Rover Prepares to Dig Trench on Mars

The Las Vegas Sun ^ | February 15, 2004 at 8:15:10 PST | GILLIAN FLACCUS

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Today: February 15, 2004 at 8:15:10 PST

Rover Prepares to Dig Trench on Mars

By GILLIAN FLACCUS
ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOS ANGELES (AP) -

Scientists fixed a glitch that froze the robotic arm on the Mars rover Opportunity and then prepared the robot explorer to dig a narrow trench in the martian soil, NASA said.

Scientists hoped the patch of soil, dubbed "Hematite Slope," would prove to be rich in the iron-bearing mineral, which typically forms in water.

Opportunity's explorations had been delayed on Friday because the rover failed to properly stow its robotic arm. Engineers sent instructions to the rover that fixed the problem, mission manager Jim Erickson said Saturday.

The glitch occurred because scientists had instructed Opportunity to perform what could have been an unsafe movement with the robotic arm. Faced with the conflict between that instruction and its safety instructions, the rover stopped with its robotic arm still extended until scientists revised the commands.

"The rover is sometimes smarter than we are," said Erickson. "The trick is to catch these on the ground and resequence them correctly before we send them up."

With that problem solved, scientists wanted Opportunity to dig four inches or so into the soil, using one of its front wheels as an excavator. They hoped the move would expose minerals that could reveal whether Mars ever was wet enough to support life.

Opportunity's twin rover, Spirit, was on the other side of the planet inspecting two rocks nicknamed "Stone Council" and "Mimi," and the surrounding soil before resuming its trip toward a crater about 1,100 feet away.

"Spirit is still moving out, but it's stopping to smell the roses along the way," Erickson said.

Scientists were considering how to increase Spirit's driving distance from 26 meters a day to 30 meters a day. One option was to use the rover's panoramic camera to provide images so scientists on Earth could see up to 50 meters ahead.

"Our navigational cameras aren't really good enough to pick out a good route in advance when we're talking about 30, 40 or 50 meters," Erickson said.

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On the Net:

Mars Rover: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov

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[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

fyi

[martin_fierro]

[Maceman]

This is an outrage. We are raping the environment of Mars. We must pursue sustainable exploration that makes no changes or does no violence to the planet surface.

Bad anough the human beings are the AIDS virus of planet Earth -- must we also spread our virulence throughout the solar system?

(Just kidding, but who wants to start a pool on when the first religious environmentalists will start making these kinds of comments?).

[socal_parrot]

Spirit is still moving out, but it's stopping to smell the roses along the way

Roses? Why isn't this breaking news!!!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

LOL!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

See post #5, maybe we need the pool!

[solitas]

Two questions (since this is the latest mars-related thread the cognoscenti will read):

In certain images (viz. [image] and [image]): What are we supposed to be looking at?

Also, in the panoramic images (viz. [image]) there's always the line " camera commanded to use Filter [n] ([x] nm)" with varying numbers for [x] and [n]. I undetstand that the cameras have 8 filters to choose from, but what are the numbers in the parentheses supposed to represent? They range from 179 to 19, from what I've seen, and the 'nm' would lead One to believe they were nanometers - but that, obviously, CAN'T be the case (besides, a particular filter number has different values of [x] in different images).

[Phsstpok]

"The rover is sometimes smarter than we are," said Erickson.

Why do people make these stupid statements. The rover isn't smart. The rover isn't dumb. The rover is a machine. It just runs programs. The program that reviews commands sent up from the ground caught the error. That program was written to do that by a person.

Duh!!!!!

It's like when people talk about "expert systems," or "artificial intelligence." They're just programs with basically a lot of "if this happens then do that" instructions. The worst of these is when they stage these "computer versus chess master" dog and pony shows. The chess master isn't playing the computer, he's playing against the team of programmers and chess masters who wrote the program.

[kennedy]

The rover is a machine. It just runs programs.

Which makes it smarter than some people, many of whom post regularly at D.U.

[dts32041]

Bad Dog, Bad Dog.

[Frank_Discussion]

Yes, nanometers, referring to the wavelength of light being filtered.

[solitas]

Yes, nanometers, referring to the wavelength of light being filtered.
Impossible - that's getting down into X-rays (2KeV): something around 500x shorter than even deep UV. You don't do reflective imagery at those wavelengths: you punch through things and do 'shadows on film'. :) (ref: http://www.lbl.gov/images/MicroWorlds/EMSpec.gif)

Either 'nm' means something different to nasa, or it's a terrible error on their part. They don't even look like Wratten color filter numbers.

[solitas]

Whoops, my bad: more like 50x and not 500x. Sorry.

[Frank_Discussion]

Maybe they meant mm? Thay would make more sense, wouldn't it?

[Phil V.]

Ive been gone for a few day's in the lost universe of Lake Tahoe . . . sorry 'bout that! . . .

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If you'd like to be on or off this MARS ping list please FRail me

[Professional Engineer]

(Just kidding, but who wants to start a pool on when the first religious environmentalists will start making these kinds of comments?)

You mean they haven't already?

[Professional Engineer]

With that problem solved, scientists wanted Opportunity to dig four inches or so into the soil, using one of its front wheels as an excavator

Now take your big toe and wiggle it back and worth until you have a ditch...
These rovers are incredible machines.

[RadioAstronomer]

Ive been gone for a few day's in the lost universe of Lake Tahoe

Sorry for not taking up the slack. Been awfully busy. Sigh!

[Phil V.]

There are indications that some aspects of the Mars threads have been . . . uh . . . say . . . "plasmaed" . . .

Beam me up?