Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mrpg on Wednesday August 15 2018, @03:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the nemure-akira dept.

Submitted via IRC for cmn32480

NASA's Opportunity rover has had an incredible career already, spending years upon years studying the Martian surface and proving to be an incredibly reliable and hardy piece of hardware. Unfortunately, a NASA dust storm that began kicking up in May may have abruptly ended its historic run.

In mid-June, the solar-powered Opportunity ran out of juice and was forced to go into its dormant standby mode. The dust storm which swallowed the entirety of Mars had blocked out the Sun, cutting the rover off of its only available source of power. NASA engineers had remained optimistic that the rover would wake back up when the skies began to clear, but things aren't looking good thus far.

[...] That's...not great news. NASA knew that the rover would be forced to sit dormant for a while because of the intensity of the storm, but that was several weeks ago. The dust has since began to settle, and enough light should be pushing its way down to the surface to begin recharging Opportunity's batteries once again.

Source: NASA's Opportunity rover still hasn't woken up from a Mars dust storm, and engineers are getting nervous


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by CZB on Wednesday August 15 2018, @03:38AM (17 children)

    by CZB (6457) on Wednesday August 15 2018, @03:38AM (#721667)

    Maybe the next rover can have a spring loaded wiper it sets before power runs out that brushes the dust off when the sun returns.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=1, Interesting=1, Total=2
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 5, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday August 15 2018, @03:51AM (3 children)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday August 15 2018, @03:51AM (#721672)

    I'm trying to picture that, and I can't decide if it's absolute genius, or completely stupid.

    Maybe it's both.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by zocalo on Wednesday August 15 2018, @06:58AM (2 children)

      by zocalo (302) on Wednesday August 15 2018, @06:58AM (#721700)
      It seems like it could work to me, and probably wouldn't weight all that much either - a battery, a bit of electronics, a small motors, carbon fibre supports etc., and the brush/wiper. Keeping some power back in a rechargeable battery for quick brush over the panels once the storm passes might be able to clear enough dust to restore at least some of the solar power capacity, which you could then use that power to drive several more brushing cycles and enable a full-reboot. You also need a means to trigger that first pass of the brush, given that power might be completely out and the entire rover coated in a thin layer of dust - including any sensors. The simplest approach - assuming the forecasting of Martian dust storm duration is good enough - would be to just pre-set a timer from Earth before the storm hits and run that from the wiper battery, but as a backup maybe you could also have a light level sensor on the end of a whip antenna, then hope the Martian breeze dislodges enough dust to trigger the reboot cycle once the storm passes.

      Practically though, the two Rovers managed to get a *lot* more done than was expected, even without such a rig, and we're talking NASA here - something a kid could knock up with a Raspberry Pi and some bits and pieces would likely end up having a seven digit price tag, once all the over-engineering, pre-launch testing, getting it to Mars, and - of course - the RoI assessment of whether it's worth doing in the first place is factored in. Besides, we need these things stashed away for any potential future Mark Watney [imdb.com], don't we? :)
      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @08:39AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @08:39AM (#721708)

        That's not Mark Watney, that's Matt Damon, you bastard.

      • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday August 15 2018, @01:47PM

        by mhajicek (51) on Wednesday August 15 2018, @01:47PM (#721768)

        How about a small copv and compressor to blow them off? In either case the hard part is reliably activating the device without power and when cold, and after the proper amount of time.

        --
        The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 15 2018, @06:43AM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday August 15 2018, @06:43AM (#721696) Homepage
    Or it should detect low-visibility dist storms, where the PVs won't harvest much, and just prop the PV panel up vertical, pop out a wind vane on one side, and disconnect drive to it, so it collects no dust. Of course, it relies on a bit of luck to catch the sun again. Maybe it should have a super-low-power mode where all it does is find the sun and start harvesting whilst asleep again?
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @08:42AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @08:42AM (#721709)

