Mars Rover Rolls And Turns

hcg50a writes "MSNBC reports that overnight, 'the golfcart-sized rover cut the final cord tying it to the landing platform that it came in on 10 days ago, then backed up about 10 inches (25 centimeters) and turned 45 degrees. These were the first maneuvers planned in preparation for having Spirit roll 10 feet (3 meters) down a ramp onto the Martian surface on Wednesday night or early Thursday morning.' The NASA Mars rover website has complete animations from numerous cameras of the 45-degree turn. Driver training was never this cool!"

linux at nasa

[xk]

Looks like they're using linux. Anyone know which GUI?

here [nasa.gov] is the image.

-bk.

ignorant but curious...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry if this is a stupid question.. But why does it take so long for things to retract, the rover to move, etc etc. Obviously they want to be careful since they can't very well say "oops. pick it up and let's try again", but it's taking days for it to just move off the pad..

Question..

[RALE007]

The ground looks like it's been disturbed in the panoramic image [nasa.gov] from the website. A few locations, most notibly a little left of the "Northwest Hill 335.9 Azimuth 11.2 Kilometers" marking looks like it could've been caused by the rovers bouncing airbag landing. Anyone know for certain or can identify any terrain disturbed by the landing?

Reasons why it takes so long

[dekashizl]

But why does it take so long for things to retract, the rover to move, etc etc.

OK, this is a fair question. Here are four big reasons.

1. As soon as it disembarks, there are hundreds of new risk factors that come up. So they want to make sure that if anything fails (e.g. airbag catches a wheel and knocks it over, breaking off the high gain antenna), at least they've gotten something for their incredible effort.

2. They ARE conducting scientific experiments while it is safely on the lander. It is furthermore slightly elevated and able to take panoramic photos from a position it will not again regain when on ground level.

3. Getting off the lander is DELICATE. There is a ~10 minute communications lag, which means ~20 minutes to give a command and see the results. This means everything must be done very carefully and very cautiously to make sure each minor step went off perfectly.

4. If they did it quickly and something broke, every "genius" on the internet would be saying how stupid NASA was for rushing ahead and how they never get anything right and were just trying to get publicity and blah blah blah blah blah. So let them do it the right way so the mission is a success.

--
For news, status, updates, scientific info, images, video, and more, check out:
Mars Exploration Rover Highlights (AXCH) [axonchisel.net].

Re:Ground disturbance

[dekashizl]

There is the "Magic Carpet" which is the odd deformation of soil left after the airbag was retracted back under the lander to clear the way for the rover. This is right next to the lander.

Further out, there are numerous marks where the lander bounced during its landing stage and the airbags deformed the soil from impacts.

So basically, as far as I can tell, all the markings are from the airbag, either bouncing or scraping on the surface.

--
For news, status, updates, scientific info, images, video, and more, check out:
Mars Exploration Rover Highlights (AXCH) [axonchisel.net].

Re:The perils of creationism

[CHaN_316]

Before you're shocked and appalled for NASA technicians giving quasi-religious names to scientific equipment, maybe you should read [planetary.org] how NASA came up with these names.

And I quote from the winning child's essay that named the rovers:

I used to live in an Orphanage.
It was dark and cold and lonely.
At night, I looked up at the sparkly sky and felt better.
I dreamed I could fly there.
In America, I can make all my dreams come true.....
Thank-you for the "Spirit" and the "Opportunity"

-Sofi Collis, age 9

Heaven forbid that NASA names the rovers after the things that make America great. Oops...probably shouldn't have mentioned Heaven :P

Re:ignorant but curious...

[Gogo Dodo]

I think what the mission manager said summed it up pretty good: "brave, not stupid". Spaceflight.now [spaceflightnow.com]

Re:Reasons why it takes so long

[cmacb]

Yeah I agree with parent. I'm glad they took lots of nice high resolution photos now, and even gathered some other data on temperatures, spectroscopy etc. rather than doing the risky business sooner. They in fact explained this at one of the press conferences. Having gotten past the riskiest part of the mission (the landing) they want to take advantage of that achievement while they can rather than proceeding with other risky maneuvers first. From here on out, every move, every pyro firing, and so on will potentially lead to dead air on their communications link.

If I were them I wouldn't want to take any more risks than necessary until after the second lander is safely down, and of course there is a significant chance that it will vanish and never be heard from just like the Beagle2. With all the work that went into this thing they have every right to be cautious.

Re:The perils of creationism

[bonzomcgrue]

Here are the definitions of spirit [reference.com]. I've never thought of it as necessarily quasi-religious.

Re:Am I the only one?

[thelexx]

As someone who has a few rc airplanes, I do find it newsworthy that it was actually able to move and complete a basic turn. Simply, it's the first time some its drive components are being tested. After its rolling and everything is _actually_ working ok, instead of just not being obviously broken and lighting up someones panel, then I'd agree and say it won't really be news until something breaks, gets discovered or the mission goes eol.

Re:linux at nasa

[noselasd]

According to some JPL people in #maestro , they use Sun boxes with Solaris, though seldom with CDE.

Re:Jenkins' Supplement to Godwin`s Law

[jdigriz]

Dude, does this mean you are comparing the Bush administration to Nazis? [ObPoliticalHysteria Off]

That aside, people can occasionally come to rational conclusions about politics. It just doesn't happen very often.

90 days

[WhatsAProGingrass]

Can anyone explain why the rover is only supposed to last 90 days? Why would it only last that long? Satelites last longer than 90 days? You would think that something built for mars would last much longer. It was only designed for a half mile drive. What is wrong with this picture?

Why can't the lander survive longer?

[Danathar]

The article says that more than likely the lander will run out of power because there will not be enough sun to power the solar panels in the Martian winter. My question is, is there no possibility of the lander "comming back to life" after the Martian winter?

It would be really great for slashdot to have a Q&A with the Mars rover designers and engineers. I'd love to ask questions about the type of CPU/OS used. How the optics differ from your standard digital camera (other than being expensive and high quality) and so forth. Anybody want to second that? There is some information on the engineering specs, but it's very spotty it seems and hard to find!

Re:Wow! Metrics!

[jridley]

Anybody doing anything nontrival should be using metric. My least favorite part of physics class was when the prof would make us do stuff in imperial units. God, what a pain in the ass.

More steps, arcane conversion factors to remember, lots more chances to screw up.

How many cubic inches in a gallon? Shit, I don't know. How many cubic centimeters in a litre? 1000. Everything's a power of 10. Doesn't get any easier than that.

It gets worse when you're outside of familiar measurement units. When you start talking about slugs, even a farm-raised midwest american boy like me thinks "OK, that's a unit of mass, not weight, so it's converted to grams."

I am immersed in imperial measurements, and don't have an intuitive feel for metric, but I know that if the US switched and it was full immersion, within a year I'd be thinking in metric. The problem is, you can't do full immersion, because people will always speak in the language that they know. The problem is, even future generations will not switch, because the US is big enough that they never have to deal with metric except as a curiosity in school.