Mars Rover Opportunity Still Stuck In a Dune 192
Maddog Batty writes "The mars rover Opportunity, which has been stuck in a sand dune since the end of April, is still going nowhere after wheel spinning attempts were made to free the probe. It did manage to move a very short distance as can be seen in the difference between these two images. Before this attempt the NASA JPL team were playing in their own sandpit trying to replicate the conditions on Mars. (older coverage)"
Late breaking news (Score:2, Funny)
Wait, I'm getting a newsflash right now... The rover is still stuck.
Oh, wait, here's another update... The rover is still stuck.
More on this as it develops.
Re:Late breaking news (Score:2, Insightful)
Excuse to send a human to mars! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hey, nice sig!!! (Score:2)
Re:Late breaking news (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Late breaking news (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Late breaking news (Score:1)
Its in here somewhere... (Score:2)
Re:Its in here somewhere... (Score:1)
Well... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Well... (Score:2)
Instead of wasting a month because their toy truck got stuck in the sand, a person could just keep walking. If their big rover gets stuck, then use cables and a pully like the owner of a Jeep Wrangler would do. Or maybe cary a set of planks around with them to place under the tires.
A person could also simply dig a hole with a shovel instead of the neat little tr
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
So yeah, when you say that "the 2 things holding us back are price and safety," those aren't two little things. They're the whole ball game. For the price of sending a human to Mars we could send scores, perhaps hundreds, of rovers, with zero risk to human life. No, we don't learn as much, but it means that when we do finally send humans they go fully prepared.
you are just flat out wrong... (Score:2)
100X more efficiently?
How much mass, do we have to get into orbit, to get a man to mars and back...
how much mass, do we have to get into orbit, to drop a rover on the surface of mars one-way?
add that to your efficiency calculations, and get back to me...
Re:you are just flat out wrong... (Score:2, Interesting)
I concede that the cost of sending people to Mars and keeping them alive is high. And we're still a little "fuzzy" on how to do it. But.
1) How much time went into designing the rover and what-not.
2) How much info have we gained over MONTHS of use?
3) How much can saidd rover actually accomplish.
4) How many different rovers will we send to accomplish what a person (or team) can do in one shot.
5) A person can do a lot more a lot quicker t
Re:you are just flat out wrong... (Score:2)
In my book, that's about 2000 times the cost of one probe, not 100 times the cost.
And, frankly, if a mars shot was anything like the moon shots, it would just be a vanity mission. The people wouldn't add a damn thing.
You haven't convinced me (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, you haven't convinced me.
The rovers, IIRC, have exceeded their planned mission length. The original mission was justified on a 90 sol duration basis, although more was hoped for. Opportunity got stuck on sol 446. Your hypothetical astronauts wouldn't have been able to deal with this "boneheaded stuff" because they'd have been on a very expensive return tri
Re:You haven't convinced me (Score:2)
Precisely. What would have happened to the people, if their Mars rover they were in, became trapped in sand 3km away from their base? would they be able to walk back? Is there quick-sand on Mars? Would retractable skis on the rover get them out of this mess?
Re:You haven't convinced me (Score:2)
That's what not having to have the redundant subsystems needed to support a man-rated system allows you to do: have an entirely redundant mission for the same or less cost.
And, in the end, you don't want to rely on the flexibility of humans to get themselves out of trouble. There is redundancy and backup suppport in terrestrial situations that won't be there on Mar.s Offroaders rely on the fa
Re:Well... (Score:4, Interesting)
Would a human really make things that much easier? I imagine humans would use some sort of wheeled rover to get around on Mars... and that could get stuck in a dune as well. I've been stuck in sand and mud a couple of times, and getting out can be a major ordeal, even without the constraints of a heavy space suit and limited oxygen.
The other thing to keep in mind is that Homo sapiens is a "mature technology"; we haven't undergone any large changes in 100,000 years except for the software upgrades. Robots are a technology that is in their infancy, and in the next 10-20 years will make major advances in their capabilities. Which makes it all the more remarkable when you consider that robots are currently ahead of humans in many departments. Maybe humans really can do "100x more than a rover, and more efficiently", but robots can travel to Mars and explore it for under a billion dollars, and do that now, and humans can't.
Re:Well... (Score:2)
Don't know about anyone else here, but I hate when I get stuck in a sand dune. It's damn embarrassing, if nothing else.
Swiss Army Rover (Score:2, Insightful)
1. People can can stuck also in various ways.
2. A slightly more expensive rover could also have a shovel arm. Even a juiced up Swiss Army Rover is far less costly than a human mission.
3. A lost rover is far less of a problem than a lost astronaut.
4. These rovers have already "finished" their designed mission. This is all bonus time. Humans have to go home when their water and food runs out.
Re:Well... (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Er, thanks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because a story contains the word "still" doesn't mean it's not news. If the president's plane still hasn't arrived, that's worth reporting. I don't know about you, but this is, to me and the people reading over my shoulder, the most interesting stories on the front page today.
Re:That's because (Score:2)
Re:Er, thanks? (Score:1)
Re:Er, thanks? (Score:1)
I knew this headline reminded me of something... (Score:1)
stuck,, (Score:2)
What is it stuck on?
