Spirit - Still Alive - volume 2 - Page 10

Yes Paul I have read the same there are only 4 wheels left and they have no experience driving in this fasion and are looking to angle them in such a way to try and pull out of the trap just a little bit more.

They have to move Spirit about 15cm to get a better angle/aspect for the winter sun to generate about 150 Watts to survive, if that cannot be acheived Spirit may still have half a chance of waking up in Spring depending on dust fall and opacity. Many variables involved such as dust storms, extreme temperature changes and Spirit's age.

Cleaning events while stuck on Troy have helped so plenty of reason to keep trying, I do not think Spirit will fully escape but is in a good science area and could do plenty of excellent work as a lander.

As I have said before the biggest threat is the budget review in February hopefully they will keep going and see if they can wake Spirit up later in the year when the Mars Spring comes along.

sol 2131 ( Dec 31, 2009 ) infrared / visible false color of curious straight soil particle:

ON sol 2136 ( Jan 5, 2010 ) there was a whole lot'a wheel turnin' goin' on...

Unless anyone wants to see the gory details I will not post any more attempts to free Spirit.

Re: "...the biggest threat is the budget review in February..."

Once they stop planning moves for Spirit and go into hibernation mode, the man hour requirements should drop. I can't see them killing Spirit with a cutoff in funds if the numbers show there may be enough power to last through the winter. That would be very disappointing and not a good end to a marvelous mission.

> curious straight soil particle

It would be nice if they could do a microscopic image of this triple particle, which is nicely isolated on the dark solar panel background.. It might shed some light on the many segmented linear strands that Hort has often shown in his intriguing images.

182: Is that soil or has a bit of the Rover mechanism splintered off in the frenzy or perhaps a fragment of rock?

Hope your right CWII it is a question of science bang for buck and if Spirit will yield worthwhile stuff, personally I would keep Spirit up and running until the very end but those who pull the purse strings tend not to be very sentimental about ageing space hardware.

Wow! Right front wheel has completely turned to the right.

Here is an animation of the changes to the long soil particle in the past 7 months and here is an animation of changes to another over 500 sols.

Whatever these are they are tenacious.

Hort that is very interesting, is this soil? How come it has not blown away in a cleaning event, looks like a fossilized worm! It has shortened itself and a piece sitting at the back of the main piece has gone, is this a mix of dust and sublimating ice?
Barsoomer is right why don't they put the MI on it while extraction moves are being figured out, on that note one of the options of at least getting a better tilt for the winter is to try and crab out but there may not be enough wheels to do this. My experience of being stuck in soft sand is you need straight wheels to escape, if you try and move when they are locked left or right it normally means you will dig in even more at the back as you don't have enough torque or grip to move. We shall see how this works if all the wheels are turned in the same way.

Er, if any of you are looking for the short story / poem by phantomimic try here.

I deleted his topic when the link led to a blank page using IE 6 and an "error loading" in Firefox 2.

I upgraded Firefox and was able to read the story / poem, so I apologize to the author.

The author must be a "youngin", as the web site broke all my "old fart" browsers.

As the story is a love story in the not so distant future set in Gusev crater and the final resting place of Spirit, I thought it fitting to put the link here.

Not a bad read.

The details of the "beaming portals" to get to Mars are a little strange - like violating every known law of physics - but it avoids explaining how two perfectly random people could end up together on a remote corner of Mars at the same time and allow the story to unfold. No worse than some "Deus ex Scientifica" in other stories.

The story argues that no matter how "advanced" we as a species will become we will still the same individual primates with the same drives as our distant ancestors on the Savannahs of Africa.

Again, sorry.

Re reply #181,

It's not looking good... read some comments from Squyres yesterday and it sounds like they are close to calling Spirit a lander now, although not quite yet. But yes, it can still do a lot of science where it is. For 90-day rovers now being in their 6th year, can anyone complain? I think not!

sol 2143-2145 ( Jan 13-15, 2010 ) animation of the front and rear hazcam:

Looks like the decision has been made to tilt the rover as far north as possible.

Notice that the RF wheel has gone down and both the RL and the defunct RR wheels have gone up

Looks like a nut or something may have fallen off the rover arm. Compare this FHAZ image taken on 2009-10-03

to this image on 2010-01-15

The pebbles on the left side (near the circular mark) seem to a new addition that might be a hexagonal nut.

[link]

sol 2143-2147 front/rear animation:

The net effect of the drives is to turn the rover counterclockwise and tilt it forward - which is good for power levels.

sol 2147 update to MI under-rover montage animation:

So, in the last 5 weeks the middle wheels and left front wheels have sunk deeper and the right front and rear wheels have risen.

I am more optimistic now that a better winter orientation has been achieved.

When Spirit has been established as a lander, there is no need to use the drive motors any more, i.e. more net charge current goes to the battery, due to lesser power consumption. I'm optimistic.

Yep looks like they have gone for the right decision, chances of getting out are very slim, better to get some Winter Sun, survive it and operate as a lander. I for one would like to see if they can establish if there is a liquid centre to our Red friend.
Who knows this could be one of those grey clouds with a silver lining.
Come on NASA drivers shake that Pinball machine and get a TILT penalty!

Some news about Spirit & Opportunity in
Pasadena Star News newspaper.

Two inches progress in backward drive. Tilt change. In Oppy news, "fresh" crater is said to be 1000 years old.

Only 1000 years old? that is BIG news as this is not considered to be an impact crater but a sink hole or a vent, if that is the case then there could be some very good science around here.

Dig in those back wheels, tilt tilt !!

sol 2145-2154 ( Jan 15-24, 2010 ) animation of front wheel movements:

If Spirit can continue rotating counter-clockwise for a few more drives then the dead right front wheel will drop into the left front wheel trench and should provide another 7+ degrees of tilt. IF, in addition, the dead right rear wheel and rear left wheel can be pushed out of the crater a bit then additional tilt can be achieved.

Attempting any more would be foolish.

WHERE can Spirit actually drive - assuming an escape from Troy - and get better tilt with only four - maybe three - functioning wheels???