Yeah--I'm thinkin' that Spirit has not yet begun to fight! Wise to remember that the extraction effort is being managed in a very careful, deliberate manner as it should be. Nothing's gonna happen fast, no matter how much we'd all like it to.

The wheels have straightened out. It seems that that whole exercise sunk us down some more.

(animation)

wouldn't it be weird if winter frost made terrain so hard that wheels could eventually have enough grip to get the rover out?
if just we could have enough power during winter....


rather than drilling, I'd use it for moving: moving sand away from wheels, and/or moving small rocks near the wheels, in such a way that they will fall under the wheels when they move sand. I remember that, on earth, when a car get stuck in sand, you need to put something under the wheels to get out, and I can't see planty of little rocks around the rover.
This could maybe damage the robotic arm... but it would be in any case better having a roving camera rather than a stuck rover with working robotic arm.

When I made a similar suggestion following statement from the extraction FAQ was pointed out to me:

DOES THE CONSISTENCY OF THE SOIL CHANGE WITH TEMPERATURE?
COULD THEY DRIVE AT NIGHT WHEN IT IS COLD AND THE SOIL FROZEN - the temperatures on Mars are cold anyway - certainly colder at night. More data needs to be collected, but driving at night has been considered.

The problem with our suggestion is that even in the Summer it is very cold and dry in Gusev crater and frost has never been seen on the ground by either rover. Frost has only been seen on the rovers themselves.

I still go with flapping the solar panels.

No, seriously, to me Spirit is beginning to look well and truly stuck for good... I wonder if they have something up their sleeve, but given that they probably tried their best in the first attempts, I'm not optimistic.

What they thought to be the best strategy they tried first, of course. But Mars doesn't play by the rules. (We know the rules, but the rules don't know me..sort of thing). It might be something far down the list, or not yet thought of, that's the only way to get her out - if at all.

I'm surprised you folks have missed that the RF wheel turned direction at the end of the last drive. No idea what that's about yet, but it doesn't look to me like they're done. (Although yes, the situation seems grave.)

I haven't seen that yet.

Wow! Don't know how that would work, with the two front wheels aimed as they are right now.
Click to view attachment

I'm puzzled too, but the whole maneuver did seem to pull her forward a millimeter or two overall. Maybe.

When they started testing Roverdriver mention turning while steering as something being tested because steering alone caused the wheels to sink deeper, like they appear to have in the latest moves. If they give up extricating Spirit they could do that with the front wheels only to generate a bit more northerly tilt for the panels.

On another note if they do free Spirit where are they going to drive with only four functional wheels?

Hey Alan, When Spirit finally hauls herself out of that sand trap can we assess the wheels/motors....little rocks all crunched up in the submerged wheel cavity could be jamming the RR -etc. I suspect a run towards home plate is coming ... Cheers

I tried to get a comment from @marsroverdriver on twitter last night about Emily's PS article (re: she's a lander now) but no response.

He already responded to that here.

On Planetary Radio (http://planetary.org/radio), Emily repeats the assertion that the team have "formally given up" on extricating Spirit before the winter. (I wonder if she means informally.) Perhaps the marsroverdriver tweet is referring to efforts to improve the tilt rather than extrication efforts.

Maybe the discrepancy -- ended vs continued extraction efforts -- simply reflects a shift in objective from extraction to solar panel angle manipulation with a shift back to extraction possible if the results of a particular move merit it.

Edit: Yeah, what he said.
"Perhaps the marsroverdriver tweet is referring to efforts to improve the tilt rather than extrication efforts." -- marsophile

Apologies for my silence on this -- I may have been a bit too emphatic, but I'm still a bit confused about the status of things and would only add to the confusion by doing interim edits before I get unconfused. Obviously, wheels are still turning, and Spirit isn't a lander yet! As always, the images tell us what's actually going on on Mars.

I spent ~an hour figuring out the order of these frames and yet I kept coming to the same conclusion. Spirit has risen up some.
Being a fatalist, I refused to accept this until I scowered the images further. Based on four observations, I am now convinced that in the recent drive, Spirit has increased the altitude of its front hazcam.

1) Dirt on the inside of the parabola falls downward as the rover ascends. Consistent with the wheel turning forward and with gravity.
2) Dirt to the right of the wheel is pushed aside and appears to kind of fold over itself in a way that would make sense only if Spirit has indeed risen up.
3) Cracking in that dirt suggests upwelling.
4) The motion of the arm's shadow is consistent with these images occurring in the order I present here.

So I am convinced that Spirit has climbed up somewhat toward the end. But I am only somewhat so. Independent confirmation is more than welcome! (especially regarding the order in which these frames were taken)

This animation consists of the entire bear-crawl thing move. I guess they were clearing dirt from ahead of the wheel and moving forward into that cavity. (forgive the physial size, I was limited by the upload limit of 1 Mb and the desire to fit the entire bear-crawl manoeuvre).

(animation)

What do you make of the rear hazcams? To me, the back end looked like it sank quite a bit on these drives.

Brian

I agree. I haven't done much work with the rear hazcams but I've definitely looked at them.

Edit: Rear Right Hazcam images over the past recent drives.

(animation)

The forward wheels went up and the rear ones digged into the sand.
Regarding the CG position, it moved 1cm forward and 0.4cm downwards.

That would equate to a decrease in northerly tilt - so one would hope it's further extraction rather than putting out the winter deck-chair.

I think I can see what the rationale was for turning the RF wheel sideways. It is easier to push that non-rotating wheel forward now, because the treads are pointed in the direction of motion, thus producing less resistance.

Sorry to everyone here for my confusion and the resultant distress among readers. As Scott confirmed, they're still in extrication mode. http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002300/

Here's a direct link to a Quicktime animation I put together covering the full 2 months of extrication efforts to date.

