Though not a guest, I was really worried by this "RIP" sign, because it recalls me the very sad experience we had at JPL when we lost VL1 and, in May 1983, we had to realize that despite our recovery effort we had to put a final dot to the mission of a Mars lander... Truly a very sad experience, especially when you live with pics received every week from Mars : it's like you are loosing a friend ! Sorry, that's psychology science but, then, we all felt the same sad emotions Worse : we had NO more Mars lander budgeted then... The end of the Mars program. So, please, NO MORE "RIP" signs !

Very Spirit...ual indeed

The last movement (on the 18th) looked quite small compared to the first few forward drive efforts. Hopefully there was not another stall.

Click to view attachment

Sub-frame forward and rear hazcam images are now down for sols 2143-2147. I don't have time now to make them into an animation but there worth taking a look at.


Edit: Old news, sorry for the interruption.

I'm assuming this is an effect of a cosmic ray strike, but 'black' (!?).
Have we seen this before? Unusual.
Detail below.... context here. Sol2148
Click to view attachment

And at some point, so you will. JohnVV RIP?

A little premature, don't you think.

Well, FWIW, I forgive you, John.

Seams to also cast a shadow...

A very interesting artifact indeed. Can't understand how a cosmic ray hit would produce a dark trace. Particle(s) somehow grounding the charge wells to the substrate so effectively draining them instead of the usual ionization?

Perhaps some sort of coincidence between the hit, and CCD readout?

Utterly bizarre. A piece of windborne material that skidded across the panel & made a trail through the dust? Hopefully a repeat image will be acquired soon.

Nick, I don't believe the object is real, at least the right one (pointing to about 2 o'clock) which has very sharp pixel boundaries without the point spread function effects, indicating it's very likely a detector artifact. The other line is more subtle and fuzzy, but it still wouldn't be unheard of to have a cosmic ray hit like that, especially given onboard image compression.

what is the exposure time of the camera?
maybe it's a small rock flown around by wind?

It's not a 'real' thing. We've been through this dozens of times, the same as when people go 'WOAH - look at that ROCK' when it's a downlink from 7 months ago.

The left and right images are taken at the same time.

So - if it's real, it's in both. If it's an imaging artifact (cosmic ray hit etc etc) it'll be in only one image.


Now you see it

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/na...GXP1705R0M1.JPG

Now you don't

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/na...GXP1705L0M1.JPG

Ergo - it's an imaging artifact of some kind, and not a real 'thing' on Mars.

Asked & answered. Thanks, Gordan & Doug! (Truly a weird-looking one this time.)

ok, so let's get back to moving away from this damned sandtrap.
I didn't yet understand how long last move did take (1 sol? 1 hour?) and how far (looks like sevearl CENTImeters!)

Technically, it could be real and be seen in one camera only, but then it would be very close to the lens and out of focus.

We've seen similar things before, even with multiple streaks. Dark are rarer than light, but they do occur. Presumably a cosmic ray strike during a dark frame acquisition. See the discussion in this thread for example.

I wonder if this mission is just getting so old that even the experienced oldtimers are starting to slip and miss these basic checks (simultaneous L+R frames to confirm a real feature, time stamps on old images, etc).

I can't see any real evidence that there was any wheel movement on the sol with the most recent images, sol 2148. Just small movements of soil near the front wheels that could have been natural collapses of steep sloped sand. So maybe there was no drive intended.

Makes perfect sense, thanks. Did not realize (or forgot?) the onboard software can subtract dark frames automatically.

AFAIK, the main activity during sol 2148 were "sun finding" sequences to accurately set the rover's attitude. No drive attempt.

According to the tracking site sol 2150 is a driving sol.

Pinch me someone, I'm dreaming. Progress measured in centimetres, so quickly?

At the risk of being premature -- power for drives must be getting pretty low these days, but if we get to the point of beginning to climb out of the dust-trap crater, the tilt will be northwards. If it gets up towards the 20-degree mark, say in a few weeks' time, that might be the best chance for a favourable tilt for a winter stop position. I don't think I see any other possibilities nearby..?

Frankly I think that's where Spirit is permanently stuck and will "die." I hope not, but...

The animation in post #642 was too fast and too dark on my PC, I could not "see" the wheels clearly at all. Can a lightened, slowed down gif be made please ?

The solution is already mentioned few posts earlier. Open that animated gif in VirtualDub and adjust the framerate.

Sol 2143-2150 Forward Hazcam.

