RIP to the Mars 'Spirit' Rover (which failed to "wakeup" from battery saving mode)

[Statistical]

It wasn't a complete surprise but NASA's long-suffering Mars rover Spirit missed a scheduled call home this week, leading space agency scientists to say the spacecraft likely entered full-on winter hibernation.

"We may not hear from Spirit again for weeks or months, but we will be listening at every opportunity, and our expectation is that Spirit will resume communications when the batteries are sufficiently charged," said John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in a statement. Callas is project manager for Spirit and its twin rover, Opportunity. NASA said Spirit had been communicating on a once-per-week schedule in recent weeks. During the designated time for the rover to communicate with NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter passing overhead on March 30, Odyssey heard nothing from the rover.

...

That is if it can actually perform any of these activities. NASA said Spirit will spend the coming winter month's tilted 9 degrees toward the south, an unfavorable attitude for the solar panels to catch rays from the sun in the northern sky. Spirit's parking positions for its previous three Martian winters tilted northward. Engineers anticipate that, due to the unfavorable tilt for this fourth winter, Spirit could be out of communication with Earth for several months.

NASA said Spirit's core electronics will become colder than any temperature they have ever experienced on Mars. Thermal projections indicate the temperature probably will not drop lower than the electronics were designed and tested to tolerate, but the age of the rover adds to the uncertainty of survival.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/59583

A RIP to the Spirit Rover. While I am sure NASA will still attempt communication it is only a matter of time before Spirit shuts down permanently. Despite only being designed to last a 90 day mission the rover has remained operational for over 6 years despite the constant scarring from violent sandstorms, and deep freeze of Martian nights and winter. Eventually anything mandmade will be destroyed in an environment like that.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. SIX YEARS! it seems like six months.

which is just the opposite of my first marriage.

Damn, they built that thing well.

And major league applause for for all the earthbased life forms that worked around a constant set of puzzles and problems, and extended this for so long. The science was not only elegant, but they maximized everything they could do with their instruments. Truly an amazing tour.

Of course, the Martians may have something else to say about it. We did drop in without an invitation.

[roguevalley]

23. aw. so cute. SNIFFLE!

EDIT: Better call Optimus Prime. He can go get them. Widdow babies. SNIFFLE!

[myrna minx]

2. I cannot believe how long they lasted.

They are such amazing machines.

[BridgeTheGap]

3. Job well done! n.t

[Lance_Boyle]

4. obligatory xkcd

http://xkcd.com/695/

[Statistical]

8. Got to love xkcd.

Wonder if when man finally goes to another planet (decade, century, millennium from now) if we will ever find the rovers?

[ReverendDeuce]

5. I posted the morning of landing six years ago, and got TORE A NEW ONE by DU...

All of the replies were anti-NASA, condemning me for supporting "money-wasting space exploration"...

Glad to see things have changed!

[ChairmanAgnostic]

32. why the deuce would anyone bitch about progress, science, and space

investigation, Reverend?

[ReverendDeuce]

35. No idea... I was thunderously attacked by many for supporting the Space program...

They attacked for a variety of reasons...

1. Rockets burn fuel and are dirty.
2. Money should go to feed the homeless instead.
3. Money should go to single-payer health care instead.
4. Money should be spent building new schools.
etc.

I suppose items 3 and 4 are noble enough, but damn -- NASA's budget is so meager as it is. I'd love to give NASA a 10x funding increase, cut military spending in half, and use the remainder to pay for the rest.

But no, it's far easier to attack NASA because NASA doesn't sell explosions or sandwiches. NASA sells a dream.

[SidDithers]

41. 'Cause this is DU...

where anti-science is worn as a badge of honour by some posters. Re-read the "bomb the moon" threads for hilarity and despair.

Sid

[Toasterlad]

6. ARE THEY JUST GOING TO LET IT DIE???

NASA bastards! Why aren't they sending a rescue team??? Shows you how much loyalty and hard work is valued by NASA! Monsters!

[Xithras]

7. Spirit is little more than an observation & weather monitoring post now anyway.

It's been stuck for nearly a year, and NASA officially gave up on it ever moving again several months ago. Even if the rover does manage to power itself back up again and reestablish communications, there is very little real research it can do at this point.

Hopefully Opportunity's operators can keep it away from soft sand, so it can keep operating for several more years.

[localroger]

10. They actually have high hopes

If Spirit stays alive one big plan is to use it to investigate the Martian core by making very precise measurements of the radio signal transit times. It turns out that this can reveal a lot of details about the interior of the planet, and it only works if the monitoring platform stays in one place, so it's not research that could be done while the rover was roving.

[KG]

9. it's time for NASA to retool from expensive manned exploration to robotics.

multiple missions to other planets and their satellites for the price of a manned mars mission.

[Warren DeMontague]

15. NASA gets fractions of a penny on the Federal dollar. And we can have both.

The Apollo landings weren't just flag planting. They were responsible for some real science that robots still wouldn't be able to do. Nothing can replace having a human's judgment and exploratory decision-making in real time. Plus, many of us believe that mankind's destiny is beyond this planet. Like it or not, we will not all just stay here forever.

That said, the robots have done some outstanding work as well, and continue to do so. We wouldn't be sending people to Pluto any time soon, but we've got a robot passing by there in 2016.

[Statistical]

18. Some people can't see the big picture.

If mankind remains confined to a single fragile rock eventually (given enough time) mankind will go extinct.
It is only a matter of time before an extinction level event occurs.



Our earth is extremely fragile. There have been multiple events in the past where a significant % of lifeforms alive at that time went extinct.

