Opportunity Ready To Make Its Great Escape

MARSDAILY

Rover engineers check how a test rover moves in material chosen to simulate some difficult Mars driving conditions. The scene is inside the In-Situ Instrument Laboratory at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. These tests in early May 2005 were designed to help plan the best way for the rover Opportunity to drive off of a soft-sand dune that the rover dug itself into the previous week. The mixture of sandy and powdery material brought in for these specific tests matched the way the soil underneath Opportunity caked onto wheels, filling the spaces between the cleats on the wheels. Image Credit: NASA/JPL.

by Steve Squyres for Athena Cornell
Pasadena CA (JPL) May 10, 2005
This has been a long, hard week of testing. We tested with one mix of materials, decided it wasn't quite nasty enough, and then made the mix nastier and tested again. We tested getting the rover stuck and then unstuck in a bunch of different configurations, some of which we think were worse than the one we've gotten ourselves into on Mars.

The goal of this kind of testing is to be "conservative"... to test under conditions that are at least as bad as - and preferably worse than - what you're dealing with in reality.

You can see pictures of one of the test setups on the JPL MER web site, though the pictures don't really do justice to all the work that was done, or to all the different kinds of tests that were run.

Then, once we'd done the testing, we brought in a panel of experts from outside the project to give us an independent review of whether we'd done things right or not. Like conservative testing, outside reviews are standard operating procedure in the space biz.

So soon it'll be time to put what we've learned into action on Mars. We've learned quite a bit, and one of the things that we've learned is that it can take a lot of wheel turns to move the rover from a configuration like the one we're in.

And while it's tempting to go for it all in one shot, the smart approach is to be cautious about it and do the job in small steps. So that's what we're going to do.

And here's something to keep in mind: The early steps in the extraction process don't look like much. The wheels turn and turn, and even though you're making crucial progress, moving soil bit by bit beneath the wheels, the rover itself hardly moves... sometimes for quite awhile.

So when we do begin the extraction process and you see lots of evidence for wheels turning on Mars but not much movement by Opportunity, don't worry... that's exactly what we're expecting. Like the testing, this is going to take awhile.

Over at Gusev, we've finished up our work on Methuselah and done a nifty, complicated little one-sol drive over to a close standoff distance from Jibsheet.

The purpose of the standoff is to let us take some good Pancam images over the weekend to plan our attack, just like we did a couple of weeks ago with Methuselah. (And, in the meantime, it also lets us do some IDD work on soil, which we haven't done in quite awhile.)

After that, we'll see what we see. Jibsheet is a much tougher target than Methuselah was... tall, rugged, and with a steep and slippery-looking sand slope below it. The Monday morning Spirit SOWG meeting will be an interesting one.

MARSDAILY

Opportunity Nearly Ready To Attempt First Drive Out Of Dune

Ithica NY (SPX) May 05, 2005
We've made some substantial progress over the past week in getting ready to get Opportunity out of the drift that she's driven into. All the action so far has been on Earth, doing testing with the two rovers we have on this planet.

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2016 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.