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Space Science

Air Bag Blocks Spirit's Path 95

Posted by michael from the jaws-of-life dept.
cosog writes "bad news everyone: 'Two sections of the air bags used to cushion Spirit during the landing phase are obstructing the vehicle's path.'. Fortunately scientists have a solution for it: 'We'll lift up the left petal of the lander, retract the airbag, then let the petal back down[...]'. This means that: 'The earliest the six-wheeled Spirit rover will get rolling is Jan. 14, about three days later than originally planned, NASA said'."
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Air Bag Blocks Spirit's Path More

Air Bag Blocks Spirit's Path

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  • I told them... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @12:21AM (#7925138)



    ...the robots with the flamethrowers always make it though the maze faster.

    But 'no', they said. 'Flamethrowers weigh too much', they said. That's what happens when you replace all the visionaries with bean counters.

    • Re:I told them... (Score:2, Informative)

      by doconnor ( 134648 )
      I believe they said, "Mars doesn't have any oxygen in its atmosphere."

      • Re:I told them... (Score:2, Informative)

        by ClippyHater ( 638515 )
        Which is why you'd have to bring along extra oxygen.

        You bean counter! :)

        • I prefer to think outside the box. Mars has CO2. Plants use CO2 to make O2. So I'd just include a few plant seeds (selected for ability to grow in mars like conditions) and plant them. That way if I need a flame thrower I nkow there is O2 around to use it, and I didn't have to bring it.

          • Hmm you need to grow plants to produce the O2 to power the flamethrower to burn your way through the plants. Thats slightly circular.
            (ignoring the airbag of course and just thinking of the usual usage of a flamethrower)
            • just thinking of the usual usage of a flamethrower

              Call me old fashioned, but isn't that to light marching bands and ostrich farms on fire? Going back to my 1997 video game playing days...
    • I think what such a probe needs is a long, narrow arm that can be used to poke and prod. For example, if the rover gets stuck in sand, it could have a small shovel attatched to the arm to help dig the rover out. And, it could try to push the airbag out of the way. You never know what is going to need poking and prodding. Maybe a wheel will fail to deploy, or the pyrotechnic cable releases will fail to work. Such a small shovle arm with a sharp edge could be used to cut the cables, push deployment-challenged
      • Such an arm could have:

        1. Small shovel
        2. Sharp edge (on shovel)
        3. Brush to clean dust off solar panels
        4. Small camera to help point "hand"
        5. Flashlight for night work

        • Sounds a bit suspicious to me, wouldn't fancy explaining that set up to the local Martian police when they stop you in the middle of the night -

          "Now then now then, what do we have 'ere ?"

          "suuuuure you're gathering rock samples .. thats what they all say"

  • Are we sure... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 09, 2004 @12:22AM (#7925145)
    That it isn't really just some Martians up there messing with it to give us grief?

  • Rover can use another ramp (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Aglassis ( 10161 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @12:34AM (#7925241)
    The article says that if all the lift and tuck maneuvers fail, the rover could just turn and roll of in another direction. I know we have some JPL dudes hanging out here, so the question is, why waste 3 days? Why not just roll off the alternate ramp and start exploring? I guess I just don't understand why the front ramp is so special.
    • At a guess, i'd say that it's more of a risk to drive off another side. It would require manouvering and may get tangled or stuck on something.

      I reckon they're just playing it safe.
      • Why does NASA always play it so safe with these kind of operations? I understand the need to be cautious since we can't exactly send out a repair crew if something goes wrong, but does it really take 12 days to get off the damn lander?

        They've checked all their systems and everything's green, right? Send the command to fire the explosive straps keeping the thing and place and stand it up already! They only have a guaranteed 30 days to go out and take pictures, so let's start as soon as possible!

        • Re:Rover can use another ramp (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Eivind ( 15695 ) <eivindorama@gmail.com> on Friday January 09, 2004 @04:27AM (#7926315) Homepage
          They are being extremely cautious because there *are* no small problems when you're dealing with a robotic probe 170 million kilometers away from home.

          Being stuck in an airbag. Getting anything entangled around the wheels. Sitting betweent rocks that are too large, all problems that would be trivial to solve -- if someone could go there and untangle the thing.

          As it is, a single wrong command can make the probe immobile for life. The mission cost 820$ million.

          I think you'd also be a little bit more careful about pushing buttons if you knew that pushing the wrong one *once* could waste $820 million and strand a major part of the science people have worked hard for a decade to land on Mars.

