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Spirit Rover Reaches Safety

Posted by Zonk on Mon Apr 10, 2006 04:28 PM
from the go-little-buddy-go dept.
Space Science
dylanduck writes "Good news for rover fans - Spirit is safe for the winter. It had been heading for a north-tilting spot to make sure its solar panels got enough sunlight during the imminent winter to survive, when a sand trap appeared. But, despite its busted wheel, it scooted round and is now sitting pretty. From the article: 'We've got a safe rover,' says principal investigator Steve Squyres. 'That's huge news for us.'"
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[+] Mars Rover Spirit Down a Wheel 272 comments
riflemann writes "NASA is reporting that two years into its 90-day mission, Spirit has lost one wheel and is now running on five wheels, dragging the broken wheel. With this reduced mobiity, the rover still needs to make its way to a slope where it can catch enough sun over the Martian winter to keep it operating. 'Even though the rovers are well past their original design life, they still have plenty of capability to conduct outstanding science on Mars.', says project leader Dr. John Callas."
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Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories including Oklahoma's Spyware Bill dies a quiet death, Lenovo denies ditching Linux, Mars rover escapes again, RIM CEO speaks out against unlimited wireless, Microsoft LiveMail gets ads, FSF anti-DRM campaign expands, and AT&T calls Wired to task over leaked documents -- Read on for details.
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  • Tough decisions (Score:4, Insightful)

    by LiquidCoooled (634315) on Monday April 10 2006, @04:29PM (#15101512) Homepage Journal
    The science team has had to make some tough decisions about which observations to make and which to cut short as the rover hustled across the plains towards a northerly tilting slope. Squyres says Spirit had to leave the circular target dubbed Home Plate earlier than the science team would have liked. But he now says the outcrop at Low Ridge Haven "might be made of the same stuff".

    Yes, its made of rock.

    Now wheres the damn aliens we were promised.

    I know, I know - its really a good thing.
    If it lasts the winter and moves on, dragging a broken wheel around may end up being a blessing in disguise, you never know what it might uncover.
    • If nothing else, driving it around with a broken wheel will probably attract the attention of the Martian Highway Patrol. And you just know how tough they are on those out-of-planet tourist types.
    • dragging a broken wheel around may end up being a blessing in disguise, you never know what it might uncover

      Yeah, it will uncover a very mysterious groove in the dirt that seems to always be along the path it just took... ITs THE ALIENZ!!!!1
    • > Yes, its made of rock.
      >
      > Now wheres the damn aliens we were promised.

      We're right here, you ugly bag of mostly-water. Your master of psychotropically-voyaging primates is presently unavailable, and the Council has temporarily deigned to occupy waterbag 54550 to answer your pathetic cries.

      Once more, panic swept across the beaches of Low Ridge Haven during the Late Autumn Festivals. K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, stressed that there was no cause for alarm:

      "The evil blue planet continu

    • Wouldn't it be nice.... (Score:4, Funny)

      by p51d007 (656414) on Monday April 10 2006, @07:20PM (#15102581)
      if ALL of NASA worked as well as the Mars rovers?
      • What the hell man? The thing is still working well like 2 years after its original projected mission date. Who cares if the wheel is free rolling or dragging? It still works so it doesnt fucking matter.
      • The american design has something missing. It is called a CLUTCH. Yeah, I know, an extremely foreign concept for 95%+ of the American population.

        Every american car has a clutch - in 95%+ of the cases it's just not operated by the driver, so I hardly doubt they were unaware. I'm sure there are good reasons why they didn't include it, such as reducing complexity and weight. It outlived its design life by far, and even when one fails it's still reasonably operable. Hell, we still got a twin where all wheels ar
      • Did you ever consider that in the gritty, dusty Martian soil a clutch would be adding something ELSE that can fail as well as adding weight?

  • Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by networkBoy (774728) on Monday April 10 2006, @04:29PM (#15101517) Homepage Journal
    I really can not believe that the rovers are still running at all.
    NASA did a bang up job on these. Build more and recover the economies of scale!
    -nB

    • Re:Amazing (Score:5, Funny)

      by PeelBoy (34769) on Monday April 10 2006, @04:49PM (#15101642) Homepage
      They sure as hell lasted a lot longer than any radio controlled toy I ever owned
      • I guess the dust accumulation rate in your apartment is higher than on Mars.

      • RC Toys (Score:3, Interesting)

        by TubeSteak (669689)
        I won't make assumptions about what you did or didn't own, but just about any toy you buy from radio shack, the toy store, or dept. store is utter trash compared to a hobby quality RC vehicle.

