Posted on 03/21/2005 7:47:14 PM PST by Termite_Commander
LEAGUE CITY, Tex., March 17 - Nearly a year past its planned three-month lifetime, the Mars rover Spirit has found itself rejuvenated and is now making some of its most significant discoveries about Mars' waterlogged past.
Spirit and its twin, Opportunity, on the other side of Mars have continued working so well that managers have requested that the mission be extended up to another 18 months. NASA reported that one of the mineral-identifying instruments on Opportunity had been turned off because of a malfunction, but the rovers appear otherwise healthy.
"Today is Sol 427 of our 90-Sol mission to Mars," Dr. Steven W. Squyres, the mission's principal investigator, said Wednesday, to laughter and applause of scientists at the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference here on the outskirts of Houston. "Things continue to go well."
A Sol is a Martian day, slightly longer than an Earth day at 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds.
Even serendipity is aiding Spirit as it roams around Gusev Crater, a 95-mile wide depression that looks as if it may have once been a lake.
To even out the wear and tear on the rovers, mission managers having been driving them backward much of the time, and as Spirit was driving backward up the hill, "We hit a break in slope, and we kind of churned," Dr. Squyres said. "I was very disappointed when I saw these images, because it's all churned up, and we didn't complete our drive. And then we looked carefully and noticed that soil looked awfully bright."
That turned out to be various types of salt, presumably left as water evaporated on ancient Mars. Opportunity was the first to find such salts last year, but "the record for the saltiest place on Mars now belongs to Gusev Crater," Dr. Squyres said. "This stuff is more than 50 percent salt."
When the rovers arrived in January last year, luck favored Opportunity, which ended up in a tiny crater and almost immediately found evidence of past water of Mars.
Meanwhile, a computer programming glitch waylaid Spirit for a week and a half, and when it resumed its work it found the rocks around it to be made of unremarkable lava. It then made a two-month, two-mile trek to hills that appeared older and more geologically intriguing.
Once it arrived at the hills, Spirit also started finding evidence of past water.
"In many ways, the Spirit mission began on Sol 156," Dr. Squyres said. "We're seeing a bewildering diversity of composition in the Columbia Hills." They were named in memory of the Columbia space shuttle astronauts who died in 2003.
Some of Spirit's aches of age have also gone away. In June, the motor driving its right front wheel started drawing two to three times as much electrical current and appeared in danger of burning out. Mission controllers limited the use of the wheel, driving on the other five. Then, three months ago, the motor returned to its normal functioning.
Dust gathering on Spirit's solar panels had cut the amount of energy they generated each day from 900 watt hours initially to just over 400. "The death zone for this vehicle is about 280," Dr. Squyres said.
As Spirit made its way up through the hills, mission controllers had to be careful that the panels stayed tilted toward the Sun. Then on March 9, the power output suddenly jumped up to 800 watt-hours, nearly as good as new. Spirit's cameras detected several dust devils - mini-tornadoes - in the area, and apparently one passed directly over the rover, blowing away the dust.
"We are back to power levels we were at on Sol 30," Dr. Squyres said. Opportunity experienced a similar cleansing of its solar arrays last year.
After exploring the small crater it landed in and then a larger stadium-size one, Opportunity is now making a long drive across the Martian surface. It stopped to examine pieces of its discarded heat shield.
"Then it's become drive like crazy," said Dr. Raymond Arvidson, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and a member of the science team. On Thursday, Opportunity drove 624 feet in one day, the longest drive to date.
They're in . . .
PERFECT ROVIAN FORM!!!
One wonders why a 'blowdryer' type device couldn't be made as part of the rover. Once 'dust coverage' of the solar panels gets to 80% or so use 10% remaining power to clean and boost back up.
It'll be sweet when we have the AI to run a flight plan much like the rovers 'auto pilot' does over land now. Then we can launch 'rovers' with an aircraft 'drone' it launches after landing on the surface. Imagine the video from that!
Art Bell is causing these batteries to get recharged through is UFO connections, no doubt!
The Martian Quickie Lube is located under the ice.
have they found the flags yet?
It could be done. Just have to make a drone that can take off and fly in an inert atmosphere with a pressure approximating the Earth's at 100,000 feet altitude.
Nice imitation of Shiela Jackson Lee! LOL!
A helium filled balloon using metallic fabric could work.
Make it like a dirigible with a camera and sensor pod hanging on the bottom. Inflate it, and when the gas inside has enough lifting power a lead weight or electro magnet releases sending the floating probe skyward to drift with the wind.
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