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ZL2VAL > ROVERS 19.03.04 01:34l 118 Lines 4776 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 3D0667ZL2VAL
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Subj: Rovers to go up a gear
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Sent: 040318/2239Z @:ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC #:37749 [New Plymouth] FBB7.00g
From: ZL2VAL@ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC
To : ROVERS@WW
Rovers to Speed Across Mars as Support Staff Shrinks
By Tariq Malik
Staff Writer
posted: 04:30 pm ET
18 March 2004
With NASA's Mars rover Spirit nearing the end of its primary mission
profile and its twin, Opportunity, more than halfway through its own,
mission planners preparing to give the two robots a longer leash while
scaling back the amount of people on the project.
Mission managers are looking ahead to an extended mission for both
Spirit and Opportunity, which will kick in once the robots complete
their first 90 days -- or sols on Mars. To prepare for what is expected
to be at least a few more months of Mars exploration, NASA officials
plan to cut the 300 scientists and engineers on the mission by more than
a third, according to one mission manager.
"We are going to be reducing the staff and slowing down as [the rovers]
get later into their lifetimes," said Mark Adler, a mission manager for
the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission during a press briefing today
at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
"We're trying to get more people on Earth time than on Mars time."
Much of the team had been waking and sleeping on cue to the Martian sol,
which is a bit longer than an Earth day.
MER project manager Richard Cook said that with the exception of about
10 people who are needed to maintain the rovers and man the Deep Space
Network of receiving stations on Mars time, everyone else on the project
will be living on a more Earthly schedule.
"We're going to shift in kind of an incremental way," Cook told
SPACE.com, adding that he is already on the Earth time MER schedule.
Those researchers and engineers not remaining with the MER mission will
be shifted over to other JPL missions, he added.
JPL officials said downsizing the MER mission team is possible because
the team itself has become more proficient at planning future
activities. Where it used to take 18 hours each day to plan the next
sol's worth of science and navigation activities at the MER mission's
outset, it now takes much less time, Cook said.
In the meantime, rover controllers plan to upload new flight software
that will enhance each rover's navigation system to be bolder in its
self-guided drives.
So far, Spirit has had an average daily driving distance of about 121
feet (37 meters) when assigned to long treks. Mission planners would
like to see it boosted up to at least 164 feet (50 meters) a day so that
the rover can eventually reach some hills that lie a month's travel or
more in the distance.
Spirit is currently on the edge of "Bonneville" crater, and the hills sit to
the southeast.
"We'd like to get Spirit to the hills as quickly as possible," Adler said.
Opportunity will most likely be able to travel farther and faster from
its landing site, the flat Meridiani Planum due to the flat and
relatively rock-free environment.
"Because Opportunity is basically in a parking lot, we believe we'll be
able to tell the rover to [drive] blind for many, many meters, maybe 50
to 100 in a day," Adler said.
Right now, he added, Opportunity's cameras can see far across Meridiani
Planum and there is nothing standing in its way.
To date, Opportunity has spent the bulk of its 52 sols in Eagle crater,
near the same spot it landed, to study a rock outcrop that scientists
have concluded was soaked with water in the distant past. Mission
controllers plan to eventually send the robotic rockhound across the
Meridiani Planum to a crater about 2,624 feet (800 meters) away.
The updated software package is also designed to put the rovers in a
deep sleep mode at night, shutting down all electronics including an
alarm clock that routinely awakens the robots when its time to make a
nightly call to orbiting spacecraft and relay data back to Earth.
Adler said the deep-sleep procedure is needed chiefly to conserve
energy, which will soon be at a premium since dust build up on the solar
cells, as well as the progressing Martian winter, will cut into the
rovers' ability to generate power. The onset of winter also means that
nighttime temperatures will be colder, requiring more power just to
maintain thermal control.
The deep-sleep program will also help Opportunity partially fix a faulty
heater that has been stuck on since the rover landed, cutting its power
at night.
=========================
73 de Alan, (Sysop ZL2AB).
AX25:ZL2VAL@ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC
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Message timed: 11:40 on 2004-Mar-19 (NZT)
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Points to ponder
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Marriage
~~~~~~~~
Just think, if it weren't for marriage, men would go through life thinking
they had no faults at all.
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