Don't quote the last post in full. - Mod

James/Doug/Pete - Thank you for clearing up that 6.5cm query for me as well. May I ask the following questions?

1) Do we know if the current plan is to continue driving backwards almost in a circle given the immobility of the right side?

2) If so, do we know how far the RF wheel is from the edge of the crater?

3) If so, do we know how far the LF wheel will have to travel to escape the crater? And will it have to travel through the tracks already created by LM and LR to do so?

Neil

One more thing to add to Doug and James' comments about distances viewed through hazcam, is that the hazcams distort the view considerably. If you're comparing distances in the same part of the field of view and at the same distances, then you should be fine. But sizes and distances will be magnified more than you might expect for objects closer to the camera.

As for Neil's querries, we don't have any word on detailed plans beyond continuing to back up after LM diagnostics - I'm sure someone will post here if anything is announced. And Scamander Crater probably doesn't have a very sharply defined edge, so it may not make sense to say if any particular wheel is in it or not.

Power down to 211 watt-hours as of sol 2150.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/sta...ll.html#sol2144

Interesting that Opportunity has considerably more watt-hours (304) even though worse opacity and worse dust factor. The latitude of Spirit is slightly worse, but I assume it is the tilt that makes the real difference.

Encouraging tweet from @marsroverdriver

"Hot damn, I love working w/geniuses. Team invented a way Spirit can detect stalls, run diags, & safely continue. Could double progress."

They're two words I like to hear "double progress".
Of course, he also said "Could".

Slightly OT, but can that be incorporated into the MSL programming?

MSL will, as I understand it, leverage much of the code from MER. MSL carries a different faster flight computer (RAD750) which is, I think, capable of running the exact same code as the 10x slower, RAD6000 which is onboard MER.

How interchangeable this exact technique would be - I don't know.

this may be me being overly optimistic but does it look here that we might be right at the edge of the crater? Seems to be a definite line from the cracked soil running out to the horizon. And does it not look like the wheel is actually sitting on top of some stiffer crust rather than the soft soil? Of course if there is a defined lip" in might make it harder to get out but...

especially when you compare it to 2147 (image on the right)

Excellent comparison, Jay! I don't think we've fully recovered from the sinkage deficit of the previous drives, but that sure looks like a temping escape route.
C'mon Spirit!

There was a sort of scare D/L during the last few days, actually the latest images I can see at the exploratorium are from sol 2151.
I've just checked the sequencing plan (and results) from driving sols 2152 and 2154 and, well, I'm eager to see those images because the IMU data tells: 4cm on sol 2152 and 7cm on sol 2154. They should be on the net in the next exploratorium update at 14:40UTC.

Go baby, go!

Woah! Go Spirit...

Barely enough distance to run over my iPhone - but in terms of acheivment, that would gemlike summiting husband hill all over again.

40 and 70mm against "usual" 3 or 4 mm is amazing!
it would be cool if anybody was able to draw a "rout map" of spirit... just inside the sand trap, to understand how far she moved in these monrhs, and how far she's moving these days.

Awesome progress for a mobility-challenged rover. Nickeling and diming her way to freedom! Any angle-of-orientation info in that data, Eduardo?

Cassioli, nice idea, but it would lack context since the moves are so small in relation to the resolution of the terrain images. Maybe someone could do something like that with the sol 1870 (just before she got stuck) or 1363 (from atop Home Plate) navcam images. It would be difficult… small lateral or angular movements, which can normally be ignored, would have a huge impact on accuracy here. Still, it might be possible. I am continually amazed by what the people here are capable of!

Images up - looks like some great progress.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/fo...PGP1214R0M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/re...PGP1314R0M1.JPG

FL wheel has begun to re-emerge from the churn-zone

i was not thinking about a map overlayed over a terrain picture, indeed; just a map showing "edges" of the sandtrap and a line showing spirit route.

Brightness-enhanced (sol 2154):



Edit: changed it to a tone-mapped version.

MH - in LocationMetadata_update.csv - what are the various columns left to right? I could try and animate rover progress from site to site in some way using the MMB MER model, rendered from a third person perspective.

Incredible drive! LR wheel is now at the extreme southmost extent of the drives we made before becoming embedded:
Click to view attachment
Edit - you're too quick, mhoward!

WOW !!!

The first picture is totally mindblowing

She IS moving !!!!! Woohoo !

Go Spirit, go!

Couple of 2 frame (2151 & 2154) ani's first is rover locked other is horizon locked. Our girl's rockin' and a rollin'

I can't express how happy I am! ^.^




Is that the rock that we used to be concerned about?