Re:stuck,, (Score:5, Interesting)
Or maybe...... (Score:5, Interesting)
Every time you try to move, the sand is quickly displaced so the vehicle stays put.
Its a shame they can't use the trick from Ice cold in Alex [imdb.com] where they put it in reverse (lowest gear) and move it using the starting handle as not to displace the sand too quickly.
Of course, this would rely on:
A) Opportunity having a starting handle.
B) A friendly passing Martian offering to wind it.
Re:stuck,, (Score:2, Informative)
Re:stuck,, (Score:2)
Re:stuck,, (Score:2, Insightful)
Then again, we're geeks. Non
Well, it's not a pit (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well, it's not a pit (Score:1)
Source, who knows... several. Google it.
The Blues ain't about choice.
You stuck in a ditch,
you stuck in a ditch;
ain't no way out.
Re:Well, it's not a pit (Score:1)
(insert obligatory e.t. joke here)
What a waste! (Score:2)
We could have spent this much closer to home, examining vehicles that only moved a few feet since april on LA freeways!
hawk
Re:Well, it's not a pit (Score:2)
Just a test (Score:5, Informative)
"Opportunity rotated its wheels on sol 463 for the first time since the rover dug itself into a sand dune more than two weeks earlier. The wheels made about two and a half rotations, as commanded, and the results were a good match for what was expected from tests on Earth. In the loose footing, the rover advanced 2.8 centimeters (1.1 inch) forward, 4.8 millimeters (0.19 inch) sideways and 4.6 millimeters (0.18 inch) downward. After further analysis of the results, the rover team will decide whether to repeat the same careful movement again on sol 465."
Re:Just a test (Score:2, Funny)
"If these maneuvers aren't successful by sol 483, then the controllers will have to accept the disintegration risk, and they will go ahead and hit the hyperspace button."
Re:Just a test (Score:2)
Relax, it's far from doomed (Score:5, Informative)
http://athena.cornell.edu/news/mubss/ [cornell.edu]
JPL Status report (Score:4, Informative)
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_opp
If only Spirit could help (Score:5, Funny)
Mission planners at NASA are concerned about the consequences this could have. While they still want Spirit to remain functional and capable of scientific discovery, they are aware of the moral issues involved and have decided against keeping the news from her, fearing a backlash from the MCLU (Mars Civil Liberties Union).
NASA administrator Michael Griffin released a statement saying the team is carefully weighing the choices and will continue striving to preserve Spirit's technical functionality and psychological stability. Should Spirit become too depressed over the impending demise of her brother and refuse to cooperate, there is talk of calling in a special favor from a nearby resident to cheer her back up. Apparantly Spirit has recently become infatuated with a local hunk named Marvin.
Re:If only Spirit could help (Score:2)
There's no mention of this on Spirit's livejournal [livejournal.com] --- but then, she never did get on terribly well with her sister (not brother, BTW). Opportunity [livejournal.com] seems to be mildly worried, but is in no way panicking yet...
Even geeks like to par-tay (Score:3, Funny)
>Before this attempt the NASA JPL team were playing in their own sandpit trying to replicate the conditions on Mars.
Okay, so I gather that the sand was to simulate martian soil conditions, and the radio-operated vehicle simulated the rover's movements. But what was the significance of the tanning lotion and beach umbrella? :P
Duh (Score:2)
Getting stuck (Score:3, Interesting)
I thought about this when I was considering how to make an autonomous RC car that could cross the country without interference. It has to be able to get out of a lot of different things.
Anyone know of links to ways robots unstick themselves?
Re:Getting stuck (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Getting stuck (Score:2)
Re:Getting stuck (Score:2)
rj
Re:Getting stuck (Score:2)
The arms would be long and narrow, rods that it can plant some distance away to lift the body up and then swing it forward or backward or even just tip over. Most things I imagine it getting stuck in -- for example, things that I constantly see off-road RC cars get stuck in -- seem like they could be escaped by something like this. I'm wondering whether it's f
The Mars Rover isn't really stuck in a dune... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Mars Rover isn't really stuck in a dune... (Score:5, Funny)
I prefer headphone porn to stuck car girl porn... (Score:1)
That was cool but this is better:
http://headphet.hopto.org/index.shtml [hopto.org]
Vote. (Score:1)
I've skimmed TFA's, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
From the pictures it looks like Opportunity is entering a Martian dune sea, which will offer many more opportunities (npi) to get stuck once more. Do they have a plan to identify/avoid soft spots like this one in the future?
Re:I've skimmed TFA's, but... (Score:5, Informative)
The rover got stuck because they are driving over a series of long ridges in the sand. These ridges are in rows that run mostly along one direction. The rover was originally expecting these ridges to be solid and it drove straight perpendicular across them. Unfortunately they are not as solid so it got stuck.
Once they get the rover un-stuck, they will instruct it to move parallel to the ridges, and to weave in between them when possible to make forward progress. It will be slow, but it should minimize the chances of getting stuck again.
