Looking at the buildup of sand on the top of the LF wheel, it looks like sand builds up, then sand seems to be removed. I would guess that the LF may be getting some more traction toward the end of the day's drive.

(and what's that splat that appears half way through, just below and to the left of the robotic arm?)

The latest update suggests that greater movement of the RF was intended but did not occur. The update covers sol 2120 but not sol 2122.

Lots of concentration on the RF and RR wheels, but how about those middle wheels.
Here are two animations of the RM and LM wheels between Sols 2113 and 2122.
Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

Sol 2122. How low can Spirit go?!
Click to view attachment

leaving its mark on Husband Hill between Sols 2120 and 2122.
Click to view attachment

Nice catch, Astro0!

Back to the extrication business, the next "move" is already planned for sol 2126 (26th Dec).

December 24th is when we celebrate Christmas in Denmark, so here's wishing the Christmas SPIRIT to all of you rover drivers at the JPL and to the UMSF followers all over the world.

This is not a time to be downhearted over the troubles of our mobility-challenged rheumatic old lady, but rather to rejoice in her long, adventurous and productive life!

Glædelig Jul og Godt Nytår!

Søren "Ørsted" Dalsgaard

But when do they celebrate it on Mars?

--Greg :-)

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...92P2563L6M3.JPG

The latest pancam seems to suggest some maneouver involving the RF wheel. Or is this just a matter of the pancam perspective versus the hazcam perspective?

It's a quiet evening here at home.
Meanwhile, Spirit finished another extrication move today, sol 2126. No images for the time being but the "telemetry" tells: 5mm forward and 10mm downwards.

Back to Astro0's question, how much clearance is left?

Judging from Astro0's last MI mosiac above, -- I don't think I want to know the answer to that question.

The forward wheel looks like it might now be below the surrounding ground level

Animation.

The sinking seems to stop toward the end.

Maybe she bottomed out

Something to remember when viewing the underside images: part of the reason you are seeing less bright surfaces beyond Spirit's silhouette is because Spirit's shadow now extends farther south due to the changing seasons.

The LF wheel has been turned inward as part of todays activities. Change of strategy?
Click to view attachment

Hmmm...
Click to view attachment

FH Sol2130 animation.
Click to view attachment

...yeah.

Might be the rationale behind any change in wheel angles.

EDIT: This might be an attempt at some form of 'sidewinder mode'--sort of walking the wheel forward.

The left rear wheel has really been digging in during the last few drives
http://207.7.139.5/mars/spirit/rear_hazcam...96P1314R0M1.JPG
http://207.7.139.5/mars/spirit/rear_hazcam...AUP1314R0M1.JPG
http://207.7.139.5/mars/spirit/rear_hazcam...BAP1314R0M1.JPG
http://207.7.139.5/mars/spirit/rear_hazcam...BBP1354R0M1.JPG

I suspect this is also having an adverse effect on Spirit's tilt.

If Spirit remains here into the winter, is this downwards movement tilting the panels away from the sun?

It may be that Spirit will never be able to climb uphill again. However what I wondered is whether Spirit might be able to drive further into the small crater in which it may be stuck?

If I understand what Scott Maxwell and others have said correctly then Troy is the most scientifically interesting location that Spirit has yet encountered. Would there be any value in sampling a different area of this small crater?

I also wondered whether Spirit might survive the winter better if its warm electronics box was partially buried in quicksand? Finally I wondered whether with a warm electronics box that was touching the ground, Spirit might better detect marsquakes?

The next rover design had better incorporate a telescoping powered leg with 360 mobility.

What other elements of design are you prepared to drop to make room for that?

It's very easy to say "they should have given the rovers this..." without any consideration for how.

Spirit and Opportunity have been a wonderful experience for all of us sitting at home and kind of living on Mars thru the pictures sent .I'm sure they have given a lot of lessons to MARS engineers to improve and rectify technical problems for future rovers.I'm hoping the delay in sending MSL will allow more time that such problems are anticipated and dealt with .

I doubt changes can be made to hardware as the MSL was designed years ago, maybe software wise, some changes can be incorporated.

Also it's just plain bad luck if you drive into an unforseeable dust trap. They were were lucky both rovers landed in pretty good driving terain, both rovers could have landed stuck halfway up a large cliff.........

