Mars rover updates - Opportunity Hits Pay Dirt - Grinding, Take Two (SPIRIT)

NASA - JPL ^ | 3-3-04 | NASA/JPL

[Phil V.]

Here's a picture of the aborted grind on "Humphrey" . . .

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And here's an enhanced (lightened in Photoshop) view of the same area (bottom of the picture) It looks like one of my failed attempts to texture drywall. It looks like:

1)     Spirit leaked on the rock
2)     The rock is "wet"
3)     The "rock" is a very hydrated block of salt
4)     The rock is . . . .

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Here's a glyph I made of "paydirt" . . .

Large image glyph of "paydirt"

[Phil V.]

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

[blam]

Mars ping.

[doodad]

Thanks for the ping! What great news this week. I have been out of the loop alot because our firewall considers conservative newsites porn and have been busy as well. My answer is that vugs and soft conditions stopped the tool; the software expects uniform resistance or even an increase but not soft and catching on the edges as things in the vugs fall out. I have had the same problem on limestones grinding pilot holes for drilling where the bit would "walk" off the hole and we would retract.

[Phil V.]

But what kind of "dry" material "smears" as though it's wet?

[Bernard Marx]

Thanks for the ping. I spend a lot of my time grinding rocks of various kinds but I won't get into that. I think you're correct that this is very soft material and it gives the visual impression of being almost wet enough to create "mud" -- the big smear at the lower left -- and the "crumbs" left in the central portion of the grinding area.

When I use diamond-coated wheels to cut rocks it's done under a water spray to clear away muddy swarf that loads up the wheel and slows or stops the grinding operation. I presume Spirit's RAT can't do that and any moisture would come from the rock being ground. Doodad has an interesting idea about the software but my guess is the abrasive wheel on the RAT loaded up and it simply couldn't make any progress. This can also happen in dry material if the consistency is just right. But if I'm right about the "mud" this could possibly be confirmation of present water on Mars.

[Phil V.]

Here's a glyph of the target rock,"Humphrey". I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that the Spirit team had chosen another block of basalt (hard stuff) to grind. It looked to me about the same as Adarondack, Spirit's first grind object. The microscopic images taken before the grind suggest the typical gas voids of basalt rather than vugs as Opportunity's object rocks.

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[Frohickey]

When does Spirit hit oil?

[Don Joe]

But what kind of "dry" material "smears" as though it's wet?

Mars-ipan. (Nyuk nyuk nyuk....)

[Don Joe]

[Phil V.]

"Mars-ipan."






Please leave the room.

[Don Joe]

Musing:

Possibilities that spring to mind are moisture (water), moisture (other), or extremely dry (static electric attraction).

I discount static because it doesn't look like dust that's held together by static, it looks like dust that's held together by moisture.

If it was static, I think it would look much looser, softer, fluffier, instead of having that "smeared by putty knife" look to it.

My money's on brine that got grated out of the rock by the grinder. Reminds me of a carrot juicer. (I remember the first time I juiced a carrot, I was amazed that so much liquid could come out of a "dry" carrot.)

[Don Joe]

Please leave the room.

You didn't appreciate the Marsie pun?

[Phil V.]

updated update . . .


Daily Updates - March 3, 2004

Spirit Status for sol 59
Rock Abrasion Tool Back in Action
posted Mar. 3, 6 pm PST

Waking up to "One More Time" by The Real McCoy, Spirit completed a successful, 2 millimeter-deep grind (.08 inches) into a target slightly left of the depression it made yestersol during its abbreviated operation. A five-minute brush to clean the hole followed.

Completing the sol, which ended at 8:31 p.m. Wednesday, March 03, Spirit's arm then switched instruments so the Moessbauer spectrometer could examine "Humphrey's" new shallow cavity.

Before this sol's four-hour grinding, the microscopic imager and the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer finished observations of yestersol's rock abrasion tool depression. To document Spirit's current position - about halfway to the "Bonneville" crater rim - the panoramic camera snapped the first of several images that, together, will provide a 360-degree view.

Engineers identified the software issue that caused the rock abrasion tool to terminate its original planned grinding on sol 58. The minor bug will be fixed when new flight software is loaded at the end of March.

In the coming sols, Spirit will complete the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer observations of the rock abrasion tool hole and get an up-close view with the microscopic imager. The final images will be obtained for the full panoramic view of Spirit's current position. After miniature thermal emission spectrometer and panoramic camera observations of the hole are conducted, Spirit will continue on toward "Bonneville" crater.

[Phil V.]

"Marsie pun?"


You haven't left yet??!!

[Phil V.]

Well, if you won't leave I will. Gotta go back to work . . . take over for me but, don't break any furniture.

[Don Joe]

Waking up to "One More Time" by The Real McCoy, Spirit completed a successful, 2 millimeter-deep grind (.08 inches) into a target slightly left of the depression it made yestersol during its abbreviated operation. A five-minute brush to clean the hole followed.

They forgot to describe the hole-cleaning music...

Completing the sol, which ended at 8:31 p.m. Wednesday, March 03, Spirit's arm then switched instruments so the Moessbauer spectrometer could examine "Humphrey's" new shallow cavity.

...and the arm-switching music...

Before this sol's four-hour grinding, the microscopic imager and the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer finished observations of yestersol's rock abrasion tool depression.

...and the X-ray spectrometer finishing music.

They're slipping up! We demand full return on our tax dollars! We demand full disclosure!

We demand the names of the hidden tunes!

Argh.

If I hear "woke up to" or "wake-up music was" one more time, I'm going out behind the barn and ... vomiting.

(I was gonna say, "and shooting to hell some old [fill in the blanks from someone's junkheap]", but I clearly have more repect for earthly junkheap "machinery" than NASA does for the taxpayers' intelligence.)

Earth to NASA: save the "Sesame Street Version" narrative for Sesame Street!

PFTHPTH!!!

[Don Joe]

You haven't left yet??!!

Yes I have.

[Don Joe]

but, don't break any furniture.

Oh, great. Now you tell me.

[Don Joe]

PS:

This cloyingly cute "sol", "yestersol", etc. business is getting a bit long in the tooth too. And it's a jagged tooth at that, argh.

C'mon, guys, say "day". It's not that hard. Go ahead, give it a try. Sure, sure, you'll feel like a traitor to your slide-rule, pocket-protector, and calculator-holster, but that will fade after a while. You can ease your way back to normalcy by using the term "Mars-day" sort of like a set of training wheels for a while, until you're able to form the "D-word" without fumbling it.

If it helps any, your anal-retentive "precision" is...wrong anyway!

A "Sol" would be the length of a day on the Sun. You know, from midnight-to-midnight at the same spot on the surface of the Sun. Go ahead, try it yourself, don't take my word for it -- but make sure you go there at night, OK? It gets really hot in the daytime.