Farewell Spirit

Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
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It's sad, but not especially surprising that NASA has now officially called time on silent Mars rover Spirit.

What may be surprising is that the image above, captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's powerful HiRISE camera, shows the rover's solar panels glinting perfectly in the sunlight, suggesting that lack of power isn't the root of the problem (damage caused by a previous lack of power over winter is probably the next best suspect).

Hat tip Planetary Society Blog.

Ruddy

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU

With a little help from her friends on Earth, Opportunity returns this awesome colour panorama of the crater she's exploring. It's well worth clicking for the full resolution JPEG on the Photojournal page to see all the lovely little details.

Martian Sandpit

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Opportunity sends us this nice snapshot of the crater she's currently studying.

Up high, down low.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
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"I see you, little rover! Muahahahahaha!"

Credit: NASA / JPL
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"But-but where are you, MRO?!"

ESA Dazzles

Credit: ESA

Although I wish they were as open as NASA, I'm still glad that the European Space Agency exists and does good work. And every so often we members of the public do get a little reward - perhaps none greater than this beautiful video taken by Mars Express, showing an "astronaut's eye view" of an orbit around Mars.

Go watch it immediately.

On and On and On and Hopefully On Some More

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University

Opportunity recently clocked up over twenty kilometres driven on Mars. Not bad for something originally expected to peter out after 600m, although her current destination is still twelve kilometres distant. Read more here.

Poor Spirit, meanwhile, has - as her friends on Earth expected - missed a scheduled communication, most likely due to simply not having enough energy to speak. Further south than Opportunity, Spirit is more affected by the southern winter, and also unable to angle herself too well to catch the sun. Hopefully communications will resume when things warm up again. Read more here.

And finally, as much as I like to anthropomorphise our robot explorers on and around other worlds, its worth remembering that there are hard-working human beings behind them, and those behind the Mars Rovers have deservedly won a NASA achievement award.

Spirit is not Dead, but...

"Spirit is not dead; it has just entered another phase of its long life," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We told the world last year that attempts to set the beloved robot free may not be successful. It looks like Spirit's current location on Mars will be its final resting place."

Read the rest.

As always, Emily Lakdawalla has an insightful analysis.

You can do it, Spirit!

Credit: NASA / JPL

The preliminary results from the first extrication drive for Spirit on Sol 2088 (Nov. 17, 2009) indicate the rover stopped less than 1 second after it began, sensing more vehicle lateral tilt than permitted.

A tight limit on vehicle roll and pitch of less than 1 degree change was set for this first drive. As the rover began its first move, it sensed that its roll was outside the allowed limit and safely stopped the drive.

[...]

The attempt to extract Spirit from the Martian sand trap is expected to take weeks or months, with uncertain probability of success.

Read the rest here.

I think this is one of those Peter Pan moments where we all need to start clapping if we believe that robots on Mars can pull themselves out of slippery sand.

Mars Rovers - What are they up to?

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University

Opportunity pulled a bit of a U-turn back in August, when her controllers realised they'd rolled on past 'the largest meteorite yet found on Mars'. Large enough, in fact, that it would have shattered on impact unless slowed down by the friction of a thicker atmosphere.

The idea that Mars once had a thicker atmosphere (presumed to have been lost because of the planet's relatively low gravity) is not especially controversial, but this meteorite offers us evidence on the kind of time scales we may be looking at. Has it lain on the surface of Mars for billions of years? Or was the Martian atmosphere thicker more recently than we thought? Read more in the official news article.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University

Spirit, meanwhile, is still stuck, while her friends on Earth continue to experiment with rovers (one equivalent in mass to Spirit, another lightened to mimic her weight on Mars) in their sand pit. While sitting waiting for orders (and weathering a dust storm), she's snapped this panorama of her surroundings.  (Click the thumbnail above to turn on the makebigenator).

Robot Stomach Photo

Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS
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In a display of dexterity that's quite admirable for her age, Spirit has photographed her underside with her miscroscopic imager instrument. It's not something that this particular camera was ever intended for, so the resulting image is out of focus, but you can still see the rover's wheels embedded deep in the soil.

As well as helping the rover team to understand the situation, this image may also help them discern whether any of the ground beneath the rover is potentially hard or sharp enough to do her an injury.

