Mars Rover Gone Quiet

Mars Rover Gone Quiet

Author
Discussion

Beati Dogu

8,864 posts

138 months

Thursday 26th July 2018
quotequote all
Hubble photo of Mars showing the current dust storm, compared to how it usually looks:

https://nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/im...

The one on the left is from May 2016. The one on the right was taken on July 18, 2018.


Source, with a nice photo of Saturn too...

https://nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/saturn-and-m...

Cold

15,207 posts

89 months

Wednesday 1st August 2018
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Beati Dogu

8,864 posts

138 months

Wednesday 26th September 2018
quotequote all
The big Martian dust storm has cleared, but still no sign of life from the rover.

They can actually see it from the orbiting Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter:

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=201...

MartG

20,626 posts

203 months

Wednesday 26th September 2018
quotequote all
frown

Eric Mc

Original Poster:

121,788 posts

264 months

Wednesday 26th September 2018
quotequote all
Flat battery - probably.

MartG

20,626 posts

203 months

Wednesday 26th September 2018
quotequote all
Eric Mc said:
Flat battery - probably.
I wonder if it was designed in such a way that the batteries can be charged without the computer being live

annodomini2

6,860 posts

250 months

Wednesday 26th September 2018
quotequote all
MartG said:
Eric Mc said:
Flat battery - probably.
I wonder if it was designed in such a way that the batteries can be charged without the computer being live
They do, but the temperatures get low on the surface during dust storms and without power the heaters fail.

So the low temperatures could have damaged the electronics.

JustALooseScrew

1,154 posts

66 months

Wednesday 26th September 2018
quotequote all
Some hope... a bit old in terms of news.

NASA said:
... both Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, were constructed for 90-day missions (Spirit lasted 20 times longer and Opportunity is going on 60 times). The rovers were designed to travel about 1,000 yards, and Opportunity has logged more than 28 miles.
Wow!!! Especially when late at night you look to the south and see that reddish dot in the sky - there be robots.

Beati Dogu

8,864 posts

138 months

Thursday 27th September 2018
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I'm sure one day they'll be recovered and placed in the middle of a traffic roundabout in Mars Colony 1.

skeeterm5

3,331 posts

187 months

Thursday 27th September 2018
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Fingers crossed for it to spark back into life.

MartG

20,626 posts

203 months

Thursday 15th November 2018
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Ooooh - could it be... smile Apparently 11bps is about right for a direct downlink



Edited by MartG on Thursday 15th November 22:44

Beati Dogu

8,864 posts

138 months

Friday 16th November 2018
quotequote all
Here's the Deep Space Network site for live updates:

https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

beeep beeep booop

skeeterm5

3,331 posts

187 months

Friday 16th November 2018
quotequote all
I love the fact that Voyager is still transmitting.


funkyrobot

18,789 posts

227 months

Friday 16th November 2018
quotequote all
skeeterm5 said:
I love the fact that Voyager is still transmitting.

Amazing spacecraft. Don't they keep a set of old computers to talk to it? The tech is, what, 40 odd years old now?

2fast748

1,091 posts

194 months

Eric Mc

Original Poster:

121,788 posts

264 months

Friday 16th November 2018
quotequote all
Well over 40 years. The Voyager designs were essentially frozen around 1973 or so. They were built in 1975/76 and launched in 1977.

The good thing is that the onboard computers were capable of being reprogrammed over the life of the spacecraft - so that means it is still possible to communicate with them and extract data from their transmissions.

MartG

20,626 posts

203 months

Friday 16th November 2018
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MartG

20,626 posts

203 months

Friday 16th November 2018
quotequote all
Quote from Tom Faber

"This has happened several times in the last several months. They all have been signals from one of the orbiters Doppler shifted enough to fall into the frequency range that the DSN is searching for a signal from Opportunity. The receiver will lock up on that signal until told to resume searching. But people monitoring the DSN Now page jump to the conclusion that a signal has been received from Opportunity."

Einion Yrth

19,575 posts

243 months

Friday 16th November 2018
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It's very sad, but it had a bloody good innings.

Bullet-Proof_Biscuit

1,058 posts

76 months

Monday 26th November 2018
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
God dam time travelling robots..