Mars Rovers Moving After Winter Hibernation

jcasman writes to mention an article at Astronomy.com discussing the now on-the-move Mars rovers, which have been effectively in hibernation over the long Martian winter. Spirit has been stationary in the Columbia Hills area, just barely powered up and taking the finest panoramic shot of the planet to date. On the other side of the world, Opportunity has been skulking around the Victoria crater. Scientists have been getting to know the area before attempting to send Opportunity into the geographical feature itself. "Opportunity now is traversing Victoria's rim, and mission scientists are naming features they find after places visited by Ferdinand Magellan and his crew during the first circumnavigation of Earth. (Victoria Crater itself is named after the lone ship that completed Magellan's quest.) [Steve Squyres of Cornell University] and his team are committed to driving Opportunity into the crater eventually, if they're sure the rover will be safe -- in other words, that they can get it out again. Squyres is confident they can, and he thinks it will be sooner rather than later."

Re:WDFD!

[Gertlex]

Considering that these rovers were initally spec'ed for a 90 day mission, the fact that they are still going after 3 years is something worth celebrating.

Recently a search took me to a Sprit status report from about sol 60 which described the rover as "almost middle aged"

It might be that this "aging" was judged in part by the output of the solar panels. The winds or whatever that keep the panels clean probably don't do a complete job. They probably slowed the initial buildup so that middle age in terms of output arrived later, i.e. day 60 instead of day 45. Beyond that, we know it eventually leveled off, with the solar panels remaining usable at some level pretty much constantly for the last few years.

Re:Solar system rovers

[Tablizer]

but couldn't you image how cool a robotic boat surfing a methane sea on some moon would be?

The Huygens (spell?) probe had a chance to land on a likely lake. The area just happened to be dry at the time but was suspected to be a lake-bed or at least a flood plane. Bummer. It was even designed to float. Maybe next time...
     

Re:WDFD!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the wind issue is likely.

Regarding the low-balling: The 90 day mission time and the driving distance goal were based on the performance of the previous Pathfinder mission. That one lasted about 3 times as long as it was supposed to before what was probably an electrical failure ended the mission. During that time, they also monitored the gradually decreasing power as the solar cells dirtied. Based on the data and improvements to the rovers, they made their estimates.

90 days (and 600 meters driving, and I think X number of observations) was actually the requirement for them to be able to call the mission a success. The mission budget included a 90 day operating extension if everything looked good at that point. Furthermore, there was a 180 day extended mission (with slightly reduced staff) if they were still rolling well after 6 months. Effectively, they needed 90 days, they built them to last 180 days, and were hoping for 360.

When 1 year passed, they actually had get a special budget allocation from Congress to keep running. 2 years later, most of the team has moved on to other projects and a lot of the tasks have been automated, but they're still running with a purpose.

The rover team has repeatedly expressed pleasant flabbergastation at their performance. They're probably more surprised than the rest of the world. I know it's going to be tough for them when the rovers finally do kick the bucket, or harder yet, are abandoned to focus resources on newer projects like MSL.

Re:Too Cautious

[WalksOnDirt]

Victoria isn't just "yet another crater". There are no other reachable opportunities that are close to as interesting.

I'm pretty sure I saw a quote a while back saying they would go in even if they didn't think the rover could get back out, as long as they thought it would still be operational after the descent. They do want to examine the rim first, since they may well not get another chance, and they need to find a safe way down.

Re:WDFD!

[Tablizer]

Conveniently enough, there appears to be a nice breeze which is blowing dust off the solar panels

Actually, they think it is whirl-winds because the "cleaning" seem to happen suddenly (power increase the next day).

into the crater. If the end up driving it somewhere where this isn't much of a wind, will the solar panels get covered in dust and stop working?

Actually, I think the first detected cleaning was *in* Endurance crater. They speculated that being inside the crater created water vapor condensation on the solar panels, making it easier for movement or wind to push it off. There are even images of frost on the rover. But in the end, nobody knows for sure, other than the cleaning comes and goes.

RTG dude...

[Cyno01]

Its what powers most of our probes. [wikipedia.org]