While man is resourceful something are beyond our ability to survive. An asteroid 12km simlar to K-T event would either extinct mankind or push back civilization a couple thousands years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Tertiary_extinction_event



It isn't a matter of if it is a matter of when. 10 years from now, 1000 years, 100,000 year, 2 billion? Eventually something will happen to our biosphere that causes mass extinction. A even so cataclysmic it makes climate change look like a day in the park.

Mankind needs to be off this rock when that happens.

[KittyWampus]

19. So? An asteroid MAY someday send humans back to the stone age. Reductionists

are all for Evolution except when it interferes with their own fantasies.

Sending humans into space to live and breed and colonize is a fantasy as foolish as believing in a god living in the clouds.

IMO, much of it comes from watching too much Star Trek.

The Earth isn't fragile. Humans as we are now evolved with Earth and belong to it. Civilizations have risen and fallen into dust countless times before. That is Life. And Earth will continue one way or other with some form of Life or other into the vast future.

I suggest any money spent on fantasies of space colonization come from private sectors.

[Odin2005]

22. 100 years ago they thought manned space filight would never happen.

Never say "it can't happen, or "it's just a fantasy".

[Fumesucker]

24. No civilization before now has used up the available resources like we have..

If we get "sent back to the stone age" again, we might not have the wherewithal to climb back up once more, the easily reached natural resources to build another civilization are long since used up.

How would we begin another high energy civilization without easily reachable fossil fuels? It's not at all clear that a civilization can go straight from firewood to nuclear, solar or some other form of high tech energy without the intermediate stage of fossil fuels like coal, natural gas and oil.

[Cleobulus]

29. Forget the "stone age" argument, any disaster that can destroy our technological civilization...

will make our species extinct, there wouldn't even be humans to rebuild after that.

[Cleobulus]

28. What the hell are you talking about?

Humans have evolved on Earth over the past 100,000 years, for about 6,000 of those years, we had civilization, and to be honest, we have been lucky so far, it doesn't even have to be a catastrophic single event that can kill us off, it could be climate change, nuclear war, etc. The Earth itself isn't fragile, and life in general isn't, but Human Beings as a species sure as hell is.

If you say that space colonization is a fantasy, then Human Beings are going to go extinct sometime in the future. No definite date, but even the Earth won't last forever.

[Greyhound]

31. No, read it again. Someday an asteroid WILL hit the earth, again.

There is no maybe, it will with 100% certainty happen, and WHEN it does, if we are still thrashing around in the mud, killing each other for the biggest pile of shit, we will all end, forever. Everything we've ever done, known, created, learned will be for nothing because it will all be gone.

It's one thing to turn your back on the starts when you think that they're the home of the Gods or evil demons out to ruin your crops, but when you've learned of your real position in the universe and still ignore it... well, Darwin figured it out.

[KittyWampus]

20. Totally agree. The benefits to human society will come with ever better optics, robotics

sent into space.

For the money flushed down the toilet sending humans up, we could be sending Rovers on a regular basis all over the universe.

Not to mention the money that should be channeled into Deep Sea exploration.

[Warren DeMontague]

26. You don't agree with me. I support both a vigorous manned AND unmanned space program.

If we need to save money, we can start by ending the drug war.

[PVnRT]

33. The farther out we send rovers, the longer it takes

for humans at the control center to respond to anything. The most you can do is pre-program a course and hope you see something. A human can see something and investigate immediately. That's the difference.

[Greyhound]

30. Hear, hear!

I'm fear it is not to be, however. The dunderheads have grunted and the corporations are lining up to feast on the carcass.

[PVnRT]

34. ...and some people in this thread want corporations to do the space exploration

Nothing bad could possibly come of that, of course.

[harun]

39. Agree, I thought with the success of this mission we would start rolling

out all sorts of probes for Mars to put rovers all over the place. Instead B*sh started with the manned stuff. Which he started only to be able to take credit for it, anyway it is too bad politics ruins a lot of good missions NASA could be doing. We should already be all over Jupiter's moon's. So much potential to what could be there.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

11. self delete

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. So much for change, Mr. Obama.

[LLStarks]

27. SPIRIT HAS BEEN TRAPPED IN A PIT FOR ALMOST A YEAR. This is no surprise. nt

[Festivito]

13. That thing is beautiful. Thanks guys. /nt

[Brickbat]

14. Thank you, NASA, and everyone involved. What a wonderful project. Well done, Rover!

[Warren DeMontague]

16. It's worth remembering, the operational lifespan for those guys was 30 days.

Who says Americans can't build anything, anymore?

Hats off to the gang at JPL and the rovers themselves. Truly stunning stuff.

[thelordofhell]

17. Where's the Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator when you need her?

:cry: :cry: :cry:

[Odin2005]

21. RIP, Spirit! You did good!

:cry:

[comrade snarky]

25. That'll do, rover

That'll do...

[Tailormyst]

36. /mourn

Thank you for all the wonderful pictures.

[bridgit]

37. Ah Man! I'm gonna miss that little guy, he took a lick'n & kept on tick'n till he stopped...

http://marsrover.nasa.gov/gallery/video/movies/RoverAnimPart2.mov

[NeedleCast]

38. Probably Destroyed by Decepticons

Fucking Decepticons...

Seriously though, I'll miss Spirit. Just goes to show what good engineering can do. The Mars rovers have sent back a wealth of information and some truly beautiful images from The Red Planent. Hopefully Spirit will wake up but if not, I bid her a warm farewell.

[lunatica]

40. I hope a new set of batteries will jump start it all over again

Wall-E must have been drawn from the Spirit Rover.

[fishbulb703]

42. Exceptional work from the guys at NASA. This is where our money should go, not M16s.

[SidDithers]

43. What an amazing piece of engineering...

The little rover done good. :hi:

Sid

[Javaman]

44. Our own little WALL-E. :) nt