        Once you think your kid is old enough to handle the responsibilities of an expensive toy, pick something out from a hobby catalog and introduce them to real RC stuff.

        Compared to a $30~$50 car, yes, it's an expensive investment, but like the rover, you'll get a lot more bang for your buck.

    • Just like the Voyager Probes! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dakirw (831754) on Monday April 10 2006, @04:50PM (#15101650)
      Another good example of NASA's success in the unmanned exploration program, which contrasts nicely with the current issues with the Space Shuttle program and its potential successors. Wonder if any of the administrators in charge of the space probe programs can help implement changes in the manned space program.

    • Re:Amazing (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sdo1 (213835) on Monday April 10 2006, @04:52PM (#15101658) Journal
      I really can not believe that the rovers are still running at all. NASA did a bang up job on these.

      One might also argue that since they so grossly exceeded their life expectancy then they were overdesigned and cost too much.

      But I agree. Great job.

      Build more and recover the economies of scale!

      Yes! Yes! Yes! I can't understand why they insist on going back to the drawing board every time. I've read about the next generation rovers [space.com]. They're very different in many ways including the way they'll land on Mars.

      I just don't understand why, with the success that Spirt and Opportunity have had, they don't build these as a platform. Surely if the research was put into new instruments that could be attached to the current design, rather than redesigning from scratch, that would be a better use of the money.

      I'm sure (or hope) NASA has thought this through, right?

      -S

      • Re:Amazing (Score:5, Interesting)

        by LWATCDR (28044) on Monday April 10 2006, @04:58PM (#15101703) Homepage Journal
        "Build more and recover the economies of scale!

        Yes! Yes! Yes! I can't understand why they insist on going back to the drawing board every time. I've read about the next generation rovers. They're very different in many ways including the way they'll land on Mars. "

        Because there aren't any economies of scale to be had.
        The big cost of the rovers isn't the rover but the launch vehicle and the time on the DSN to keep them running. Mainly the launch vehicle. The Rover themselves are pretty cheap in comparison.
        Also after each mission NASA learns more about what works and doesn't and finds new questions to ask and that requires new tools.
        Finally because stuff gets better over time. You know that Moore's law thing?

        In reality trying to get "economies of scale" from the space program is EXACTLY the wrong way to do things. That is what lead to trying to use the Shuttle for everything.
        The space program should be more about trying new ideas than mass production.

        • Re:Amazing (Score:3, Interesting)

          by barawn (25691)
          Because there aren't any economies of scale to be had.

          That's not entirely true. The biggest cost savings that a space project (the project, not the launch) can have is preventing systems failure - because a systems failure requires a new launch.

          So while I agree that reusing the rovers is moderately silly, given that certain technologies have proven themselves very very well, I would be extremely upset if those (successful, proven) technologies weren't used in future rover missions.

          In some sense, that is 'ec
        • Of course, what is really missed here, is that if we stayed with what was suggested, we would still be using the viking which never moved (~1000Kg). Or we would be using pathfinder that carried only 10 Kilos. Finally, the current rovers are about 180 kg (big improvement). But they will all be dwarfed by the capablilities of the MSL which will around 1000 Kgs and will move a great deal further and faster. So each time, these have increase about 10 fold with improved instruments. It would be interesting to s

        • Re:Amazing (Score:3, Interesting)

          by khallow (566160)
          Because there aren't any economies of scale to be had. The big cost of the rovers isn't the rover but the launch vehicle and the time on the DSN to keep them running. Mainly the launch vehicle. The Rover themselves are pretty cheap in comparison. Also after each mission NASA learns more about what works and doesn't and finds new questions to ask and that requires new tools. Finally because stuff gets better over time. You know that Moore's law thing?

          Moore's law doesn't apply to the launch vehicle, but ec

      • "Surely if the research was put into new instruments that could be attached to the current design, rather than redesigning from scratch, that would be a better use of the money."

        That and maybe little tweaks that would improve performance. Kind of like Rover 1.0 (current model), 1.1 (Improved Flash memory). Treat this as a test platform and attach whatever modules you want to it. Send it off to anywhere on mars or the moon (asteroid belt?) where there is enough sunlight and explore the hell out of it.
        -nB
    • I really can not believe that the rovers are still running at all.
      NASA did a bang up job on these. Build more and recover the economies of scale!       - I don't think it's NASA problem to recover economical value from their work, but they could in principle spin-off a firm that would use NASA tech for other purposes. Maybe we could use robots like this here, on Earth?