Ugh, you're making me look at Java for the first time in nearly a year. I think it's:

rover number
site number
drive number
start sol (doesn't seem to be working - eep!)
end sol (also doesn't seem to be working. Who wrote this hack anyway??)
rover_origin_rotation_quaternian_a
rover_origin_rotation_quaternian_b
rover_origin_rotation_quaternian_c
rover_origin_rotation_quaternian_d
rover_origin_offset_vector_a
rover_origin_offset_vector_b
rover_origin_offset_vector_c

....Just quoting myself from six days back, when the very first signs of progress could be seen, and well before some naysayers started to write off Spirit.

"The little rover that could" has certainly managed to confirm my hopes over the intervening time!

Thanks for your answer, fredk.

It seems to me, that happened just that.

Von Braun is clearly visible now! I was may be too concentrated on the weels and I didn't noticed before, but this time, it is very visible.
Von Braun, here she comes

Great stuff guys with the updates, keep them coming! Go Spirit go!

So the optimist jumps in. Assuming she gets out and is able to actually move with 4 wheels...where are we in the season now? How soon before a winter parking spot needs to be identified?

Wow! Just got back from a cricket conference all weekend (I know, I know) and I'm thrilled to see the progress Spirit has made.

Following on from the previous post, (and of course making the still massive assumption she extricates herself - with a little help from her drivers etc!) has a precise winter location site for Spirit been announced yet?

Neil

A month past equinox, 4 months to winter solstice. Mars seasons here

According to the latest rover update the solar arrays only produce 211 Watt-hours now. I'm surprised it is even able to drive. What is minimum power for drives?

Great news!

so, are we out?
if not, how far is our "target"?

<fairly optimist mode on>
Assuming Spirit can get out of the trap with four wheels, I think the next winter haven will be exactly here.
I don't see any other nearby place to go.

<fairly optimist mode still on ...>

The 1 Mb limit is killing me as far as uploading .gifs here is concerned, so I'm moving my operations to YouTube.
Excitement over the recent progress has motivated me to compile a small movie of the attempts to free Spirit. It starts at the beginning of extraction, and ends with the most recent images.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMpgF_qoTEA

<backseat roverdriver> Watch out for the potato </backseat roverdriver>

O_o the potato?

Time to update spirits route map?

We are definitely not out yet. The visible wheels are still in various stages of burial. And it's not clear what the middle wheels are doing.

One note of caution: as I mentioned in my last post, the LR wheel is now at the southern edge of the trench which that wheel had dug back just before she was declared embedded. That makes me wonder what progress will be like now that we've reached the edge of the "crust". And did she stop here just coincidentally, or did the LR wheel bog down on this latest drive when it hit the edge of the crust?

I don't mean to put too much of a damper on the optimism here - she has made great progress recently!

Not really - total progress to date would be no more than the size of the dot on the route map

Err... I have to eat my words here. I was wrong: the LR wheel has actually eaten through considerable new crust material now. On this gif I've compared the old view, where you can see the old southern limit of the LR, with the new view. To make it easier, I've circled matching rocks in black and white:
Click to view attachment
Clearly we've recently eaten through a lot of crust, to the east of the old trench. So apparently that hasn't slowed us down. This is great news!

fredk - this is great news indeed!

Would you have any idea if the crust will breakdown and eventually provide a 'ramp' out of the crater or do you think will we meet a 'wall' at the edge of the crater?

Hope you don't mind all the questions - I just want to know she's gonna get out of there!

Neil

I can't see how the boundary between the soft sandy crust and the sturdy crust can be so contrasted and steep that the rear wheels can't out. I certainly hope this is not the case.

I was a little bored and decided to look at some old Spirit updates from last winter to help remember how bad power got. It's truly amazing how much the team has learned about operating these rovers at low power.

Last winter solstice was on June 25th 2008 and corresponds to this update on the 27th. (power at 230 watt-hours)
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/sta...08.html#sol1587

This is last week’s update. (power at 211 watt-hours)
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/sta...ll.html#sol2144


And keep in mind, Spirit is still driving!

Re power/driving, can somebody tell how much was commanded versus the 4 + 7 cm of actual movement? I mean, if slipage is low, chance to get out with little power improve.
Re winter Heaven, Eduardo, when you say "exactly there", do you mean "There-there" or what, 1 - 2 meters near HP?
Fredk, isn't the LR in better postion now as compared when she get embeded? I mean nearly on top instead of inside the crust.

It looked that way to me at least, especially considering how it rose up quite a bit a few drives ago.

I wrote "exactly here". I would only expect short moves trying to improve the rover's attitude.

Looming Martian winter threatens Spirit rover

The way I read this, it looks like they've already given up.

I have a feeling that article was written before they tried backwards driving.