Scientists handling the next Mars mission say the only way a significant dust storm like the one raging on Mars in recent days could seriously harm their spacecraft is if one were to suddenly whip up during the critical descent phase.
The dust storm currently engulfing the southern hemisphere of Mars and threatening two robotic surface rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, comes as NASA's Phoenix lander is gearing up for an Aug. 3 launch.
Like Spirit and Opportunity, Phoenix will have no choice but to weather out a dust storm if one occurs during its time on the Red Planet.
But based on past missions, this shouldn't be a problem, said Christopher McKay, a planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and a member of the Phoenix team.
"The Viking landers sat through one of the largest dust storms we've seen, and you could barely tell," McKay told SPACE.com. "It's not like a dust storm on Earth where your tent gets buried in dust or you can't see six or seven inches in front of you. Mars' atmosphere is very thin. In some cases the winds are high, but globally the winds are not."
NASA reports two Mars rovers resume driving
WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- After six weeks of hunkering down during raging dust storms that limited solar power, both of NASA's Mars exploration rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have resumed driving, NASA reported Friday.
Opportunity advanced 13.38 meters toward the edge of Victoria Crater on Aug. 21. Spirit drove 42 centimeters backwards on Aug. 23 to get in position for taking images of a rock that it had examined with its spectrometer. The rover team is planning additional drives for Spirit to climb onto a platform informally named "Home Plate."
No new storms have been lifting dust into the air near either solar-powered rover in the past two weeks and skies are gradually brightening above both vehicles. With the improved energy supplies, both rovers are back on schedule to communicate daily.
"Weather and power conditions continue to improve, although very slowly for both rovers," said John Callas, NASA's project manager for the rovers.
Mission controllers were taking advantage of the gradual clearing of dust from the sky while also taking precautions against a buildup of dust settling onto the rovers.
"The clearing could take months," said Rover Project Scientist Bruce Banerdt. "There is a lot of very fine material suspended high in the atmosphere."
As that material does settle the powdery dust is accumulating on surfaces such as the rovers' solar panels and instruments. Moredust on the solar panels lessens the panels' capacity for converting sunlight to electricity, even while more sunlight is getting through the clearer atmosphere.
Opportunity's daily supply of electricity from its solar panels reached nearly 300 watt-hours on Aug. 23. That is more than twice as much as five weeks ago, but still less than half as much as two months ago.
One reason the rover team chose to drive Opportunity closer to the crater rim was to be prepared, if the pace of dust accumulation on the solar panels increases, to drive onto the inner slope of the crater. This would give the rover a sun-facing tilt to maximize daily energy supplies. The drive was also designed to check performance of the rover's mobility system, so it included a turn in place and a short drive backwards.
On Spirit, dust on the lens of the microscopic imager has slightly reduced image quality for that instrument, although image calibration can compensate for most of the contamination effects.
The Opportunity Mars rover is once again preparing to descend into a half-mile-wide (800-meter-wide) crater, after spending weeks waiting out waves of dust storms, NASA said Friday.
Opportunity is scheduled to start rolling into Victoria Crater as early as Tuesday, the space agency said in a mission advisory. Meanwhile, the rover's twin on the other side of the planet, Spirit, climbed onto a plateau of layered bedrock nicknamed Home Plate this week to renew scientific observations.
I thought the crater descent would be steeper than 15%
(are they back to "full power" btw?)
It is my understanding, they are not back to 100% power.
edgarblythe wrote:On the last step of the drive, the rover's wheels slipped more than 40 percent, triggering an automatic command to stop moving, NASA said. At the end of the day, Opportunity was still stopped with its front pair of wheels within the crater's rim.
They may have to sacrifice their ability to get out of the crater in order to explore it. That's probably what they're trying to decide.
If the crater is that big, I kinda think they should just go for it and risk being trapped. They could probably spend years puttering around in that crater.
On the other hand, the rover might run for decades, so being trapped would be bad. It's a hard choice to make. I guess it depends on how long they think the rover is likely to be functional, versus just how valuable their time in the crater might be.
edgarblythe wrote:rosborne979 wrote:edgarblythe wrote:On the last step of the drive, the rover's wheels slipped more than 40 percent, triggering an automatic command to stop moving, NASA said. At the end of the day, Opportunity was still stopped with its front pair of wheels within the crater's rim.
They may have to sacrifice their ability to get out of the crater in order to explore it. That's probably what they're trying to decide.
If the crater is that big, I kinda think they should just go for it and risk being trapped. They could probably spend years puttering around in that crater.
On the other hand, the rover might run for decades, so being trapped would be bad. It's a hard choice to make. I guess it depends on how long they think the rover is likely to be functional, versus just how valuable their time in the crater might be.
Tough choice.
Yes, it is, but I think I would take a chance on the crater, even if I thought the rover might get stuck.
The crater seems to provide access to a layer of rocks which they may find nowhere else. Even if they avoid the crater, every foot the rover rolls could be its last, so I say take the crater while you have a chance.
Spectacular would be an understatement.
Somebody painted a Nazi swastika on a rock in the middle, right end.
This is a meteorite crater, yes? (as opposed to a volcanic crater). Don't meteorite craters on Earth have pretty consistent circular shapes? That looks as if it's been eroded, but to young for any Mars water action. Is the terrain there so sandy that it crumbles?
The bluish evening glow is very beautiful.
Have the geologists figure out what caused those horizontal lines are?
The strangest part of the image to me is the size of the Sun. It looks small and lonely.
Littelk
First of all don't think of a meteor hit as a rock hitting the ground it is more like a grenade hitting the ground and exploding on impact. Most craters are circular because so much kinetic energy is involved in the hit that the actual crater is usually much larger 10-30 times the size of the object itself so any oblique shape that the object may have made is lost in the relatively huge size of the resulting crater. Without going into detail the force of gravity tends to help create a circular pattern as the debris settles; the stronger the target's gravity the more likely the circular shape of craters upon it. The Moon and Mercury have much greater chance of displaying elongated craters that does the Earth.
Very fast wind speeds along with the type of soil on Mars causes the erosion, you don't need water for that. Hope this helps.
Wow, that last picture of the sun on the horizon is eerie! So cool.
