Now that the skies are clearing over the spot where Opportunity stood in Mars' Perseverance Valley, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, believe the 15-year-old solar-powered vehicle will soon receive enough sunlight to automatically begin boot procedures. his renewal, if he will indeed be able to do so, but the chances of this are not high. They will still listen though
A dust storm that surrounded the entire planet on Mars starting May 30, and which caused the supply of activity of the Opportunity rover began to fade.
Now that the skies are clearing over the spot where Opportunity stood in Mars' Perseverance Valley, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, believe the 15-year-old solar-powered vehicle will soon receive enough sunlight to automatically begin boot procedures. his again, if he will indeed be able to do so. To prepare, the task force developed a two-step plan to increase the probability of successful communication with Opportunity.
"The sun is breaking through the fog over the valley, and soon there will be enough sunlight to charge Optorionity batteries." said John Klass, director of the Opportunity Project at JPL. "When the Tau level [a measure of the amount of particulate matter in the Martian sky] drops below 1.5, we will begin a period of actively trying to communicate with the rover by sending commands through NASA's Deep Space Network antennas. Assuming we hear from Opportuni, we will begin the process of diagnosing his condition and returning him to full activity."
Mars
Opportunity's panoramic camera (Pancam) took the images that make up this display, from its position outside the Endeavor Crater during the period between June 7 and June 19, 2017. On the right side of the image you can see a wide slot on the summit of the western rim of the crater. This is Perseverance Valley where she is today. Credits: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Cornell / Arizona State University.
Opportunity's last communication with Earth was received on June 10, and the vehicle's technical condition is unknown. Opportunity engineers rely on the expertise of the MARCI imaging system scientists aboard the MRO spacecraft to estimate the level of tau near the parking lot.
"The 2018 global Martian dust storm was one of the largest in history, but all signs point to it coming to an end soon. said MRO Chief Scientist Rich Zorek of JPL. MARCI images have not measured active dust storms within a 3,000 kilometer radius of the vehicle for some time. When the skies clear, mission managers hope Opportunity will try to call home, but they're also prepared for an extended period of silence. "If we don't hear back after 45 days, the team will be forced to conclude that the dust blocking the sun and the cold weather on Mars caused some kind of malfunction that the vehicle will likely never recover from." said Calles, who added that then NASA would have to announce the end of the mission.
However, NASA will wait a few more months passively listening in the hope of the possibility that dust elves will clean the vehicle's solar collectors as has happened in the past. The phenomenon was first discovered in 2004, when in several cases, the charge level of the batteries on board Opportunity and its twin vehicle Spirit suddenly increased during one Martian night, when the expectation was that the charge level of the battery would continue to decrease.
Even if the team hears from Opportunity during the passive listening phase, there is still no guarantee that it will act. The impact of the recent storm on the Opportunity's systems is unknown, but it could result in reduced energy production capacity, reduced battery performance, or other unexpected damage that could make it difficult for the vehicle to return to service.
Despite the critical situation in which Nama Opportunity is operating, the staff members who operate it show cautious optimism, because it has overcome significant challenges during the more than 14 years that it has been in operation. In 2015 he lost the ability to drive the front right wheel and in June 2017 also the front spare wheel. His flash memory, with a volume of 256 megabytes, does not work either. Everyone knows that the vehicle operated beyond its warranty period - Spirit and Opportunity were built for a 90-day mission. Spirit survived 20 times longer, and Opportunity - 60 times longer.
3 תגובות
Amit
No one designs the spacecraft so that it breaks down after a few months. A goal is set - and anyone who builds a subsystem makes sure that it is not the one that breaks down first. It's a flood of engineers.
I don't see any harm in waste.
Can anyone answer? 🙁
One thing is not clear to me.. Why do they set a lifespan of a few months when in practice, all these tools continue to operate for years and years? It's a bit awkward if the goal is to lower expectations and then "show off" that the task was extended without expecting it to happen.
The point is that it has consequences. I assume that if they had known in advance that the missions would last several years, the budgets would have been different as well as the plans for follow-up missions. It is not clear.