          There's no real down-side to being *too* careful. 3 days more or less on the lander is unimportant. They can always extend the mission in the other end if there's still more interesting stuff to do. (planned is 90 days of exploration)

          • I disagree.. you have a fixed # of days for exploration. If this thing can't drive off the ramp it *came* to Mars with, it probably won't fare well out in the open terrain. They sent it into a desert on a hostile planet and they are worried about it brushing against the airbags. Please, maybe they need to do *something* with the rover in case a wind storm comes along and blows it off the lander first.
            • Pray tell, what limit exactly imposes this "fixed #" of days for exploration ? What exactly prevents Nasa from extending the mission to make up for a day or two lost ?

              You can disagree all you want. Fact is the people at NASA spent thousands of man-hours studying this, odds are their judgement is better than yours.

              You also seem to be unaware of how much testing this thing went trough. It's been driven for thousands of tests in terrain as much like the ones they expect on mars as possible.

              Storms are ext

              • The limit is exactly the same as that imposed on the Pathfinder rover. Dust settles on the solar arrays and reduces thier generation capacity. A few wipes with a damp sponge would do the trick, but the nearest kitchen sink is quite some distance.
                • Not true. the Pathfinder rover had an onboard battery that eventually died. During the day, the solar cells powered the rover. At night, non-rechargable lithium batteries kept it going. When the batteries were dead, that was the end of the mission.
                  • Why not rechargable? What in the environment prevents it? Inquiring mind wants to know.... and for the dust, maybe they could use a few peeling skins like racecar drivers' visors.
                    • Two reasons: First, rechargable batteries would have required charging circuits, adding weight and complexity. Second, the mission was not to do an extended exploration. It was "Pathfinder", a demonstration of the new technologies that would be used to better effect on later missions. Pathfinder was one of NASA's Discovery missions, which all had this goal to some extent. The little rover worked for about 30 days, and performed some experiments. At the end of those 30 days, there was really little more that
                • ...but if this is panels on the rover we're talking about, why not mount a sponge on the side of the lander that it can rub the panels against? And if it's the lander, why not equip the rover with a sponge? You could go and bash it against a rock every so often to clean it out. And since there's atmosphere, why not use some advanced technology like (ghasp) fans to blow the dang dust off every so often?
                  • Uh huh. and you're going to put water on the sponge and keep it from a) freezing and b) contaminating the science mission, how exactly?

                    Fans, huh? You know how good fans are at blowing dust out of your computer case? they're even worse when you're dealing with an atmosphere 1/100 as dense as Earth's.

                    Believe me. These engineers have spent WAY more time and brain power thinking about how to make this mission fail-safe than you have. If there were easy solutions, they'd have used them.
                    • Uh huh. and you're going to put water on the sponge

                      No.

                      You know how good fans are at blowing dust out of your computer case

                      Actually, they're quite good at sucking dust in... through the CD drive, mostly.

                      If there were easy solutions, they'd have used them.

                      Maybe.

                      Yes, they are good. No, they are not infallible.

              • Sooner or later, the dust is gong to accumulate on the solar panels and the battery will no longer be able to charge. At that point, the mission is over.

                If the main ramp is blocked, have the thing turn around and go down another ramp. I understand that it's a more complicated procedure, but they've done it before, right? Why take days to try and remove the air bag, more days to try and decide what to do, and then more days to actually do it? I don't understand why they didn't just say, ok the main pat
          • They're saying 90 days...but on astrobiology they are working on a 104 day schedule (difference between Sols and Earth daays, perhaps?) In any event, these puppies ought to last quite a bit longer than 90 days. They are just keeping expectations down. (Like they are not talking AT ALL about finding fossils, although the science package can do this.)
    • Maybe nobody at NASA has fine enough stick control? I recommend a strong course of GTA: VC, GT and any other game they can find.

    • Re:Rover can use another ramp (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jabberjaw ( 683624 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @07:08AM (#7926824)
      They most likely want to follow procedure. It would be rather unfourtunate to spend approx. $800 million, travel the approx. 78 milliom kilometers to Mars, land successfully and then do something stupid like flip the rover or get an airbag tangled in it's wheels because we did not want to spend a few days to get things sorted. While I do think that NASA needs to be a bit more "ballsy" to be blunt, I believe that this is a case in which procedure should attempt to be followed.

    • Re:Rover can use another ramp (Score:4, Interesting)

      by zeux ( 129034 ) * on Friday January 09, 2004 @08:53AM (#7927329)
      Why not just roll off the alternate ramp and start exploring?

      The mission has plenty of time and the way behind the rover is a little less large than the way in the front.

      It's better to take 3 days checking everything and trying to clear the best way than rushing and losing the rover.

      And also remember that during these 3 days they can still continue scientific experiments thanks to the cameras.
    • It's tied to the landing pad. Supposedly 'explosive knives' are gonna cut the cables. But you and I know that it usually takes 3 or 4 'Estes solar ignitors' to get anything to light. It's gonna be a dud.
    • Why not just roll off the alternate ramp and start exploring? I guess I just don't understand why the front ramp is so special.