Click to view attachment

Sol 2143-2150 Rear Hazcam.

Click to view attachment

I've lightened up the post by briv1016

look at the wheel pop on the right side of image

Is that 'belly rock' we're seeing appearing at the end of the forward hazcam animation?

Thanks for the excellent animations Briv & Jay!

I can't really judge the vertical movement well, but it looks like 20-30cm of horizontal progress, which is awesome!

WOW! Isn't that something?
GO baby GO!

Well that's brightened up my day enormously. Way to go Spirit.

To add a bit to the "dark streak" threadlet ... it has come up before, and I hope to see it coming up off and on for another few years. The image acquisition can subtract a 0-second exposure to remove read-out artifacts resulting from short exposure times. Many exposures are around 1/2 sec, and most that are half-second, or shorter, have the removal done. The subtraction frame is light sensitive for <5 msec, but exists in a dark part of the sensor for a few sec. Cosmic rays can and do hit then, leaving dark UFOs in sky images and dark streaks on the ground after the subtraction is done. The extra shielding (and lack of real exposure time, and times the subtraction feature is not used) makes these rarer than positive CRs, but not really rare.

Aren't you confusing cm with mm?
The net advance in the last drive was 4cm. That's great in any case!

No 'Belly rock' is much further underneath than that. 10's of cm.

James is right. The rock just appearing was visible before in the f hazcams and I identified it in the first image (uppermost identified rock) in this post.

Maxwell has had this to say regarding the recent progress driving backwards (from this blog entry):

And then this followup:

It could be I'm just plain confused.
Looking at the forward hazcam animation from briv, it looks like a full wheel diameter of movement... at least for the past 7 sols.

I understand Maxwell's cautionary stance, but this seems like excellent progress.

It might be progress, but we need to remember: as far as backing up, we're not nearly back to where we were 255 sols ago. I don't think she was making progress in the other direction at that point, IIRC. And that was before the loss (apparently) of another wheel.

I'm not saying don't hope for a miracle; just saying, better not get our hopes up prematurely here.

True always, Mike. Nevertheless, I am very cheered by the sight of her moving several cms after all this time!

via @marsroverdriver http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_14232125

movement = 2.5 inches


or is it

Lots of details in the latest release. 6.5 cm horizontal movement in the first two backwards drives, and 1.3 cm upwards.

"left middle wheel stalled"

ouch

edit: or is that the same one as before and was moving again?

Yikes!

It's interesting that Spirit and Oppy seem to be having such different rates of wheel problems / failures. I guess there are two hypotheses: nature and nurture. Is this current (~2.5 : 0.5) ratio of troublesome wheels between Spirit and Oppy the result of subtle differences in manufacture or materials, or tdifferences in local environments and/or different usage patterns?

I would guess that being buried for 6 months at Troy, and being driven while buried, might have been especially hard on Spirit's wheels, possibly allowing contamination to enter the wheel enclosures.

I'm very interested in the distance travelled between (inclusive):

sol2143 - http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...DGP1214R0M1.JPG
and
sol2148 - http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...GXP1214R0M1.JPG

I'm surprised to hear the travel is only 6.5cm. To my amateur eye, cast over the images, it seems more - the wheels are 26cm in diameter.

Q1) I've done a search in this forum and on this board, seeking info as to how to measure distance, seen in the hazcams, into accurate measurements in cm's? I have only found they 'see' 120 degrees.
Can someone point me in the right direction to info? I'm sure I seen info on this before.

Q2) Images the from the *front* hazcam (for the days 2143 / 2148) seem to show more travel, when compared to the images for the *rear* hazcams. Where has this movement gone? Converted into vertical motion?


Experimental, 'brute force' pic attached or embedded (I'm not sure!). Under 100k.
Red lines are known locations, and blue is guestimated wheel diameter edge locations.
Created by layering sections of a previous image, over known rover, or geographical locations still visible.
This does not take into account any twisting/rise/fall motion.

Click to view attachment

That FL wheel might have moved much further - but progress of the rover is measured at the IMU's. Compare to the FR wheel - the FR has not moved much at all. Take an 'average' of those two to consider actual progress.

Welcome Peter.

One important thing to be aware of, is that the 6.5cm distance is the translation of the rover centre. It is clear that Spirit is rotating significantly so the distance traveled by the wheel you are looking at will indeed be quite a bit more that.

James

EDIT: Cross posted with Doug.