      I think NASA uses the proven design decisions in their new development work, but how would they really know what works best without trying the thi

    • Re:Amazing (Score:2, Interesting)

      by suv4x4 (956391)
      "I really can not believe that the rovers are still running at all.
      NASA did a bang up job on these. Build more and recover the economies of scale!"

      Not long from now people will start speculating that the rovers are CGI animation and start finding hundreds of "deffects" in the Mars shots that demonstrate they've been "Photoshopped".

      It's kinda already happening in the form of humor and parody.

      It happened with the Moon landing.

      People are cruel, people are doubtful. You can respect the latter but pitty the form

    • Re: Amazing (Score:5, Funny)

      by shigelojoe (590080) on Monday April 10 2006, @05:11PM (#15101776)
      My guess is that NASA mixed up metric days and imperial days when they were making their lifetime estimates.
    • Undoubtedly they had to guess at what would be needed in the way of a rover when these were built.
      Now that they know, surely the next ones will greatly benefit from the experience.
    • Just think of what their lifespan would be with atomic batteries instead of solar cells. They would not be degraded by dust that couldn't be cleaned, wouldn't be non-functional for the winter, and could deliver much more energy for faster movement. The Voyager space probes used atomic batteries and last I heard, still worked after 30+ years. Wikipedia shows that their atomic batteries now produce 319 watts, from 470 initially.

      For comparison, the rovers produce only 140 watts during peak solar times (4 h

  • thank goodness (Score:5, Funny)

    by dotpavan (829804) on Monday April 10 2006, @04:30PM (#15101522) Homepage
    ..Spirit is safe for the winter..

    I was really getting worried about my winter supply! :P

  • I've seen this one before (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It seems like it's safe, but then the Sarlacc opens its big ugly mouth and the next thing you know, the rover is being digested for 1,000 years.

  • Just in time! (Score:5, Funny)

    by GillBates0 (664202) on Monday April 10 2006, @04:35PM (#15101552) Homepage Journal
    Now I go get my (well-deserved) Monday evening 6 pack of beer without a twinge of guilt. Way to go Rover.

  • I hope it works better than... (Score:5, Funny)

    by sdo1 (213835) on Monday April 10 2006, @04:42PM (#15101593) Journal
    ... the windows "hibernate" feature.

    "Ok... wake up"

    "I'm sorry Dave. Everything you were working on is know kaput and I've forgotten about everything that you were doing. By the way, where did that network connection go?"
    • I wonder why people still make Windows hibernation jokes. Yes, it was incredibly bad at one point. But nothing was as bad as the sound driver for a Linux laptop I had which would occasionally scream at maximum volume when restored from sleep. (And at that time I had to write a bunch of scripts to wake things like networking back up again after sleeping, something that "just worked" under Windows.) Despite my affection for the device, even my MacOS X PowerBook fails to wake properly from sleep on a semi-regu

  • Never play the odds! (Score:5, Funny)

    by MudButt (853616) on Monday April 10 2006, @04:43PM (#15101597)
    AHH! Damn rover cost me 20G's! My bookie's gunna break my legs...

    Las Vegas Releases Odds For Mars Probe Trifecta-of-Failure [newshax.com]

  • Martian Golfers? (Score:4, Funny)

    by ToxikFetus (925966) on Monday April 10 2006, @04:52PM (#15101656)
    So NASA drove Spirit into a sand trap? The last time I drove a golf cart into a sand trap, I got my ass banned from the local links.
  • It's too bad that they were forced to give up on getting over to McCool hill. If you look at the map [nasa.gov] referenced in this update [nasa.gov], you realize that they just gave up on the farther safe slopes in favor of the slope immediately at hand. But if it survives to survey through another martian summer, I suppose it's worth it.

  • This just in (Score:5, Funny)

    by Timesprout (579035) on Monday April 10 2006, @04:54PM (#15101673)
    The busted wheel has been confirmed as a design flaw, and the manufacturers sub contracted by NASA, Martian Rovers R' Us have issued an immediate recall of all rovers. DHL are expected to pick Spirit up tomorrow for refurbishment.
  • Once again we see the advantages of an unmanned space program over our manned one. Now I am really for manned exploration of space, I'm just against nasa doing it. They have way more success on their unmanned programs (not to mention more bang for your buck). Look at voyager look at the mars rovers look at their new mission to pluto. I wish the nasa administration would see that they need to stop taking money from our unmanned programs to waste on our shuttle and shuttle derived programs.

    • Re:Well now, (Score:5, Insightful)

      by east coast (590680) on Monday April 10 2006, @05:01PM (#15101724)
      Once again we see the advantages of an unmanned space program over our manned one.

