roll and pitch of less than 1 degree change was set for this first drive. As the rover began its first move, it sensed that its roll was outside the allowed limit and safely stopped the drive.

The project is 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. Completion of planning for the next drive will be no sooner than Wednesday, Nov. 18.

The attempt to extract Spirit from the Martian sand trap is expected to take weeks or months, with uncertain probability of success.

Second Extrication Drive Yields Slight Progress

After spinning the wheels for the equivalent of 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) in the forward direction, 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. The rover tilt changed by about 0.1 degree. Small forward motion was observed with the non-operable right front wheel, and the left front wheel showed indications of climbing, despite the center of the rover moving downward. These motions are too small to establish any trends at this time.

The drive plan had imposed a limit of 1 centimeter (0.4 inch) motion in any direction. The second step of the drive was not performed, because Spirit calculated it had exceeded that limit.

The data downlink volume from the rover was much better than expected, with all drive-related imagery being received. The team is continuing to analyze results from the drive.

4chr

[Rand]

Prima:



dopo:

[Xile]

Come mai si vedono foto solo dalla parte della ruota insabbiata?!

[+Benito+]

.......ma prima e dopo...cosa? Sono praticamente uguali

[Xile]

Originariamente inviato da +Benito+

.......ma prima e dopo...cosa? Sono praticamente uguali

Cambia solo la ruota di sinistra, leggermente eh!!!

[jumpjack]

Originariamente inviato da +Benito+

.......ma prima e dopo...cosa? Sono praticamente uguali

am che dici, si è mosso di BEN 12 millimetri!!!

the center of the rover moved approximately 12 millimeters

dovrebbero fare un filmato mentre la ruota gira, altro che foto! Senno' come fanno a capire come "funziona" quella fottuta sabbia?!?

Ma ho il dubbio che il rover non possa fare foto e camminare contemporaneamente!