    I'm sure they considered a "windshield wiper" type of approach, but the original plans were for Opportunity to last 90 Martian sols. Since they didn't expect either Opportunity or Spirit to last long enough to become victims of dust storms they probably decided not to add the extra weight.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Muad'Dave on Wednesday August 15 2018, @11:38AM

      by Muad'Dave (1413) on Wednesday August 15 2018, @11:38AM (#721741)

      Plus, the dust is extremely fine and sticks to the panels via electrostatic attraction - a wiper will not remove that dust; it will only grind the glass as it swipes larger particles around.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @08:58AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @08:58AM (#721712)

    Maybe the next rover will have a "repair rovers tool kit". It makes sense to, if you are serially sending rovers to same celestial body, also send along one to do the maintenance of all of the other ones. A rover brought back on line is like a new rover sent, only less expensive (and with no risk of botching the landing phase).

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @05:16PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @05:16PM (#721848)

      Now, now ... this sounds like a job for Space Force!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @10:07PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @10:07PM (#721934)

      "repair rovers tool kit" - aka an astronaut. That'll be a bit more costly. (You can't conceivably prepare a robot to do any conceivable repair without running into scaling expenses that wouldn't make it worthwhile. You could make a robot that can handle certain "popular" repairs.)

      But seriously, a rover back online wouldn't be new. It would be worn out and running like an old car that was patched up enough to work. Unless you bring spares enough to build an entirely new rover, and then why didn't you just launch a new rover? That, coupled with most rovers now seem to be exceeding their primary mission lives, make this a hard one to swallow. But cool to think about.

  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday August 15 2018, @12:03PM (3 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday August 15 2018, @12:03PM (#721744)

    Or maybe at least one of the engineers at NASA already thought of that, but it had to be rejected for a fairly good reason, like weight concerns, or (as mentioned in a sibling post) the problem that it was tested here on Earth and turned out not to solve the problem.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday August 15 2018, @09:30PM (2 children)

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Wednesday August 15 2018, @09:30PM (#721927)

      Someone told me another problem is that the wiper would rub the dust across the panels, scratching them up, which would lead to even more light loss than if the wind just blew them clean.

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
      • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday August 15 2018, @10:48PM (1 child)

        by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday August 15 2018, @10:48PM (#721947)

        Point being that whatever the reason, I'm pretty sure it's not "Those dumbasses at NASA never considered it, but I, the Soylentil with no training or experience whatsoever in the kinds of engineering being done on these things, know precisely the solution to their problem!"

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday August 16 2018, @06:41PM

          by nitehawk214 (1304) on Thursday August 16 2018, @06:41PM (#722416)

          This place can be Dunning-Kruger personified.

          --
          "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
  • (Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Wednesday August 15 2018, @02:50PM (1 child)

    by pvanhoof (4638) on Wednesday August 15 2018, @02:50PM (#721797) Homepage

    Air jets would probably be a better idea. Mechanical wipers would accumulate Mars dust. Plus would wiping the dust off cause crashes on the glass of the solar panels, making them increasingly less efficient.

    • (Score: 1) by CZB on Thursday August 16 2018, @04:42AM

      by CZB (6457) on Thursday August 16 2018, @04:42AM (#722054)

      Wiping definitely does wear out the glass, I drive a tractor farming volcanic dust and have a big windshield wiper mark from using it to clear dust. But blowing it off with compressed air doesn't work very well, a film of dust sticks on, only wiping works. Even blasting it with a pressure washer doesn't clear it. I'm sure Nasa can come up with something better than an old t-shirt though.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @08:19AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @08:19AM (#722089)

    I heard Steve Squyres, team leader, say a long time ago in an interview they had considered it. Weight considerations prevailed. They put other stuff onto Mars Exploration Rovers, MERs. Also, lower in the thread is a mention of what could go wrong - if the heaters don't get enough current to keep vital electronics warm, it's game over. That's what killed Spirit MER, got in a sand trap, couldn't get enough power on a slope, electronics died of night cold. If not now, it'll happen to Opportunity sooner or later, unfortunately. Yeah, NASA's ability to kick up powerful planetary storms impresses me more with every passing Martian year.