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NASA gives up frozen Mars Lander for dead — Parallax Forums

NASA gives up frozen Mars Lander for dead

HollyMinkowskiHollyMinkowski Posts: 1,398
edited 2010-05-26 04:43 in General Discussion
The Mars Phoenix lander finally died.

They say they can see it from the Mars orbiter and that it is loaded with ice.
Signals to it were not returned after four attempts.
It would be fun to do the programming for something like this lander.
www.computerworld.com/s/article/9177276/NASA_gives_up_frozen_Mars_Lander_for_dead


l2hBwfrW.jpeg

Comments

  • John R.John R. Posts: 1,376
    edited 2010-05-25 02:42
    I don't know if it was on purpose or not, you mix/mashed two different sets of spacecraft.

    The "dead" spacecraft is the Phoenix. This was a stationary lander that discovered ice by digging down, and had a number of "mini-labs" on board to process soil samples. It had "went to sleep" shortly after it's 90 days, and the recent attempts were meant to contact "just in case" it survived winter. This craft landed near the pole, and there was virtually no chance for operations much past the original 90 days due to power requirements, and decreasing output from the solar panels.

    The comic strip is for the Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. Spirit is stuck, and due to low energy from its solar panels, recently went into a "power down mode", and may, or may not be dead. It will not try any communication until it charges its batteries above a certain threshold. Until it does, or until enough time passes since the recent solstice, we won't know if Spirit has survived yet another winter or not. The team listens daily for a "phone home"...

    Opportunity is still chugging along, and has racked up almost 13 miles. It too is experiencing low power, but is doing better than its partner.

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    John R.
    Click here to see my Nomad Build Log
  • electrosyselectrosys Posts: 212
    edited 2010-05-25 13:02
    That is really fascinating, the Rovers Spirit and its buddy Opportunity along with the orbital and delivery system and their spacecraft are truly state of art.
    I am amazed by that, really amazed...

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  • ercoerco Posts: 20,260
    edited 2010-05-25 16:33
    My buddy worked on a toy version of· the first Mars rover, Sojourner and the Pathfinder mission·in 1997. He got the insider scoop on the project, which was fascinating. Two little-known facts he related·about drastic cost-cutting measures:

    1) The planned original size of the rover was over twice the size of what they actually sent. The rover they sent was a functional smaller scale model, which was not plannned to fly.

    2) They·gutted a wireless PC modem to communicate between the rover and base station. Yeah,·the kind that Best Buy sells. That's the kind of budget cuts they dealt with. I think it was a US Robotics modem. They tried to get any assurance that it might function in space. The best USR would do is warranty it until it left earth orbit. Obviously it was a win-win when it worked properly on Mars!

    Here's one online reference I found to support this: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/heinleiners/messages/7204?xm=1&m=e&l=1· (~ halfway down)

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    ·"If you build it, they will come."
  • SeariderSearider Posts: 290
    edited 2010-05-26 03:39
    Spririt and Opportunity have been my robotic inspirations from the moment I saw the first animations of what they would look like and how they would work. This is NASA at it's best!

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    Searider
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,260
    edited 2010-05-26 04:43
    Don't forget the original 1976 Viking landers, too!

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    ·"If you build it, they will come."
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