Just to say it again Emily, I find your blog very informative, pitched at an accessible level without being simplistic and really enjoy catching up with it ----------- but being a confirmed optimist I hadn't quite got round to believing you anyway so I was never distressed!!!! IMO everyone really values you around here.

here here!

The "new" times could roughly match normal Mars Local Mean Solar Time (LMST) now. But then it seems they got wrongly attached among each other.

There's an interesting news report here with SS saying a few words on Spirit's current situation and future.
Read the report but watch the video.

This has happened every year of the mission. Seems who ever wrote the script thought it would be a one year mission. Rather than write a new script that would go for 10 or 100 years, they have fudged it to work just for the current year--each year (change an offset constant) . Usually takes several weeks into the year for someone to remember or be reminded of the problem.

I think coach is just trying to get his team fired up to come out in the 4th quarter, rally from a 30 point deficit and pull the game out on the final play.

Sports analogies work for all aspects of life, even Mars exploration.

Brian

Looks like another left-right manoeuve from the RF wheel.

I'm not seeing the same thing (I think the RF wheel didn't turn). But it does look to me like she moved forward a tiny bit on sol 2140. Interesting.

Edit: On closer inspection, maybe she didn't move forward so much as pivot right a bit. The RR wheel didn't seem to move at all.

I meant LF wheel. I'm not capable of distinguishing left from right without taking a few minutes to think about it.

MIs from Sol 2140 (Sun Jan 10 2010) just down. Quick lunch time stitch, contrast etc and lightly applied false colour to bring out as much detail as poss. I'm still an optimist but only by a few cms now!

Click to view attachment

It's on your left, No, your other left.

If the timecode on the FH(right) files are right, then it appears that on Sol2140 Spirit moved back then forwards and perhaps a little bit up(?)
Also a rock seems to appear near the LF wheel.
Click to view attachment

The RH images seem to show some forward and 'up' motion.
Click to view attachment

Could all be an illusion of course

I see that same movements too.
But when comparing the images before / after drive the net movement is not so visible; actually, the "up" movement is barely visible so the "net gain" in terms of movement is near zero. In the positive side, and looking to these same two images, what I can see is that some material is being moved from the front of the wheel.

I have an animation of Spirit's extrication from Sol 2072 to Sol 2140
It is made of 80+ images, each highly processed.
It is 10 megs (compared to 80 megs if I didn't save the images in jpgs!)
It took about three nights so I hope you enjoy it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30904379@N07/...291881/sizes/o/

cheers

very good job.

loading the file into VirtualDub allows running it at 25 FPS... and seeing we went down, not forward!
If we do not put that damned rock under the wheel, we'll stay here forever (even right wheels is slipping & digging).

New update:

Wow! who would have thunk the team would start that kind of a sacrifice with the arm Why does'nt that old girl just haul a** outa there?, what does she have yet to loose, an arm? Put the petal to the metal and DRIVE!!!

You go girl!
Just wishing the team all the best with this...

James - to find out why Spirit doesn't "just haul a** outa there", I suggest reading from the start of this thread...

And the one before it. And the extraction FAQ sticky. And the extraction of Opportunity threads.

Nothing they're planning is anything other than a result of careful study and working the trades in extraction/resulting science ability etc.

I think the new story will be can the lander Spirit survive the winter. Pictures pictures !

I meant by from the start of extrication and before hand, caution has been on the mind and drives have been in the tens of meters every drive or much shorter due to stalls and early terminations by the limits they put into the rover for that drive for rover saftey, which is all fine, But now time is on our bad side. I know they dont want to do anything dumb, but now is the time to drop everything and just do it. Doing something dumb (mobility wise) that would have been considered before is what is left. I hardly see that sacraficing the arm or its instruments at this point or any point by sculpting the terrain in front of just one wheel is worth the mobility of the rover, especially if the rover is stuck for good. If thats the case, then the option of tilting and digging the rover more to the sun to try and survive is the best option. They should lift the limits set and extend the drive duration and length, and just "gun" it and see what happens. Power and time is ticking. Because of the grave situation and the circumstanses at this point, Setting the bellie pan on the ground if they gun'ed is a risk now worth it because options are running very short. I'm not trying to sound like a pain-in-the-weasle.

In whatever the case, good luck to the team and GOOO SPIRIT!!! we are behind you.

All the way! Ultreya et Sus Eia more than ever!

So you would rather they stayed here for good, than move on with, perhaps, a POSSIBLY damaged arm.

Its in front of Disneyland scientifically right? Giving the best attempt possible and hitting the petal to the metal to try and escape without any limits or stops setting aside caution is what I have in mind . If it don't work, then tilt the rover to try and survive. The arm should be out of the equation.

I second what James is saying.

Remove many of the driving limits and ask all available wheels to drive(spin) every day for many days as energy allows. Perhaps the rover will sink a bit more and find solid ground, or maybe a tire will grab a buried rock and find the traction we need. We will never know unless we try.

It does seem like JPL has been overly-cautious on the extended driving efforts we were expecting to see. Weeks of driving efforts ended with just a few days of effort followed by weeks of researching wheel issues, which will be a mute point if the rover is stuck afterall.

Using the arm seems more desperate then commanding more drive efforts...

Actually we do know, they have tried everything imaginable already in a testbed here on Earth. The strategy you are suggesting is similar to the one used for extraction from Purgatory I and was likely the first one tried back at JPL. However in this case the base of the Rover bottoms out on the sand and then it goes nowhere - ever.

"We will never know unless we try" is a good strategy when you are using a vice grip wrench on a stuck bolt on a piece of equipment that can ultimately be replaced. When you have a multi-million dollar craft that cannot be replaced you are forced to take extraordinary steps to understand the implications and risks of everything you might try. They have spent many months doing just that.