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Lampyridae
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« Reply #600 on: 06/06/2012 09:42 AM » |
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Yay, past the worst of winter and now roving again! Just 3 more months (already has been on Mars >100 months!) until MSL brings the rovers-on-Mars count back up to 2. 
I wonder if there's any betting on whether Oppy will outlast MSL on the surface. MSL's supposed to only last two years, right? I don't know if the RTG will go beyond the nominal mission, though...
Considering that the MERs were designed for a nominal mission of 90 days and lasted for many years, if the same design robustness was implemented on MSL, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see its mission last much longer. The power source certainly will.
There's an outside chance that it may still be operational in the mid 2020 timeframe, given the track record of the MERs. That could mean that a manned Mars flyby or Phobos expedition could control the rover in real time. That may require a lot of software jury-rigging and may not really be feasible given that MSL was designed to work with long communication round trips and basically moves at a snail's pace.
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racshot65
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« Reply #602 on: 06/08/2012 10:41 AM » |
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sols 2969-2974, May 31 - June 05, 2012: Robotic Arm Gets to Work on Veins of Gypsum
Opportunity is investigating light-toned veins around the north end of Cape York on the rim of Endeavour Crater.
On Sol 2969 (May 31, 2012), the rover drove 36 feet (11 meters) to the northeast to approach one of these putative gypsum veins. On Sol 2971 (June 2, 2012), Opportunity bumped about 8 feet (2.3 meters) to place the vein, now called "Monte Cristo," within the work volume of the robotic arm. Taking advantage of the 3-sol weekend plan, the rover included an atmospheric argon measurement by the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) on Sol 2972 (June 3, 2012). On Sol 2974 (June 5, 2012), Opportunity began the in-situ (contact) investigation of the vein Monte Cristo with a Microscopic Imager (MI) mosaic of an exposed portion of the vein, followed by the placement of the APXS for a multi-sol integration.
As of Sol 2974 (June 5, 2012), solar array energy production was 369 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.364 and a slightly improved solar array dust factor of 0.562.
Total odometry is 21.42 miles (34,469.86 meters). http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_opportunityAll.html#sol360
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Nomadd
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« Reply #605 on: 06/10/2012 01:09 PM » |
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I have a Jesuit friend who's been fascinated by these little guys since they were launched. He says he's praying for a benevolent dust devil.
Hope it works.
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racshot65
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« Reply #609 on: 06/14/2012 06:13 PM » |
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racshot65
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« Reply #610 on: 06/15/2012 09:32 AM » |
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racshot65
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« Reply #611 on: 06/15/2012 09:35 AM » |
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Saw this linked to on UMSF Great news from Mars today... A wind gust cleaned dust from the rover Opportunity's solar arrays, giving us a big power boost! https://twitter.com/#!/NEEMO_Steve
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jnc
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« Reply #612 on: 06/15/2012 01:23 PM » |
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"Great news from Mars today... A wind gust cleaned dust from the rover Opportunity's solar arrays, giving us a big power boost!"
I am just utterly gobsmacked that that thing is still running - it's exceeded its design lifetime by like, what, well over an order of magnitude? It's definitely one of the most productive robot explorers of all time (hopefully some day we'll go get it an put it in the NASM where it belongs). Hats off to the designers and builders for doing such a fantastic job on it. Noel
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racshot65
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« Reply #613 on: 06/15/2012 01:40 PM » |
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sols 2975-2980, June 06-11, 2012: Slow Going Due to Communication Issues
Opportunity has been investigating light-toned veins around the north end of Cape York on the rim of Endeavour Crater.
Recently, things became complicated, first by Mars Odyssey orbiter going into safe mode, leaving Opportunity without timely relay support, and then by a missed Ultra High Frequency (UHF) relay pass with Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Sol 2976 (June 7, 2012). The project responded to the missed UHF pass by sending real-time commands to the rover on Sol 2977 (June 8, 2012), to elicit a response to make sure Opportunity was okay.
Further, the project asked MRO to change the data rate on the next relay pass to ensure lock-up under poor Signal to Noise Ratio conditions. The missed relay pass was likely the result of poor relay geometry between the orbiter and rover. With Odyssey unavailable for relay support for a number of days, the MER project converted several future rover Deep Space Network tracking passes from "Direct from Earth" to "Direct to Earth" to return some telemetry directly over the rover's X-band system.
The plans forward for Opportunity have been modest, mostly remote sensing, owing to the lack of relay support from Odyssey. A bump of the rover was sequenced for Sol 2981 (June 12, 2012). This will be followed by a MRO UHF relay pass to return the drive results.
As of Sol 2977 (June 8, 2012), solar array energy production was 388 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.338 and a solar array dust factor of 0.567.
Total odometry is 21.42 (34,469.86 meters). http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_opportunityAll.html#sol360
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racshot65
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« Reply #614 on: 06/16/2012 06:53 PM » |
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