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Mars Rover Team Investigating Spirits Front Wheel
Pasadena CA (SPX) Mar 28, 2006 Spirit's mission team continues to investigate problems with the rover's right-front wheel. They have conducted a diagnostic test at a different temperature, but the result continues to indicate the wheel's circuit remains open, meaning it is inoperative. At the same time, team members are conducting experiments with a rover duplicate at Jet Propulsion Laboratory to understand the new characteristics of five-wheel driving. Another glitch appeared on March 21, when the Mars Odyssey orbiter went into a precautionary safe mode as a result of action by on-board fault protection. The problem caused Odyssey to shut down for three days, and rendered it unable to relay data from either Spirit or Opportunity to Earth. Spirit's team held a special Saturday planning session to make up for lost Martian days, or sols. Because of the approaching winter, engineers consider it imperative to move Spirit to north-facing slopes to ensure the rover has adequate power during the deepest part of the winter. Spirit currently operates in a condition called restricted sols, meaning the timing of downlinks is too late in the planning day to provide vital location and health information about the rover after it executes the previous day's commands. Therefore, mission controllers can plan drives only for every other sol. Meanwhile, Opportunity remains healthy and is making progress away from Erebus Crater. This week the rover drove nearly 180 meters (591 feet). Sol-by-sol highlights: Spirit: Sol 782 (March 16): Spirit drove more than 9 meters (30 feet). Sol 784: Challenged by a mound with a modest slope, Spirit stopped the drive after only 0.85 meters (2.8 feet) because of excessive slip. Sol 787: Spirit moved away from the sticky mound with a 4.5-meter (15-foot) drive. Sol 788 (March 22): The flight team planned to have Spirit drive approximately 11 meters (36 feet) to a new waypoint. As of sol 787 (March 21, 2006), Spirit's total odometry was 6,812.16 meters, or 4.23 miles. Opportunity: Sol 762 (March 16): Opportunity started the sol in front of a long, flat trough and was able to drive just over 53 meters (174 feet) along this path. Sol 763: The rover conducted atmospheric science and cloud observations. Sol 764: Opportunity conducted targeted remote sensing, including panoramic camera images of formations called Red River Station and Kingfisher. It examined Rush Springs and Red River Station with the miniature thermal emission spectrometer, and captured three cloud movies at various times of day and did some other atmospheric science. Sol 765: The rover drove 48.5 meters (159 feet), first over a small ripple, then down a trough to a patch of outcrop. Sol 766: The rover drove 34.6 meters (114 feet), first down a trough, then crossing a few small ripples. Sol 767: Opportunity drove approximately 44 meters (144 feet) over a few small ripples. Since there was no outcrop along the day's drive path, the team used more frequent slip checks. Before the drive, Opportunity acquired panoramic camera images of some nearby outcrop. Sol 768: The Odyssey orbiter went into safe mode before Opportunity's afternoon UHF relay pass, so the team didn't have any information on how the rover performed on sol 767. For sol 768 the team planned a 70-minute direct-to-Earth communication session. Mars is getting farther from Earth, and even with a Deep Space Network dish antenna 34 meters (112 feet) in diameter, the slow downlink rate yielded only 6 megabits of data. However, this was enough to indicate that the planned activities on sol 767, including the drive, had been completed successfully. Sol 769: Odyssey was still recovering from safe mode. Since the UHF downlink capability was unavailable, the planned activities for Opportunity for the day were only to collect two tau readings. (Tau is a measure of atmospheric opacity. Determining it requires very little data volume.) The rover did not use the deep-sleep mode. Sol 770 (March 24): The sol's activities were planned knowing that the day could be the earliest that the rovers might regain communication-relay support from Odyssey. The team is planned several tau observations and a scan of sky and ground by the miniature thermal emission spectrometer. Opportunity did use the deep sleep mode. Opportunity's odometry as of sol 768 (March 22) totaled 6,908 meters, or 4.29 miles. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links Mars Rovers JPL NASA Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com Lunar Dreams and more
Mars Express Images Huge Ancient Valley
Paris France (SPX) Mar 28, 2006The latest images transmitted by the High Resolution Stereo Camera aboard ESA's Mars Express spacecraft reveal a region called Libya Montes, south of the Isidis Planitia impact basin on the red planet. |
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