Mars Rover Opportunity Working Free 149
VernonNemitz writes "As previously reported, the Mars rover Opportunity ran into more sand (or finer material) than it was designed to handle. While initial attempts to escape may not have accomplished much, the most recent efforts seem to imply that the plucky machine is going to succeed at getting away."
Its been ... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Its been ... (Score:2, Funny)
Just do like Homer (Score:3, Funny)
That's nice (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, that's what your girlfriend said!!!
Not on Slashdot... (Score:2, Funny)
I think you should reconcider this course of action...
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Funny)
Nailing a dude's gf is cool, but what she said about you was pretty cold.
Re:Yeah (Score:1)
Re:Yeah (Score:2)
Re:That's nice (Score:2)
Re:That's nice (Score:2)
As long is it's not moving down.
Re:That's nice (Score:5, Interesting)
Following missions in detail, by the way, is a good way to get an idea of how overcautious these people generally are, even on missions where stuff ends up going wrong. Getting a craft to Mars and making it function there isn't easy, and following a mission (and craft design) in depth really pushes that home.
Plus, lets not forget that Mars is protected by a Galactic Ghoul [wikipedia.org] that ate 4 out of 5 Soviet craft launched at it.
Re:That's nice (Score:5, Funny)
And I suppose that making all of those "rumm rummm" noises was science too, hmm?
Re:That's nice (Score:5, Interesting)
how many sysadmins can honestly say they've never fucked something up on a remote box? now when you fuck up a box in a colo it may well cost you a couple-hundred dollars and/or hours of travel time to fix so you take care!
now imagine your box is somewhere you CAN'T go and fix it and has all sorts of mechanical parts to fuck up. you are going to be extrodinerally carefull.
do you really think the rovers would have lasted this long if driven with a gung-ho attitude?
Re:That's nice (Score:2)
Re:That's nice (Score:2)
Re:That's nice (Score:2)
They don't really have the capacity to perform any useful work, so their net productivity is a negative number. With 12 of them the "payback" is that negative number times 12. "I know we're selling below cost, but we make up fo
Kudos to NASA and team! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Kudos to NASA and team! (Score:2)
Good work to the NASA team.
Re:Kudos to NASA and team! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Kudos to NASA and team! (Score:5, Funny)
The specifications committee set a working lifespan of 100 days, and the design team thought they meant fortnights.
Re: Obligatory Star Trek Reference (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Kudos to NASA and team! (Score:1, Interesting)
Step 1: Create a good product with an intended lifespan of 2 years
Step 2: Tell everyone that you've created a good product with an intended lifespan of 3 months
Step 3: Receive accolades for going on "WAAY" beyond said product's intended lifespan.
Re:Kudos to NASA and team! (Score:3, Insightful)
Step 2: Tell everyone that you've created a good product with an intended lifespan of 3 months
There is a real difference between the official, designed lifespan and the expected (or hoped for) lifespan. The widget is truly supposed to function for the official lifespan in order to fulfill the main mission objectives. If it doesn't, it fails the mission. After that time, the mission is a success, no matter how you look at it, and the secondary objectives, extra telemetry, whatever, are gravy as long as
Episode III at the Megaplex (Score:2, Funny)
Monster Garage needs to build the next rover (Score:3, Funny)
*Monster Garage [discovery.com] is a reality show on The Discovery Channel in which a team of professional and hobbyist mechanics build a vehicle related contraption in 5 days.
Re:Monster Garage needs to build the next rover (Score:5, Funny)
Yes.
Re:Monster Garage needs to build the next rover (Score:4, Funny)
See, this is why the folks at NASA get the big bucks, they have to deal with all of this crap.
Re:Monster Garage needs to build the next rover (Score:2)
NASA/JPL needs to get away from the whole concept of rovers -- everybody knows that modern-day Rovers spend way more time in the shop than in the outback, and cost a fortune to cover towing and repair costs.
What NASA/JPL really needs to focus on are the next generation of the extra-terrestrial mobile drilling rigs that they thoroughly trashed on that asteroid in "Apocalypse". A couple of those rigs soft-dropped onto Mars and there would be no question about whether (or how much) water
Heinz Wolff... (Score:2)
Re:Monster Garage - Red Thunder (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Monster Garage - Red Thunder (Score:1)
Sounds like the John Varley novel "Red Thunder", in which a magic power source removes any weight concerns WRT spaceflight payloads, and the first people on Mars are able to take along an actual hopped-up pickup truck to cruise around the dunes of mars.
Not having read it, did this pickup not have an ICE, or was the requisite oxygen magically supplied on Mars as well?
Re:Monster Garage needs to build the next rover (Score:1)
Re:Monster Garage needs to build the next rover (Score:2)
Re:Monster Garage needs to build the next rover (Score:2)
Re:Monster Garage needs to build the next rover (Score:1)
Update: Spirit and Opportunity (Score:5, Informative)
Spirit remains in excellent health. On sols 477, 478 and 479 (May 7 to May 9, 2005), Spirit made observations with remote-sensing instruments and analyzed soil targets with its alpha particle X-ray spectrometer and Mössbauer spectrometer. Spirit then performed a short drive to a target called "Keel," on the outcrop called "Jibsheet." On sol 481, Spirit was able to begin observing a target called "Reef," using the microscopic imager and performing a 16-hour integration with the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer. On sol 482 (May 12), Spirit continued work on Reef with instruments on the robotic arm, and performed a 21-hour integration with the Mössbauer spectrometer.