      Because that's what they tested it with. This is not robot wars where if the rover trips on an antenna and tips over some guy can walk into the ring and set it upright again. The alternate ramp has to be conceived, modeled, tested and proved, then re-proved, before the management should sign off on the plan.

      Otherwise we can kiss $400M and several years goodbye.

      Oh yea, the JPL du

  • previous air bag difficulty (Score:4, Informative)

    by dagar17 ( 579917 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @12:44AM (#7925309) Homepage
    Didn't they have a similar problem with the airbags on the pathfinder mission? I believe that the air bags were not fully retracted and it was preventing the ramp from deploying. However they were successful in raising the panels and retracting the air bags on pathfinder so hopefully this will not be a problem.

    Info here [planetary.org] fourth paragraph

    • Re:previous air bag difficulty (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Surazal ( 729 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @12:56AM (#7925392) Homepage Journal
      You know, I thought of this when I followed this Mars landing from Day One: "They're complaining about an airbag being in the way!? Whatever happened to worrying about the darned thing landing in one piece?"

      Ah well, this is honestly the type of technical problem I like to see when watching this. It sure beats the alternatives.
      • "Whatever happened to worrying about the darned thing landing in one piece?"

        It seems that the UK has co-opted all the crochity "When I was your age...!" space exploration jokes.

        "When I was your age, we didn't have any of that fancy-shmancy technology on our probes. Wheels... hah! Back in my day we stayed where we landed and we liked it!"
    • They don't retract them "all the way" on purpose: It's better to have an airbag lying deflated and partially retracted, but flat, than to risk having it all bunched up, in a knot, under one of the petals. If it's not retracted far enough or flat enough for the rover to drive over, they can always try retracting it more or try the "lift and tuck" maneuver.

  • Any landing you can drive away from... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mhw25 ( 590290 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @01:49AM (#7925708)
    is an excellent landing.

    Every system is working as designed, so there won't be much to worry about. I believe they could likely solve that problem. And they still have days to test the rover before they could roll it off anyway, so even if lifting the panel doesn't work, maybe by the time they tested the system and agreed on where to go, the airbag would have deflated enough on its own in the low pressure of the Martian atmosphere. Drive off another ramp, if it comes to that. The rover has six wheels and was designed to worked even if the landing site didn't turn out to be as flat as it is.

    It seems that despite those gorgeous panaromic pictures they have got, the boffins haven't decided on where to go. Perhaps this little inconvenince will give them a few extra days to come to a hopefully good decision.

    • because de spite... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jefu ( 53450 )
      It seems that despite those gorgeous panaromic pictures they have got, the boffins haven't decided on where to go.

      I think it may be "because" of those images. I've seen a bit or two of the press conferences and it always looks like the scientists are frothing at the mouth with eagerness to explore one feature or another. Or perhaps one feature and another and another and another .....

      Deciding where to go first can't be easy.

  • Rename Spirit! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Red Pointy Tail ( 127601 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @05:48AM (#7926571)

    Air Bag Blocks Spirit's Path. Hah.

    We should rename Spirit to Dolly. Or maybe Pamela. ;)

  • I'm disapponted (Score:5, Funny)

    by Triv ( 181010 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @08:12AM (#7927093) Journal

    I thought the article was going to be about some wacked out church claiming to have scientific proof that you don't get to go to heaven if you die in an airbag-equipped car.

    Crummy mars robot spoiling my fun.

    Triv

    • I thought the article was going to be about some wacked out church claiming to have scientific proof that you don't get to go to heaven if you die in an airbag-equipped car.

      Thank goodness I'm not the only one!

      Mod parent up! I can now stop reading this thread.

      -zack

  • Update on Situation (Score:4, Informative)

    by angryLNX ( 679691 ) on Friday January 09, 2004 @05:16PM (#7933577) Homepage
    I just watched the live JPL NASA webcast and they said that the wheel technique did not work, today they will lower the wheel back down and try to retract the bag by revolving the retraction motor 6 more times. If it does not work, they still have plenty of other possible routes; they are just trying to make sure nothing is compromised so early in the mission.
  • hopefully our little rover will bloom soon and not wilt

  • Hmmm (Score:2, Funny)

    by Badboy Recovered ( 736353 )
    Maybe we got a Beagle under the bag? Which would explain why we have not removed the bag, as to not piss of the english :)
  • what makes anyone think that being thrown from a vehicle they would in any way be thrown to safety?, most likely you would be thrown into oncoming traffic, or into the path of the train that just hit your car, etc, etc.... and furthermore, after being thrown from a vehicle, you most likely would becmoe airborne in a head forward fashion, which if my 7th grade science teacher was right, would send you flying head first into some obstacle, ... or are you all related to freaking bat man>?

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