Spirit - Still Alive - Page 19

sol 2008 ( Aug 27, 2009 ) montage of center wheels:

122 sols and rising in this place.
322 watt-hours and falling.
Winter is i-cumin in,
Lhude sing, Uhoh.

sol 2003-2013 dust storm animation:

looks like the storm has abated.

sol 1945-2014 (Jun 23-Sep 2, 2009 ) animation of changes:

See image comments for, er, comments.

Anybody care to explain how the dust got on the underside of the ball

Looks like the dust is somewhat sticky
magnetized or moisture?

Ben, re your 364, In a really dusty room dust accumulates even on the ceiling. It also tends to accumulate faster along vertical outside wall corners than on the walls in general. Just how dust differentially accumulates on surfaces on Mars probably isn't well understood. Where does aerodynamics force suspended dust particles into contact with surfaces? Are some surfaces stickier than others? Are dust and frost deposition independent or do they sometimes interact?

Mars dust particles are composites, not tiny bits of solid rock. We know this because the MER magnet experiments demonstrated that the vast majority of dust particles are magnetic. Each probably contains some magnetite as well as other minerals.

sol 1935 Hirise view of Spirit:

Very depressing.

Even if Spirit escapes Troy then the path to Von Braun will be very difficult. There appear to be many small darkish depressions ahead.

From The Planetary Society MER August 31, 2009 Update:

Amidst the light-toned sands of Ulysses, it has homed in on a sample containing more calcium than any other sample found so far on the mission. It's more solid evidence of water and more support for the scientists' hypothesis that these are deposits left after a volcanic explosion.

One of the unique features in this soil are tiny white flat flakes. Calcium? - calcium carbonate perhaps?

Anyone annoyed about Spirit still not moving ? I know there is a fire threat over at JPL, but I am still very much concerned about dropping power levels. And it's more anoying when you have no information. The last update at JPL about freeing Spirit is way back at 26th August. Any new info?

kalinka, i think there is a shortage in communication at the moment because the MRO (as data relay)is currently under maintainance because of boardcomputer reboots. Only the Mars Odyssey orbiter is relaying data from the rovers to earth currently with a much less transfer rate...
lets hope they get MRO back up soon

Kalinka in the post above yours Horton has kindly included a link to the latest Planetary Society update from the 31st of August all the answers are here.

MRO went into safe mode on the 26th of August we don't know why and Spirit will not be moved until a full set of trials have been carried out at JPL, if they get it wrong Spirit becomes a lander.

Well worth a read great stuff on Block Island and evidence of flowing water at Troy this mission never fails to deliver great science. Thanks Hort.

sol 1904-2017 ( May 12 - Sep 5, 2009 ) pamcam / MI comparison of capture magnet:

An MI image was not taken on sol 1904.

The MI image was taken today.

Thank for answers. Maybe i was misunderstood a little. I know that JPL guys are working 24/7 on Spirit. I know there is a problem with MRO. I just wanted to tell my feelings about the situation. I was a bit surprised that nobody mentioned the question for days(maybe weeks, I can't read all posts): When will Spirit finally move? I think in this situation , when rover movement is surely closer and closer, it is better for JPL in PR terms to update us a little more frequently. I was surprised too, that we have no information how the rover tests went down in JPL. I mean is there ANY sequence of movements that is promising to free Spirit ? Why is that so secret information ?

In the report it has a very extensive account of exactly what they are trying out with the Spirit replica, light model and Virtual Rover being dusted off as well as creating the right soil types in the dustbin. Spirit is not in a good situation and really the PR guys cannot really offer anything other than all the different scenarios they are currently playing out. It could be two months before Spirit breaks free with the first manouvers taking place around the end of the month. Frustrating all round but certainly not secret at all, no need to be. In terms of manouvers a sort of up hill Crab like move is being considered but the jammed wheel is always going to hinder things, on this slope Spirit has a tendancy to yaw which is why we are in this sand pit it is not where it was instructed to go therefore they are looking into Kinematics and talking to the orginal Rover engineers to fully understand what Spirit might do once given a particular command. The long wait to get out really does tell us that Spirit is really stuck and any attempt to simply reverse out of the ditch could result in wheel spin that would dig Spirit in even more. Hey would you want to be the guy who sends the command that could be wrong and finally end Spirit's roving?

Thanks again Kevin for the extensive explanation of how things are going. I'm not trying to be the wise guy. I'm with this mission since before landing almost every day. I like these rovers very much, and I don't want neither of them to fail. It's incredible how long they are "living".
I am aware of different sceanrios of freeing Spirit, I only miss the small details, like "we tried this manouvre, and this looks good/no good". The PR guys must consider us, the rover funs all around the world who try to get every info, do they? But it's not so important, important is to free Spirit.

I think it is impossible for the PR guys to say much more as everything is really up in the air at the moment it is frustrating for all to have been stuck here for so long this only underlines how bad the problem is. Soon Spirit will have to start moving toward a safe haven for winter so we will not stay here for ever unless the unthinkable happens then we will give it a few more weeks.

sol 2006-2019 L27 animation of interesting changes near RAT press in Troy soil:

The "white stuff" in the RAT press seems to have been moved out of the RAT depression and westward ( down slope ).

The wind from the dust storm was strong enough to lift the white stuff out of the hole??? Or perhaps the white stuff in the RAT hole was covered by dust from the storm and the white stuff on the slope was uncovered at the same time by the wind???

I favor the wind moving the white stuff because there are some white areas in the depression that are now much darker.

sol 1933-2019 ( Jun 11-Sep 7, 2009 ) animation of changes in Troy wheel trench:

The most interesting is the chunk of crust that fell from the edge into the trench.

Hort; What would you guess the distance is that that chunk moved ?

My best guess is the 2x4 cm chunk moved about 15 cm. This is based on a guestimated range of 2 meters.