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Posted on 06/28/2007 5:22:13 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
LOS ANGELES - NASA's aging but durable Mars rover Opportunity will make what could be a trip of no return into a deep impact crater as it tries to peer further back than ever into the Red Planet's geologic history.
The descent into Victoria Crater received the go-ahead because the potential scientific returns are worth the risk that the solar-powered, six-wheel rover might not be able to climb out, NASA officials and scientists said Thursday.
The vehicle has been roaming Mars for nearly 3 1/2 Earth years. Scientists and engineers want to send it in while it still appears healthy.
"This crater, Victoria, is a window back into the ancient environment of Mars," said Alan Stern, the NASA associate administrator who authorized the move.
"Entering this crater does come with some unknowns," Stern added. "We have analyzed the entry point but we can't be certain about the terrains and the footing down in the crater until we go there. We can't guarantee, although we think we are likely to come back out of the crater."
Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, have been exploring opposite sides of Mars since landing in January 2004, discovering geologic evidence of rocks altered by water from a long-ago wetter period of the now-dusty planet.
Blasted open by a meteor impact, Victoria Crater is a half-mile across and about 200 to 230 feet deep — far deeper than anything else the rovers have explored.
"Because it's deeper it provides us access to just a much longer span of time," said Steve Squyres, the principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover mission from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. He said it's not known just how much time is represented in the crater's layered walls.
Opportunity's first target will be a band of bright material like a bathtub ring about 10 feet below the crater's rim.
"That was the original, pre-impact surface so this bright stuff is the stuff that was in contact with the Martian atmosphere at the time Victoria formed, which may have been billions of years ago," Squyres said.
The initial entry is expected on July 7 or 9. To get into the crater, the rover will have to safely cross a ripple of wind-formed material at the lip of the crater, the kind of feature that has given it trouble before. The team plans to initially drive only far enough to have all six wheels on the slope and then back up to the top, to analyze how it performed.
"We call that a toe dip," said John Callas, the rover project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
Since inception, the twin-rover mission has cost more than $900 million, and now costs $20 million to $24 million annually. Planned to last 90 days, the mission is in its fourth extension and another proposal would continue operations to the end of October 2008.
Note that no one is extending the rovers, they are extending our involvement in them - the rovers seem to be doing OK under current guidance.
Sorry Norm, gotta call you on something. They had a 90 DAY design lifetime. They’re in the neighbourhood of 4 years now. I’d say that’s a little more than 3 or 4 times :D:D:D. I read an article on Space.com recently by one of the investigators (read scientists) that was rather emotional about the prospect of losing these little guys. Even with bigger and better rovers on the way. Spirit and Opportunity have done well with very little. Just goes to show you what a little bit of scientific know-how can do for you!
Thanks for the correction. Incredibly durable little buggers. a pretty good investment indeed.
Are they both still going? Didn’t Spirit have some problems with the wheels or something?
A wheel that has to be “dragged”, a dead battery warmer, an arm that has to be over powered to work, wear on grinding tools....
“A false color image”
What does that mean?
When I looked at the photo it almost looked like there was an ocean on the horizon.
Victoria Crater... y’know, I think Dr McCoy used to date her sister, or maybe her sister in law...
Red Planet’s Ancient Equator Located
Scientific American (online) | April 20, 2005 | Sarah Graham
Posted on 04/24/2005 11:18:25 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1390424/posts
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It looks like the floor of the crater has been filled in with a whole lot of blown in sand.
It doesn’t seem that the rover will be able to get to the real bottom to probe it.
The Rover missions have got to be one of the most successful space missions of all time. I think secretly, some had hoped for up to a years life span, but 3.5 to 4 years? Simply incredible.
Yep, the problem is that they shouldn’t be operated from Earth. We should have explorers on the ground, teleoprating these little guys. Imagine the range then. Go out in your pressurized rover, deploy a little robot away from your base, keep going in your pressurized rover while you teleoperate the robot. Drive back two weeks later and pick him up along with the samples he’s collected.
This was an awesome mission - by both rovers. I had several opportunities to see one of them before launch - pretty neat little machines. Tremendous that they have been able to overcome all the mission obstacles that were thrown at them up to this time, and their longevity.
Isn’t it supposed to begin it’s descent today?
Sure would be great to have a live feed from Nasa.
I thought it was out of commission because of the sandstorm?
These two little buggers have turned out to be just about the most successful technical/scientific endeavor in history. They will be digesting the data for years.
They should’ve named the crater after Algore. (Both are biiiiiiiiiiiig empties)
The dust storm has intensified and spread, they could lose their batteries and not be able to come back, worse case.
I’m hoping the dirt devils clean them up again,, that has helped them get some of the crud off their panels in the past it sounds.
The crater appears to be a worthy final object for exploration unless the rover tips over.
I wuz wondering even if they lost all battery power, if the panels got cleaned up and the batteries started charging again, would the thing reboot automatically?
Probably lose any tech/programming updates and have to be retransmitted, but maybe not, it does have flash memory to hold images etc until the transmission time is better.
I wonder what kind of secrets it will find?
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