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#1
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Opportunity's sand box....
Here's JPL's note about working on the way out of the stuck position
Opportunity is in: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2005-072 quote "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 [...] 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. [...] 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 /quote |
#2
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Here's Ron Baalke's posting of the latest status in sci.space.news:
From: Newsgroups: sci.space.news Subject: Mars Exploration Rovers Update - May 17, 2005 Followup-To: sci.space.policy Date: 17 May 2005 16:34:27 -0700 Sol 466 (May 16, 2005): Results from the sol 465 drive were good (some wheel cleats are clean and the rover is making forward progress), so the team commanded a drive that, if there were no slippage, would roll 4 meters (13 feet), consisting of ten 40-centimeter (16 inch) steps. Opportunity gained an additional 2.7 centimeters (1.1 inch). |
#3
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the team commanded a drive that, if there were no slippage, would
roll 4 meters (13 feet), consisting of ten 40-centimeter (16 inch) steps. Opportunity gained an additional 2.7 centimeters (1.1 inch). Sounds like they continue to make slow progress. I keep wanting to hear "OK, Opportunity is now unstuck" but it looks like for now the good news is going to more be a trickle of "well, we made a bit of progress but we are still in a lot of loose sand and not moving anywhere near full speed". There's a nice article at http://www.newscientist.com/article....ine-news_rss20 which talks a bit more about how they are trying to get out (retrace their steps), and what route to take after that (undecided). Here are some photos of the wheel moving ever so slightly (this is from a few days ago, before some of the recent progress): http://science.slashdot.org/article....&tid=226&tid=1 http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...JP1344L0M1.JPG http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...1P1344L0M1.JPG |
#4
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Thanks!
/dps |
#5
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Jim Kingdon wrote:
[...] Sounds like they continue to make slow progress. I keep wanting to hear "OK, Opportunity is now unstuck" but it looks like for now the good news is going to more be a trickle of "well, we made a bit of progress but we are still in a lot of loose sand and not moving anywhere near full speed". And so it goes, and so it goes... "Since the rover began making its way out of the sand trap last month, it has driven enough to have moved 177.2 meters (581 feet) if there were no slippage, and has made actual forward progress of 93 centimeters (3 feet)." thanks to Ron Baalke's posting: Newsgroups: sci.space.news From: Subject: Mars Exploration Rovers Update - June 3, 2005 Followup-To: sci.space.policy Date: 3 Jun 2005 16:33:41 -0700 Message-ID: .com at http://groups-beta.google.com/group/sci.space.news/msg/37977011c67c4c0b /dps |
#6
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"Since the rover began making its way out of the sand trap last month,
it has driven enough to have moved 177.2 meters (581 feet) if there were no slippage, and has made actual forward progress of 93 centimeters (3 feet)." Thanks. The updates are also, say, at http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/missi...portunity.html or http://www.marstoday.com/news/news.html?mid=58 But more interesting, there are some cool animated GIF's of http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...20050524a.html |
#7
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Which direction, forward or reverse, are they trying to move? If I
drove me car off the pavement into loose sand, I would not continue in the same direction. "Since the rover began making its way out of the sand trap last month, it has driven enough to have moved 177.2 meters (581 feet) if there were no slippage, and has made actual forward progress of 93 centimeters (3 feet)." |
#8
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Which direction, forward or reverse, are they trying to move? If I
drove me car off the pavement into loose sand, I would not continue in the same direction. According to http://www.newscientist.com/article....ine-news_rss20 they are trying to retrace their steps as best as possible. Although other articles say "forward", I'm guessing "forward" means the direction they came in. For example, the photos at http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0506/04mer/ does show the tracks dead-ending and the rover apparently exiting the way they came. (Although I haven't seen a highly detailed description of this....) Some of the animations at http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...20050524a.html show them driving over undisturbed sand, so I guess that means they aren't always able to drive in the tracks they made coming in. Here's another article about them now being free: http://science.slashdot.org/article..../06/04/2110235 |
#9
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According to
http://www.newscientist.com/article....ine-news_rss20 they are trying to retrace their steps as best as possible. Although other articles say "forward", I'm guessing "forward" means the direction they came in. IIRC, one of the early "stuck" reports said they were driving in reverse, either to even wear or to compensate for a wheel concern. I should google for the reference, but that will have to wait a little bit.... /dps |
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