Just a guess, but Mrund's post sounded to me a lot like sarcasm.


I have always been grateful that Oppy landed in Eagle Crater and not Endurance. The slightest change of trajectory could have made her a prisoner of her lander, surrounded by a sea of untraversable sand dunes.

You've raised some interesting questions here. Traction is bad on the crater side, so my guess would be that if we tried to move west into the crater we'd make very little progress and bottom out fast, even with the downhill slope. Plus the RR wheel/anchor may not allow us to do much at all (except perhaps to pivot around the RR).

Very interesting thought about Spirit staying warmer this winter if she's bottomed out...

I would have thought the thermal conductivity between WEB and ground would be worse than having it in 'mid air' as it were. The air is so thin, it must act like a reasonably good thermos flask.

Maybe...but the MERs certainly seem to have no problem losing heat (quite the opposite). If the thin air's insulating then the heat loss path must be through the wheels to the ground, and in that case placing the WEB in contact with the soil would presumably accelerate that.

The dark solar panels must lose a lot of heat by radiation during the night. From that point of view, a thin covering of dust might help the rover stay a bit warmer in the night. Bottoming out would not help there.

Update here http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002288/

There's a gap of a couple cm between the outer shell and the inner electronics, so conduction to the ground won't necessarily be great if she's bottomed out. But of course this would still add another route for cooling. I'd think radiation determines the cooling rate when she's not bottomed, and it's not clear to me how the radiative cooling would be affected if she was bottomed.

Another factor is the local geography. Radiative cooling at night is always worse the bigger the unobstructed sky. At WH3 I don't think HP obstructed the sky much. At Troy, we've got HP to our east blocking some sky, so that should reduce nighttime cooling. Probably not a huge factor, though.

Original story here. It still looks like survival through the winter is possible:

(I thought this should go here in this thread as it is about extrication, but admin please move/change if you want).

For the optimists - like me - among you at the start of the new year!!!!

Recent comment from Tara Estlin - Rover Driver "We have a lot of things left to try so I think she has a very good chance of overcoming this obstacle"

(From 1.05min onwards in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xly52Vx-_9Q...player_embedded Thanks to link originally posted by Alan - Post #9 in 6 Years On Mars)

Time off at Christmas was nice... and Spirit continues to have challenges.
Here is an animation of the Right Middle wheel as seen by the MI.
It spans Sols 2113 to 2130 (I triple-checked this time James C)
Adaptive contrast -etc.

Click to view attachment

Cheers and Happy New Year

Here is an animation of the underbelly of Spirit from Sol 2076 to 2130

Click to view attachment

As you can see, Spirit is digging in.

Cheers

It looks like belly rock got pushed down into the loose soil.

Continued counterclockwise motion. Might we be trying to turn counterclockwise and then drive backwards? to the current right side and out of the trap?

The latest update has Spirit's power at 260 watt-hours as of sol 2130.

P.S. The clock on the MER website seems to be off due to the New Year.

Errr.... Emily Lakdawalla is reporting that extrication attempts have ended for the winter:

She gives no reference for this and I can't find any mention of this at any of the usual jpl sites.

Edit: for example, the latest press release said:

The latest update says this about the recent drive attempts:

I hope they're able to regain the progress they have lost while trying that. They seem to move backwards quite a bit.

I see the imaging sequences pattern of a driving attempt on today's plan; the last one?

I need to preface this by saying I absolutely believe in the rover team and also I haven't given up hope yet, but, given that we've seen an infinite variety of queries along the line of "Why don't they just push themselves out with the arm?", I am curious myself and also wonder why I don't remember seeing discussion about: How many hours of RAT-brushing might it theoretically take to exhume the front wheels: Hundreds; thousands -- millions??

marsroverdriver denies it: http://twitter.com/marsroverdriver

Says they have "another six or eight" things lined up to try.


This team's emotional stamina is extraordinary. They just will not give up.

I thought it was odd that she burried that quote deep in a planetary mission roundup. Surely the end of extrication attempts would deserve a story of its own.

I hope so. I haven't given them my solution yet.

I know you aren't seriously suggesting this, but for the sake of argument. I would assume that any dust that gets splattered away by the brush would go in a fairly wide amount of directions. So a lot of what is brushed/drilled aside will settle somewhere that will need more brushing/drilling. I'll throw "thousands" as my purely informed guess.