Spirit's total odometry as of May 12, 2005, is 4,341.19 meters (2.70 miles).
Spirit Update Archive
OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Progress Inch-by-Inch for Opportunity - sol 465-466, May 17, 2005
On Opportunity's first three drives to get out of the sand trap, the rover has advanced a total of 7.4 centimeters (2.9 inches) in getting off the dune. Each of the first two drives -- one on sol 463 and one on sol 465 -- turned the wheels about two and a half rotations, enough to drive two meters (7 feet) if there were no slippage. Images from the hazard-avoidance cameras taken during the drives show that some of caked powder adhering to wheels between cleats had come off. The team was encouraged by the results, and decided go ahead with a 4-meter (13-foot) commanded drive for sol 466.
Sol-by- sol summaries:
Sol 465 (May 15, 2005): Opportunity rotated its wheels in a series of 10 steps, each step enough to roll 20 centimeters (7.9 inches) if there were no slippage. The wheels are slipping a great deal in the sand of the dune, but the rover advanced better than anticipated from simulated tests, covering 1.9 centimeters (0.7 inch). The rover used its panoramic camera for observations of the sky and dunes.
Sol 466 (May 16, 2005): Results from the sol 465 drive were good (some wheel cleats are clean and the rover is making forward progress), so the team commanded a drive that, if there were no slippage, would roll 4 meters (13 feet), consisting of ten 40-centimeter (16 inch) steps. Opportunity gained an additional 2.7 centimeters (1.1 inch). The panoramic camera made more observations of the atmosphere and dunes.
Re:Update: Spirit and Opportunity (Score:5, Funny)
With any luck, it'll make par and really show that Tiger Woods a thing or two.
Re:Update: Spirit and Opportunity (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Update: Spirit and Opportunity (Score:2)
Good Job (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a shinning example that meticulous work and systematic thinking eventually gets the job done, even if it sounds boring and even if a "quick fix" seems really sexy
Good Job NASA.
Re:Good Job (Score:2)
Even though the unsexy-boring-overanalyzed way to go is the correct one the majority of the time, someone with the balls to put the hammer down, shake the steering wheel and yell yippee is exactly what is needed every now and then.
(In this case however I think the course of action has been correct, especially with how healthy that rover is. They may get A LOT more work out of her.)
Re:Good Job (Score:2)
You don't rush or underfund some of the most failure-intolerant and technologically complex missions humans ever take part in (note: this isn't simply a reference to the rovers themselves, but everything needed to get them from the assembly building to explorin
Re:Good Job (Score:2)
A single minor glitch on such a complex system in such environmental and stress extremes, and it's often all over.
A poor choice of words perhaps. If it's "all over," then it's a catastrophic failure, not a minor glitch. Witness the Beagle, and previous probes.
Re:Good Job (Score:2)
Re:Good Job (Score:2)
By "minor glitch" I mean "minor oversight", "minor piece of inaccurate data", etc, that causes a fault.
I fail to see the distinction. Anything that causes catastrophic failure, by definition, is not "minor". The failure to upgrade thermostatic switches on an oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 was hardly a "minor oversight". The standards conversion fiasco on a previous Mars probe may have been a simple mistake, but it was in no way a "minor piece of inaccurate data" -- it was a major mistake. Pick a diffe
Re:Good Job (Score:3, Funny)
Ob. Simpsons reference....
Bart: Don't you mean shining?
Willy: Shh. D'ya wanna get suuuued?
Re:Good Job (Score:1)
This never shoulda happened (Score:5, Funny)
This reminds me... (Score:2)
"I think I can! I think I can! I think I can!
Kinda makes me want to cheer our little martian rover on. "Come on buddy! Just a little bit more! Come on!"
Re:This reminds me... (Score:1)
Oh, you mean that one by Major Payne? Here, I adapted it for you:
Once upon a time deep, deep in the Martian samds, there was a little rover that could. He was chugging his way acroos the desert..... Chuggah chuggah chuggah chuggah chuggah chuggah chuggah chuggah- TOOT TOOT! This little rovers's mission was to take some AK-47's and nuclear bombs over the mountain to the twenty sixty three battalion. Needless to say, there was plenty of opposition. You think that stopped the little rover that could? No sir
slippage (Score:1)
So we can expect Opportunity to move approximately 5.8 inche
The Little Rover That Could... (Score:2, Insightful)
Eventually of course, something will happen to make a rover unusable, but it is interesting that the rovers h
Re:The Little Rover That Could... (Score:2)
Re:The Little Rover That Could... (Score:1)
Re:The Little Rover That Could... (Score:2)
For example, if I run an RS323 serial cable 30 feet when the spec only guarantees it up to 25, I still *e
Re:The Little Rover That Could... (Score:2)
Practicle Joke (Score:4, Funny)
Is it time to go home yet?
