However, the dealership will try to direct the vehicle's solar collectors, despite the stuck wheels, towards the sun to allow it to absorb enough energy to help it survive the long red-hot winter
NASA engineers decided to abandon efforts to save the vehicle from the sand dune it sank into in May 2009. Instead, they are trying to prepare the vehicle to survive the harsh winter in the southern hemisphere. If it survives it could serve as a permanent science station, mission managers said. "This is not a day to mourn and not a day of loss," said the manager of NASA's Mars Exploration Program in a conference call. "His touring days are over, but his contribution will continue."
Spirit's wheels are buried in the sand up to their top and the vehicle is slightly tilted back at a point called by scientists the name "Troy." The vehicle got stuck on May 6, 2009, when the wheels broke through a hard crust covering the soft sand and the vehicle sank into a sand trap.
NASA engineers at JPL in Pasadena, California have been trying since November to find ways to rescue the vehicle. These efforts were unsuccessful. The task was particularly difficult in view of the fact that two of the six wheels are broken.
The last attempts to drive backwards improved the tilt of the vehicle towards the sun, this tilt is essential to direct the arrays of solar collectors in order to generate the necessary power for the robotic vehicle to stay alive.
During winter on Mars, the sun is low so it is necessary to place both vehicles on north-facing slopes to maximize the amount of sunlight the solar panels can collect. NASA hopes that Spirit can be brought to a comfortable position before the approaching winter within a few months. If you succeed, the spirit can continue to operate through the winter or go into hibernation until spring, which brings with it better levels of sunlight.
"We hope that Spirit will survive the dark and cold winter ahead and be ready to continue conducting science experiments in the spring," said the Mars rover's principal investigator, Stephen Squires of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Spirit can still learn through her devices about the crimson dirt around her current location. The vehicle stop is also a tantalizing opportunity for scientists to determine whether the core of Mars is made of liquid or solid iron. They will be able to do this by tracking Spirit's radio signals to record the movement of Mars and deduce whether or not the star's core is molten. "This is a completely new science, but first we have to survive the winter," Squires added.
Vehicle Project Manager John Callas of JPL said that, in the end, it all depends on the power generation. If Spirit is not able to establish itself with a sufficient tilt towards the sun before the coming winter, a "low voltage failure" will occur and the vehicle will turn off all non-essential systems and enter hibernation mode like that of a polar bear. "This state can continue for about six months," he said. (As you know, each season on Mars is twice as long as its terrestrial counterpart).
Unlike the Phoenix lander, which has remained lifeless for a long time in the Martian arctic region not far from the North Pole, Spirit was designed to survive Martian winters where temperatures drop to minus 45 degrees Celsius, Callas said. But Spirit systems can be susceptible to damage due to its age, he added. "There is no guarantee that Spirit can survive these cold temperatures," Callas said.
15 תגובות
Why not use wind energy?
Raanan is right
The power of 2 robots even if they are poor in terms of navigation capabilities is much stronger than one with 6 wheels
Each time we need to send one that will be technologically superior and another that will be used for help and rescue
They will also be able to attach some kind of camera to the fool, that way they will also be able to take pictures of him from afar and there will be more visits to their website 🙂
For age,
Opportunity is on the other side of Mars, she also had the fuel to get to the Spirit which would have taken hundreds of years.
What's the problem? Why don't you send a tractor? I know an excellent tractor driver
The amount of energy for "sleep mode" is indeed low, but it should be continuous.
The problem is that it will work on batteries, and everyone here knows that the capacity of the batteries decreases in the winter because the diffusion inside the battery is much slower. Especially when you try to start the car in the morning to work and it doesn't start...
I suggested that they send the other vehicle there, Opportunity, to come and push a little, but they told me that it didn't have enough fuel to get there.
And to think that originally Seaprit was only supposed to operate for 90 days, I hope she survives this winter as well, the experiments that are begging her sound very interesting.
http://xkcd.com/695/
We need to send bands of robots to Mars and not all of them have to be the most sophisticated and that way if any robot gets stuck the other robots can rescue it.
The energy is low, but the 'spirit' is high...or low too...
ONE SMALL SAND TRAP FOR MAN....ONE GIANT STEP FOR MANKIND
Friends!!! January 2010
First space station (approximately) on Mars!!!!
Respect 🙂
Now just find catcats or smurfs to settle her
The amount of energy needed to continue measuring time is zero.
Digital wristwatches work for years on a small battery, the energy needed to direct the solar panels is much higher than the energy needed to measure the time.
Several reasons - in the extreme cold without minimal self-heating components inside it will be destroyed.
Second reason, at least a very small certain part must act, it's worth measuring the time to know how to wake up
Both of these require a certain amount of power.
I did not understand why it is not possible to turn off the vehicle completely, and that it will turn on again with the return of summer?