Jim Oberg
June 5th 05, 11:36 PM
June 4, 2005
http://athena1.cornell.edu/news/mubss/
Boy, this has been a good day.
We've had a feeling over the past several days that this was coming. On each
of the last few drives, the rover slipped a little bit less than it had been
for most of the extraction. In addition, the right bogey (the part of the
suspension that the right middle and right wheels are mounted on) recently
started moving in a way that suggested that the wheels were finally coming
over the crest of the dune. And we knew from all our earth-based testing
that when a stuck rover breaks free, it tends to do it very abruptly. So all
the signs were suggesting that the big breakout was almost upon us. Still,
it's hard to describe how good it felt to check out the downlink this
morning and see all six wheels back on solid ground again. You develop
pretty strong feelings for these vehicles once you've spent enough time with
them, and when one of them gets into trouble you really sweat it until the
trouble is over.
So what comes next? The first thing we're going to do is simply take a very
hard look at the stuff we were stuck in. Much of the worst terrain was under
the belly of the rover through all of this, down where we couldn't see it.
>From our new position, everything that was under us for all those weeks is
now visible. So we're going to take a little while just to look at where we
were. We may also turn to take a look at our tracks (or trenches, or
whatever you want to call them) with some of the instruments on the arm. But
we'll see about that one... we'll only do it if we're convinced it's safe.
After that -- and there is no timetable for any of this -- we will begin a
cautious set of moves to get us on our way again. And just so there's no
doubt about it, this little incident is not going to deter us from
continuing our southward exploration. South is where we think the best
science is, and we're not going to turn tail and run because of one
unfortunate episode. Now if we find after continued driving that the
southward road is simply impossible, then it'll be time to start thinking
about something else. But for now, south is where we plan to go.
And lest I forget our other baby in all the excitement... Spirit is doing
very nicely. We were just about to hit the gas and head on out of here, but
in the last couple of days something interesting and unexpected came up.
Mini-TES, our infrared spectrometer, is a very nice compositional survey
instrument. In other words, it's a tool we can use quickly to look around
and learn something about what rocks are made of. We've been doing lots of
Mini-TES observations on the rocks around Spirit for awhile now, it's gotten
to the point that nearly every rock type is pretty familiar. But late last
week, we came across a rock called Backstay that looks, to Mini-TES, a bit
different from anything we've ever seen before. It's a loose rock, not
bedrock, so it may be a piece of impact ejecta from someplace far away. The
Mini-TES spectrum is nothing wildly exotic... the thing certainly seems to
be some kind of basalt. But if it's a flavor of basalt we haven't seen
before, then it's definitely worth a quick look. And luckily, a quick look
is possible. Just about the time that we realized that Backstay was
something interesting, our most recent drive had put us just four meters
away from it. So the plan for the next few sols is to drive to Backstay and
figure out what it is before moving on to anything new.
Time to go celebrate...
http://athena1.cornell.edu/news/mubss/
Boy, this has been a good day.
We've had a feeling over the past several days that this was coming. On each
of the last few drives, the rover slipped a little bit less than it had been
for most of the extraction. In addition, the right bogey (the part of the
suspension that the right middle and right wheels are mounted on) recently
started moving in a way that suggested that the wheels were finally coming
over the crest of the dune. And we knew from all our earth-based testing
that when a stuck rover breaks free, it tends to do it very abruptly. So all
the signs were suggesting that the big breakout was almost upon us. Still,
it's hard to describe how good it felt to check out the downlink this
morning and see all six wheels back on solid ground again. You develop
pretty strong feelings for these vehicles once you've spent enough time with
them, and when one of them gets into trouble you really sweat it until the
trouble is over.
So what comes next? The first thing we're going to do is simply take a very
hard look at the stuff we were stuck in. Much of the worst terrain was under
the belly of the rover through all of this, down where we couldn't see it.
>From our new position, everything that was under us for all those weeks is
now visible. So we're going to take a little while just to look at where we
were. We may also turn to take a look at our tracks (or trenches, or
whatever you want to call them) with some of the instruments on the arm. But
we'll see about that one... we'll only do it if we're convinced it's safe.
After that -- and there is no timetable for any of this -- we will begin a
cautious set of moves to get us on our way again. And just so there's no
doubt about it, this little incident is not going to deter us from
continuing our southward exploration. South is where we think the best
science is, and we're not going to turn tail and run because of one
unfortunate episode. Now if we find after continued driving that the
southward road is simply impossible, then it'll be time to start thinking
about something else. But for now, south is where we plan to go.
And lest I forget our other baby in all the excitement... Spirit is doing
very nicely. We were just about to hit the gas and head on out of here, but
in the last couple of days something interesting and unexpected came up.
Mini-TES, our infrared spectrometer, is a very nice compositional survey
instrument. In other words, it's a tool we can use quickly to look around
and learn something about what rocks are made of. We've been doing lots of
Mini-TES observations on the rocks around Spirit for awhile now, it's gotten
to the point that nearly every rock type is pretty familiar. But late last
week, we came across a rock called Backstay that looks, to Mini-TES, a bit
different from anything we've ever seen before. It's a loose rock, not
bedrock, so it may be a piece of impact ejecta from someplace far away. The
Mini-TES spectrum is nothing wildly exotic... the thing certainly seems to
be some kind of basalt. But if it's a flavor of basalt we haven't seen
before, then it's definitely worth a quick look. And luckily, a quick look
is possible. Just about the time that we realized that Backstay was
something interesting, our most recent drive had put us just four meters
away from it. So the plan for the next few sols is to drive to Backstay and
figure out what it is before moving on to anything new.
Time to go celebrate...