Mars rovers working free?!?! (Score:2, Funny)
make robots very flexible (Score:2)
Re:make robots very flexible (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:make robots very flexible (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually the whole point of my suggestion is just to have a more flexible platform for the ground team to work up solution
Re:make robots very flexible (Score:4, Insightful)
Sir Clive's "Great Idea" was to use wafer-scale integration to produce massive redundancy of any given electronic component, and then use filesystem/networking techniques for marking bad regions and routing round them. What you'd end up with is a chip that could take massive punishment and survive physical destruction of even large portions of the surface.
That would cover electronic systems, and mechanical systems could be duplicated with some sort of tie-in. For example, if joint A on robot arm A fails, and arm B is physically linked, then you can use joint A on arm B as a stand-by.
If, then, joint B on arm B failed, you could still use joint B on arm A, for the same reason, giving you fail-over at the component level, not the device level.
That would be something that NASA should definitely explore, and schemes like it, as ways to improve the flexibility and durability of the hardware it launches.
"hello, OnStar" (Score:5, Funny)
Customer: "help, im stuck in a sand dune"
OnStar: "ok, you seem to be off our GPS grid for some reason, can you tell me where you are?"
Customer: "mars"
OnStar: "......."
Customer: "hello?"
OnStar: "just, uh, keep spinning your tires..."
Re:"hello, OnStar" (Score:2)
-1 Redundant Joke (Score:1)
Nothing's new under the... mars?
Re:"hello, OnStar" (Score:1)
Anyone would like to make bets on which rover lasts longer?
Re:"hello, OnStar" (Score:1)
Hackneyed (Score:5, Insightful)
To me, being born before the space race, man on the moon etc., this is still fascinating. Why current the current generation is interested in the slightest, I don't know.
What all these guys are doing was totally unthinkable 20 years ago.
Lets hope we will get another 20 years when the next generation filter through.
Re:Hackneyed (Score:2)
But I think it's worth mentioning that Viking 1 (the original Mars lander) landed on Mars almost 30 years ago, so this kind of thing wasn't totally unthinkable 20 years ago.
But this is something that is teaching us loads about our universe and I am also suprised about how little most people (even a lot of so-called geeks) seem to give a rip.
Re:Hackneyed (Score:1, Insightful)
The tires currently on your car would probably never get out of a sand drift. Maybe in a few years people can develop tread designs that not only cut through water puddles but through sand dunes.
Re:Hackneyed (Score:2)
Ohhh, so close.
Done 25 years ago by the Russians: http://www.synlube.com/moon.htm [synlube.com]
Should have been: totally unthinkable 40 years ago
Rover working free. (Score:2)
Plucky? (Score:2)
AAA (Score:5, Funny)
What, solar panels dirty again? We just cleaned them last week!
Naw, it's stuck in the sand.
Fuggit - let AAA* take car of it!
(*AAA - Aries Automobile Association).
yeah ! (Score:1)
Re:yeah ! (Score:2, Funny)
"watch that mother burn silicon dioxide", which is in fact 'burnt' already, and wouldn't burn any more in the thin martian atmosphere.
Sorry for sucking the fun out of that one...
Heh... (Score:1)
HiLift jack! (Score:1)
JFK and Marilyn (Score:2)
4 days old news. Still not out (Score:3, Interesting)
Free - Free at Last! (Score:1)
And operational wheels
That is Good (Score:1)
Better wheels...???? (Score:2)
Perhaps I'm simplifying it, but for all the money the spent on the wheels, they could have designed them to have inflatable monster-mudder style blades, like tractor tires have, to pop out of the surface when needed, such as has been the case recently????
The Little Rover That Could... (Score:2)
Free as in beer? Or free as in speech? (Score:1, Funny)
Movies of front and rear hazcam wheels (Score:2)
I've got the movies up on my ADSL line at
front hazcam [216.102.153.252]
rear hazcam [216.102.153.252]
Higher bandwidth mirrors would be most appreciated
Thad Beier
Rename it R2D2 (Score:1)
Working Free? (Score:1)
kybred
Working Free? (Score:1)
And their solution was what???? (Score:2)
It sounds like "Ah hell, just gun it!"
Re:Ahhh come on!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:nice (Score:1)
Re:nice (Score:2)
Re:News? (Score:2)
I would tend to agree. (Score:2)
A Martian rover that has completed an initial test move, but where NASA can't be 100% sure how successful it was yet - all they know is that the wheels look less caked than
Re:I would tend to agree. (Score:2)
Re:Yea, more money wasted. (Score:3, Insightful)
You may disagree with how the government spends your money, but at least NASA has to work for its pay.
This differs greatly from welfare, where you get paid for not working.
Wake me up when welfare recipients contribute half the science NASA does.
Re:Yea, more money wasted. (Score:1)
Re:Phew (Score:5, Interesting)
A mere pittance...especially when you consider all the "techno-wood*" that has been generated so far. God know how many geekitos and geekitas have been conceived since mission start.
*Techno-wood is copyleft 2005 NoseBag. Use it at your own peril. I did.