Re:I've skimmed TFA's, but... (Score:5, Informative)
That's an excellent question, and the short answer is, we don't know. We crossed about 4km of this stuff uneventfully before we encountered the current dune (BTW, it's technically a ripple, not a dune), and we aren't completely sure what makes this one different from the rest.
I've been a little out of the loop, since I switched back to Spirit a few weeks before the Ripple Event, but I followed some of the email traffic as best I could. Last I saw, the working hypothesis was something to this effect: this ripple just happened to be a little taller and steeper than normal, and we just happened to be gaining a little elevation anyway (so we were at a greater tilt than normal) when we came across it.
I don't think there are yet any particular guidelines about avoiding them, but as you might expect, there's a team working on it.
The two basic possible explanations seem to be geometry (which I touched on above) and material. Someone threw out the idea that we can tell "dangerous" ripples from the regular kind by their albedo -- possibly, hazardous (fluffy) ripples are made of lighter dust and are therefore brighter. But I don't know whether that idea gained any traction. To my eyes, the ripple we're on didn't look particularly brighter than many others we've crossed without incident, but I didn't do any systematic analysis, so I can't really say.
My impression is that geometry is the leading candidate explanation, and if that proves to be the case, our guidelines will likely include evaluating every sol's traverse path for hazardous geometry. If we can't tell the rover how to avoid them itself, it might also mean no more autonav drives (where we let the rover find its own way), which would significantly slow our progress. But then, so would getting into another of these ripples.
This is all still a work in progress, though. Just remember, this is why we call it "exploration"!
Important Update!!! (Score:1, Redundant)
Call AAA (Score:5, Funny)
AAA: Where is the dune?
Nasa: On mars.
AAA: What is the make and model of the vehicle?
Nasa: It's a rover.
AAA: What color?
Nasa: Grey.
AAA: What is the license plate?
Nasa: It does not have a license plate.
AAA: I'm sorry, if you don't have a license plate, we can't send out a tow truck. [click].
legs (Score:1)
Re:legs (Score:1)
Article Correction (Score:5, Informative)
Considering that the wheels spun the equivalent of a 60 meter drive when they got stuck in the first place. (according to Dr. Albert Haldemann, Deputy Project Scientist for MER) they anticipate a fair amount of driving/spinning to get out. Also obviously if thier testing at JPL was wrong they did not want to worsen the situation to the point of no return on thier first try.
Maybe they should wait until night-time... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Maybe they should wait until night-time... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Maybe they should wait until night-time... (Score:2)
However, temperature is still very relevant to the actual granulars. Crystalline forms (like sand) shrink and expand based on temperatures. This isn't overt at the granular size because their structures have already been worn to some degree (the most obvious defects/weaknesses have been exploited).
Temperatures in arid regions
Re:Maybe they should wait until night-time... (Score:2)
Re:Maybe they should wait until night-time... (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a reason it only works during daytime. The rover can't maintain enough charge in the batteries to perform drive maneuvers and still wake up the next morning. It's difficult enough to shut down to a minimum requirement and keep the systems warm enough to boot in the morning, having to power up the entire rover to perform a complex drive using a hell of a lot of power would just kill it completely.
Then again, I could be wrong.
Re:Maybe they should wait until night-time... (Score:2)
Re:Maybe they should wait until night-time... (Score:1)
Rancor (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Rancor (Score:2)
Keeps going and going and going and stuck!!! (Score:1)
I don't know why we went to this stupid planet... (Score:1)
pifff Martian's who needs um.
here's how to get it out (Score:1, Informative)
Re:here's how to get it out (Score:2)
It Ran Over E.T.!!! (Score:2)
the problem with 4 (6 or 8) wheel drive (Score:1)
Crazy Conspiracy Guys thinks....... (Score:3, Funny)
Watch it spin... (Score:2, Informative)
Here I am, a brain the size of a planet... (Score:5, Funny)
Stuck? (Score:2)
I just don't understand. (Score:2)
All this bothering with trying to get it out by remote control is useless. I mean, yeah, it'd be cool to say, "Yeah man, I got that rover out by remote control!" But seriously. Just pick it up and set it down somewhere else.
Re:I just don't understand. (Score:1)
Replicating the conditions on Mars? (Score:1)
Incredible attitude. (Score:2)
"The rover team spent more than a week designing and conducting tests under simulated Mars conditions on Earth before choosing the best way for Opportunity to drive out of the dune."
The best way! Even assuming they have more than one way to free the rover, and never assuming failure. Hats off, wven if they do fail. These guys would make
Onstar? (Score:1)
I know who this is a job for... (Score:1, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Tires worn out (Score:1)
Old and Busted [nasa.gov]
The once new hotness [nasa.gov]
Re:Tires worn out (Score:2)
There's not much news from NASA... (Score:3, Funny)
Weekend Update (Score:2)
Nasa budget woes... (Score:2)
Next mission to mars: deploying the tow-rovers, codenamed Redemption and Charity.
Re:PEOPLE WITH MOD POINTS: CALL FOR HELP (Score:1)
Re:PEOPLE WITH MOD POINTS: CALL FOR HELP (Score:2)
Re:Silly (Score:3, Insightful)
Moron. Can't hesitate to knock NASA, can we?
Re:Silly (Score:2)