Robotic missions – astroengine.com

Mars Rover Spirit Becomes “Mars Base Spirit”

Sorry Spirit, you're not coming home (see the full xkcd comic strip).

As far as space missions go, you couldn’t find a better epic tale than that of Mars Expedition Rover Spirit. Designed to last 3 months, roved for six years; lost the use of a wheel, turned it into a nifty trench-digging tool; nearly died, came back to life; had memory problems, shrugged them off… the list could go on for ever. However, it’s now official, this is one challenge the little wheeled warrior couldn’t beat; she’s stuck in the sand and there’s nowhere to go.

Mars Rover Spirit is now “Mars Base Spirit.”

Naturally when NASA broke the news that Spirit was going to remain stuck in a hole in Gusev crater for the rest of her days, we weren’t surprised, but everyone was sad. That little robot has captivated the world with all her escapades, and although she’s a machine, we’ve all personified Spirit. She’s the little rover that could.

And she‘s a girl, obviously.

But wait! Spirit is not dead quite yet. Spirit will hopefully become a stationary science probe if she makes it through winter (but that’s a big “if”). Once the Sun dips closer to the horizon during the winter months, less sunlight will hit the rover’s solar panels. Depending on how much energy Spirit has in reserves and how much dust coats the panels (making them less efficient at collecting the dwindling light), we could be looking at the end of the mission all together. Assuming she makes it through till spring, it’s conceivable that Spirit can be used as a weather outpost and, intriguingly, a tracking beacon to measure Mars’ wobble. The tiny wobble could lead scientists to understand the interior of the planet.

“We think we can actually determine whether the core of Mars is liquid or molten,” said Cornell University’s Steve Squyres, the lead scientist of the Mars rover program. “There’s compelling evidence that Mars once had a pretty powerful internally generated magnetic field and that probably required a core of iron that was liquid.”

If Spirit can make it through the winter and help NASA understand the interior of Mars, that would be the icing on the cake. Although Spirit may not be dominating the surface of Mars like her sister rover Opportunity (who’s notched up over 12 km so far and still going strong), perhaps she can dominate the interior of Mars by remaining stationary in the sand.

Spirit And The Amazing Technicolour Dust Devils

What are they? I’ve seen some odd photos from the Martian surface, but when I first saw this image, the pinks, blues and yellow smudges looked… alien. The surprise probably comes from the fact that we are so used to the rusty red pictures to come from the various rovers, landers and satellites, that any colour not a variation of red comes as a shock.

Although it looks odd, there is in fact a sensible answer to these ghostly splodges on the horizon. This photo was snapped by Mars Expedition Rover (MER) Spirit back on sol 1919 of the MER mission on May 27th, 2009.

Using its panoramic camera (Pancam), Spirit performed a number of exposures, each one using a different colour filter. With some luck during the photography session of the Martian landscape, a dust devil (a mini whirlwind) meandered through the Pancam’s field of view. In each frame taken with different filters, the only feature moving would have been the swirling dust, so that’s why it appears as a different hue than the surrounding landscape.

Dust devils occur on both Mars and on Earth when solar energy heats the surface, resulting in a layer of warm air just above the surface. Since the warmed air is less dense than the cooler atmosphere above it, it rises, making a swirling thermal plume that picks up the fine dust from the surface and carries it up into the atmosphere. This plume of dust moves with the local wind. — NASA/JPL

Dust devils have provided some unexpected fun for the rovers, often tuning up unannounced. These make for interesting observations of local weather conditions, but they also provide an essential mini-undusting service for the wheeled robot’s solar panels.

And now they’ve been pictured in technicolour. How nice.

Source: NASA/JPL

Dust Really IS a Problem for Spirit

The ninja rover, NASA's answer to creeping up on Martian lifeforms...

Talk about having a bad dust day. Only last night on Astroengine Live I was discussing the near-death experience Mars Exploration Rover Spirit survived a few days ago. Much to NASA’s (and the science-loving world’s) relief, the Sun-blocking dust storm in Gusev Crater couldn’t beat down this tough wheeled warrior. Even though her solar panels are coated in a thick layer of red dust, she battles on to see another sol. According to NASA, Spirit will remain in a recovery mode until next month at least, giving the batteries some time to recharge…
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Sci-Fi Space Robots: Top Five

Update (Nov 18th): OK, it looks like this article just hit the front page of Digg. Whilst cool, I’ve made a very quick deduction that people from Digg must not read the text of an article before commenting. Please read the opening paragraph before shouting “OMFG! This guy should really understand what sci-fi means!.” Perhaps the title could be improved (read: “Top 5 Space Robots that Look Like Science Fiction“), but I think all this can be remedied by simply reading the text and not just looking at the pictures. Thanks!

I love science fiction, I always have. In fact, it was the main motivational factor for me to begin to study science in the early 90’s. Although sci-fi is outlandish, futuristic and seemingly impossible, there is actually a high degree of science fact behind the TV shows, movies and video games. So when I was young, sci-fi fuelled my enthusiasm for physics; more specifically, astrophysics.

Many years after these first forays into trying to understand how the Universe really worked, I now find myself drawn to real space missions doing real science only to find the divide between sci-fi and sci-fact is getting smaller and smaller. However, to ignite the imagination and build an enthusiasm for the “futuristic” science being carried out right now, it helps if the robotic embodiment of the satellite, rover, probe or lander looks futuristic itself (possibly even a bit “sci-fi”). This way we not only do great science, but we ignite the imaginations of men, women and children who would have otherwise ignored the science behind space exploration.

So, here are my top five missions to ignite the imagination, past and future…
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