      I'm sorry but I don't see it. Care to elaborate on this point?

      While I do think the rovers are a great success I can't help but think that if we would make the proper moves to getting people to the moon we could make space exploration cheaper. Also consider that it's taken the rovers over a year to do what a manned exploration could have completed in a week.

      Aside from the durability of the crafts there is little to be amazed by here.

          • the concept of space mining, colonization, etc etc

            Well yes, they are well and truly in the exploration stage instead - which robots are very good at. The much cheaper robots can look around and the best they find is what's worth sending people on a three+ year round trip that takes many years to plan to take a closer look at. Efforts are being made towards colonisation technology - like the hydroponics facility at the south pole designed to be similar to what you would use on the moon.

            The disparaging com

    • I don't see any problem with the Apollo missions. Those were NASA and manned.

      The shuttle came into play when NASA decided to send up experiments with the astronauts. The bay gave them a massive storage space to play with. Problem is the shuttle burned out long ago. It's well past warranty and needs a replacement badly...cept we're stuck with the shuttle until the ISS is finished since parts are built with the shuttle's bay in mind.

      No other rocket in service has the storage space like the shuttle does if
      • I don't see any problem with the Apollo missions. Those were NASA and manned.

        Apollo 1 - Virgil Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee.

        NASA gets burned hard when they lose a probe...

        NASA gets burned worse when they lose astronauts.

        It's completely impossible for a human to make it to another solar system within my lifetime - but using microwave-based solar sails, it's possible to send a camera through a nearby solar system and get pictures back, in that timeframe.

        I'm not voting against manned missions - I'm just vo

    • Re:Well now, (Score:5, Insightful)

      by masklinn (823351) <.ten.nnilksam. .ta. .gro.todhsals.> on Monday April 10 2006, @05:16PM (#15101797)

      They have way more success on their unmanned programs

      Not really, space is not your local highway and a dozen dead astronauts over twice as many years is not that high of a price. They're aware of the risks involved (as any pilot is), the NASA is aware of them too, only the public ever cries bloody murder, but that's because the public is idiotic.

      Many more lives will be lost during the conquest of space, it's part of the game, and the number of lives taken by the whole space conquest is still lower than the daily death toll of car accidents across the US.

      • Re:Well now, (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ScottLindner (954299) on Monday April 10 2006, @05:27PM (#15101853)
        "and the number of lives taken by the whole space conquest is still lower than the daily death toll of car accidents across the US."

        No doubt.

        Another point about manned and unmanned. The unmanned is great for simple things like this. It can go on and on doing very simple tasks and won't get tired of doing it. The manned flights are for sophisticated situations, but there's another less obvious point. PUshing to get people out there, will develop new technologies in life support that can be used for many other industries both in space, and here at home. Even if we develop great technologies to live in a colony on the moon, or on Mars, we can use those same technologies to extend our stay here on this planet. Since we're doing a good job of burning this one up that cannot support the numbers of people we have.

        I know you are not protesting the manned space flight. I just wanted to comment that there are many great reasons for manned space flight that are less obvious than the per mission benefits of the manned flight itself. It would be very unwise to try to send a man to another galaxy on the first shot, if we never figured out how to do it locally first.

        Cheers,
        Scott
    • Once again we see the advantages of an unmanned space program over our manned one.

      Were you referring to a craft with a broken wheel that would take about ten seconds for a human to replace if there were one close at hand?

      Or the fact that the entire life of both rovers has done about as much science as a human could do in a day, if they took a long lunch?

      It's like if you had built a scooter that carried you to the end of your driveway, then proclaimed that no-one would ever need an aeroplane. The two things
  • Principal investigator Steve Squyres (mentioned in the /. summary) is the author of the fantastic book about building and deploying the rovers: Roving Mars : Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet [amazon.com].

  • Tag this one awesome! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jouvart (915737) on Monday April 10 2006, @06:12PM (#15102172)
    We've already had plenty of "lame" tags on the stupid articles. It's time we started tagging stuff "awesome". If anything, the rovers most definitely deserve it for their progress.

  • See what the rovers & drivers see (Score:3, Interesting)

    by HoneyBeeSpace (724189) on Monday April 10 2006, @08:04PM (#15102765) Homepage
    It is a shame that Maestro [telascience.org] appears to have stopped updating their data.

    Still, it is excellent software, and fun to use even if you don't get where Spirit is today. With Maestro you can see what the rovers see, and what the rover operators and instruments see... Actual software used in mission control.

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