The angle of the picture accurately depicts the angle at which Spirit is currently resting. The distance between Spirit's wheel tracks is about one metre.

Robots of the Solar System: Unite!

Credit: NASA/JPL

Here's one of Spirit's long lost siblings preparing to get down and dirty to simulate the rover's current situation in a more accessible environment. Opportunity has also been practising manoeuvres that may help her sister, while the Mars Odyssey orbiter is giving Spirit an extra phonecall home each day. You can read more here.

Stuck Spirit

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Further to her recent slippages, it seems that Spirit has become stuck in loose soil. Following several days of unsuccesful attempts to get free, the MER team have decided it would be wiser to perform some Earth-based experiments before proceeding, as former Rover manager Mark Adler relates here.

This isn't without precedent - Opportunity became briefly stuck in 2005, but Opportunity has always been the more healthy rover, and with a disabled wheel and some issues with communication to add to Spirit's woes, I'm sure there must be a fair few worried parents back at mission control.

Rover Slip

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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An action shot from Spirit, as she slips backwards in ground that proved too steep. Spirit has been struggling more than Opportunity, due to her paralysed front wheel, but recently she's also been showing a few lapses of memory that NASA hopes is not symptomatic of the onset of a decline into senility.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Catching up on our robot friends in space, we find that:

Cassini has switched to a back-up set of thrusters following somewhat understandable degradation of its main engines after eleven years of use.

Spirit and Opportunity are both engaged in long treks across the Martian wastes, although Spirit, dragging a useless wheel behind it, has just had to reconsider its route.

(Image above taken by Spirit. Clearly there are better places to be if you're a disabled robot that has trouble with steep inclines.)

Small Potato (Martian)

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Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Deimos, the smaller of Mars' two moons, doesn't get nearly enough love, it has to be said. Time, then, for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to turn its amazingly powerful camera on this little rock and show it to us in unprecedented detail.

Deimos is also the better behaved moon. Phobos (which MRO photographed last year), orbiting Mars fast and close, is expected to break up in the Martian atmosphere within the next hundred million years.

Friday Good News from Space Blogging

Image credit: NASA/ESA
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Spirit is still lucid, much to the delight of her friends on Earth - who are making careful plans to keep her in good health, despite the heavy dusting her solar panels have received.

Researchers also believe they've obtained the first visible light and infra-red images of planets orbiting a star other than the sun (visible light pictured above). Interestingly, the theoretical underpinning of this detection included an analysis of the way a planet seemed to be 'shepherding' the young star's dust cloud - in a similar fashion to the way several moons shepherd Saturn's rings.

A Sudden Darkness

After surviving a difficult winter, Mars Rover Spirit has been caught off guard by a sudden dust storm. The plucky robot was given emergency instructions to help her cope with the lowest solar power levels she has yet seen, and, according to the news release, should re-establish contact with NASA some time today.

In a slightly worrying repeat of Phoenix's last actions, Spirit's emergency instructions included turning off several of her heaters, including one that protects a scientific instrument. After almost five years of good fortune, this will hopefully only be a memorable hiccup for one of humanity's foremost explorers.

Not to Rise Again

Credit: ASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/
Texas A&M; University

After eight days of silence, NASA has declared that it does not expect to regain contact with the Phoenix lander. The Phoenix team seem rather upbeat about the robot's achievements in this news post.

Phoenix and Ash

If you're interested in the plight of Phoenix, it's worth reading Emily Lakdawalla's report at the Planetary Society Blog. The poor lander is behaving pretty much as expected, but attempts to power it down to prolong its life can hardly be described as going smoothly.

Staying Warm on Mars

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Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Phoenix team are starting to make ruthless decisions in the name of efficiency, switching off heaters in order to make the best of the dwindling autumn light. It may seem suicidal, but the lander's camera should keep itself warm, while the heaters are a considerable drain on its resources. Ultimately, the only thing it should really need to keep warm are its batteries.

Meanwhile, far to the south, the Mars Rovers are enjoying the seasons changing in the opposite direction. After a dangerous winter of rock-bottom solar power, Opportunity (above) has now crawled back out of Victoria Crater (once expected to be its final resting place) and is now setting off on an epic journey to an even larger crater. Well, epic for a wounded, dust-covered, semi-autonomous robot, anyway.