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Rover Team Tests Mars Moves on Earth
MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011 http://www.jpl.nasa.gov Guy Webster (818) 354-6278 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. News Release: 2005-072 May 6, 2005 Rover Team Tests Mars Moves on Earth Mars rover engineers are using a testing laboratory to simulate specific Mars surface conditions where NASA's rover Opportunity has spun its wheels in a small dune. Careful testing is preceding any commands for Opportunity to resume moving to get out of the dune and continue exploring. The rover team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., has cooked up recipes combining various sandy and powdery materials for the best simulation on Earth of the dune where Opportunity dug itself in to wheel-hub depth last week. The team has not asked Opportunity to turn its wheels at all since the rover bogged down during a drive on April 26. "We choose to proceed cautiously, so we don't expect to begin actually driving out of the dune before next week, possibly later," said Jim Erickson, rover project manager at JPL. "Both Opportunity and Spirit have already provided many more months of scientific exploration than anyone expected. By taking good care of them, we hope to keep them exploring for more months to come. Tests so far have sustained our optimism about Opportunity's ability to drive out of this dune, but we have more testing ahead to understand how robust that capability is." Opportunity had driven about 40 meters (131 feet) of a planned 90-meter (295-foot) drive on the rover's 446th martian day when its wheels began slipping. The rover was driving backwards at the time. The team frequently alternates between backwards and forwards driving to keep wheel lubrication well distributed. The wheels kept rotating enough times to have covered the rest of the distance if they hadn't been slipping, but the rover eventually barely inched forward. After a turn at the end of the planned drive, Opportunity sensed that it had not turned properly and stopped moving. Opportunity is positioned across the ridge of an elongated dune or ripple of soft sand that is about one-third meter (one foot) tall and 2.5 meters (8 feet) wide. "We've climbed over dozens of ripples, but this one is different in that it seems to be a little taller and to have a steeper slope, about 15 degrees on part of its face," said Mark Maimone, a JPL rover mobility engineer. Last week, engineers arranged a simulated dune using sand that was already at JPL's rover testing facility and put a test rover into a comparably dug-in position. The test rover had no difficulty driving away, even when sunk in belly-deep. However, that sand offered better traction than the finer, looser material that appears to make up the surface at Opportunity's current position. "We needed to do tests using material more like what Opportunity is in, something that has a fluffier texture and cakes onto the wheels," said JPL rover engineer Rick Welch, who is leading the tests. Experimenting with different mixtures, engineers and scientists came up with a recipe that includes play sand for children's sandboxes, diatomaceous earth for swimming pool filters and mortar clay powder. Then they went to several home supply and hardware stores to find enough bags and boxes of the ingredients to make more than 2 tons of the simulated Mars sand for more realistic mobility tests, said JPL rover mobility engineer Jeff Biesiadecki. Dr. Robert Sullivan of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., a rover science team member, worked with engineers in the JPL testbed to match the properties of the test sand as closely as possible with those of the sand beneath Opportunity, based on images of wheels and wheel tracks on Mars. "We found that when the wheels dig in, the material we're using does stick to the wheels and fills the gaps between the cleats, but it doesn't stick when you're just driving over it. That's good because it's the same as what we see in the images from Opportunity," Sullivan said. Experiments indicate that in this more powdery material, the test rover positioned comparably to Opportunity can drive out after some initial wheel-spinning. More testing, analysis, planning and review will precede any actual commands for Opportunity to begin driving away from the dune. Meanwhile, Opportunity has been using its cameras to study its surroundings at the edge of a region called "Etched Terrain." Since landing more than 15 months ago, it has driven 5.35 kilometers (3.32 miles). Spirit, halfway around Mars, has recently been using all of its research tools to examine an outcrop called "Methuselah," the first outcrop of layered rock that Spirit has found. The rover has also been taking short movies of dust-carrying whirlwinds called "dust devils." On some afternoons, the rover sees several at once moving across the plain. Spirit has driven a total of 4.31 kilometers (2.68 miles). JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, has managed NASA's Mars Exploration Rover project since it began in 2000. Images and additional information about the rovers and their discoveries are available on the Internet at http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/.../mer_main.html and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov . -end- |
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wrote Experimenting with different mixtures, engineers and scientists came up with a recipe that includes play sand for children's sandboxes, diatomaceous earth for swimming pool filters and mortar clay powder. Then they went to several home supply and hardware stores to find enough bags and boxes of the ingredients to make more than 2 tons of the simulated Mars sand for more realistic mobility tests, said JPL rover mobility engineer Jeff Biesiadecki. Presumably they included in the play sand, the inevitable cat mess? Jack |
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It looks like the treads are getting a bit bare...
http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1P1...5R6M1.JPG.html see also http://www.lyle.org/mars/image=ADry/...M1=AD.JPG.html http://www.lyle.org/mars/image=ADry/...M1=AD.JPG.html http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1F1...4L0M1.JPG.html Michael |
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Can sample grabbers be used for leverage?
Use one of the arms to push off of sand. Rich |
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wrote in message
oups.com... Can sample grabbers be used for leverage? Use one of the arms to push off of sand. Rich LMAO!! |
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wrote in message oups.com... Can sample grabbers be used for leverage? Perhaps. If it had them. Use one of the arms to push off of sand. It only has one arm - and that one is way too fragile. |
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They are solid clete, which have become filled with
very fine dust, like flour. Hi David, Not to be difficult but what is clete and if it is solid clete, how has it become filled with dust? Best, Michael |
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wrote in message
oups.com... They are solid clete, which have become filled with very fine dust, like flour. Hi David, Not to be difficult but what is clete and if it is solid clete, how has it become filled with dust? Best, Michael The answer is simple. The "dust" is damp, and only the outer surface, when warmed and exposed to the thin air, is dry. Look at the videos they have been showing on the news. The cleats on the earthbound model shed the soil immediately. The cleats on the rover on Mars stay packed. Moisture and lower gravitation are the reasons. Look at my page detailing the problem here. http://xenotechresearch.com/wetnow02.htm Bottom line- until they admit that Mars has liquid water and they take that fact into account, they will not be able to properly simulate and defeat the problem. Cheers! Sir Charles W. Shults III, K. B. B. Xenotech Research 321-206-1840 |
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