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Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission
- bitxbitxbitcoin 8y agoFare thee well.
- triptych 8y agoSeems like they could just send a drone to go wipe off the solar panels...
- craftyguy 8y agoSeems like you might not understand how hard it is to get to Mars, and land safely. (Hint: it's very hard.)
- TaylorAlexander 8y agoWith so much of the planet to explore, it may not be worth it compared to sending a new vehicle somewhere else.
- thomasfortes 8y agoSteve Squyres from Cornell answered something kinda related on the jpl channel today[0]. "If you had the opportunity to bring a hundred and eighty kilograms of stuff back from the surface of Mars, the last thing I wanna bring is something I know exactly what is made of." Opportunity did her mission amazingly and is resting in peace in the place where she was designed to be. We learned a lot from her and her sister mission, now, the effort is better spent building over their shoulders. [0] https://youtu.be/cnddzE4YSzg?t=4045 https://youtu.be/cnddzE4YSzg?t=4045
- ceejayoz 8y agoI do hope some future Mars colony goes and collects it for the Martian wing of the Smithsonian, though.
- yellowapple 8y agoNo. We're going to build museums - and cities - around the rovers, and the cities will be named after the rovers.
- athenot 8y agoI'm reminded of this entry in the wikiwiki: "Just" is a dangerous word. http://wiki.c2.com/?JustIsaDangerousWord http://wiki.c2.com/?JustIsaDangerousWord
- escapecharacter 8y agoI recall having a chat with someone with a poor understanding of chemistry, and they asked why we couldn't "just have tiny robots take the carbon dioxide and turn it back into gasoline again"
- unimpressive 8y agoDid you tell them we're trying that and algae can only sink so much carbon? ;)
- jackhack 8y agoI think it's safe to say that person had a poor understanding of a lot of things, not just chemistry.
- ceejayoz 8y agoNo. Once it gets too cold, sensitive parts start to break. Opportunity's movement served, in part, to keep it warm enough to continue functioning.
- sneakernets 8y agoIt'll buff out.
- buboard 8y agolike, with a cloth or something? (sorry)
- mudil 8y agohttps://outline.com/L2pyN4 https://outline.com/L2pyN4
- buboard 8y agoSelf driving terraforming robots would be an excellent testbed for AI technologies. What is the reason for pushing humans again?
- colordrops 8y agoThe discussion around humans vs robots in space in historically deep conversation with scientific, technical, and philosophical aspects. Do not simply brush it off without understanding the context.
- buboard 8y agothat doesnt answer my question
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- anyfoo 8y agoAI doesn't work nearly as well as you seem to think it does. For something as excruciatingly difficult as a space mission, humans have proven to be well up to the task. The headline of this article here is one illustrative data point. Furthermore, many methods that are currently classified as "AI" act because of very complex and often opaque emergent behavior, and we often have a hard time (or don't know at all) why a CNN for example behaves as it does, or even how exactly it behaves. Do you want something that you neither understand nor can predict to perform a crucial job in your space mission?
- vkou 8y agoIf space exploration were a robot-first, robot-only affair, we would probably have cheaper, better, far more capable robots today... And also more humans in space then the 3 that currently occupy the ISS.
- 8y ago
- gibolt 8y agoScott Manley has some interesting tidbits, as always https://youtu.be/w2oFtu_KAbI https://youtu.be/w2oFtu_KAbI
- lykr0n 8y agoEnd of an era. We'll meet Opportunity again one day. Same thing happened with Cassini. It's kinda poetic to see these outposts of Humanity's reach fade out after a sublime performance.
- pjmlp 8y agoMore interesting would be when someone else from another species finds them in a couple of million years in the future and wonders what their purpose was all about.
- michaelbuckbee 8y agoCassini was deliberately pushed into Saturn's atmosphere and destroyed (so as not to potentially contaminate habitable worlds) so we probably don't need to worry about that. Also, there's a great documentary TV series called "7 Days Out" on Netflix which covers the last week of the Cassini mission.
- bad_alloc 8y agoIf found in the current state, I'd speculate they'd conclude it's a planetary explorer: * Lots of sensors * Lots of communcation equipment * No external controls * Parts built without maitenance access * Solar power * Found on a mostly empty planet, with only a few other rovers around * A planet next door littered with similar technology
- ragebol 8y ago
- FullMetalBitch 8y agoAnd it will never be forgotten.
- sneakernets 8y agoDon't give up just yet, guys! Get one of the new rovers to find some water on mars, take a microfiber cloth...maybe a squeegee...
- pooya13 8y agoAnd it was supposed to last 90 days...
- dogma1138 8y agoIt wasn’t supposed to last only 90 days, the initial mission specifications were for a 90 day mission. While it’s an engineering marvel no one thought that it would last only 90 days if it successfully landed and deployed, the 90 days was a minimum figure for the design and also the initial operating budget for the mission.
- blhack 8y agoI too get annoyed at seeing this fun fact. It's really hard to engineer something that will last 90 days. It's much easier to overbuilld it, which fulfills the requirement of 90 days. It was designed to last as long as possible within the given weight and size budget.
- dogma1138 8y agoYep one of the reasons that it lasted so long was that it was too small for an RTG so as long as it the solar panels were still somewhat intact it could operate even if the battery would essentially be completely dead. The 90 day figure is simply the time period for which NASA asked for money to operate the thing no one is going to ask for 2, 5 not to mention 15 years worth of operating budget you usually get a few months at the time and extend it based on your needs.
- wycy 8y agoI get annoyed seeing this fact too, but if it makes the general public feel goodwill towards NASA and improves public perception of our space program, I guess it's okay in the scheme of things.
- RidingPegasus 8y agoThe effects of dust buildup on solar panels was largely unknown though. Many expected power to slowly dwindle away over a short period of time. Turns out the panels clean themselves with enough wind.
- speeq 8y agohttps://xkcd.com/1504/ https://xkcd.com/1504/
- msoucy 8y agoAnd the related follow-up: https://xkcd.com/2111/ https://xkcd.com/2111/
- trykondev 8y agoThis one always breaks my heart: https://xkcd.com/695/ https://xkcd.com/695/ (It's about Spirit, not Opportunity, but still).
- thomasfortes 8y agoSome people weren't happy, so... (fan made) https://i.imgur.com/VbKV9DF.jpg https://i.imgur.com/VbKV9DF.jpg
- rlv-dan 8y agoMe too, every time
- slg 8y agoOpportunity's and Spirit's original missions were planned to last 90 Martian days each. They ended up lasting over 8,000 combined. That is almost as impressive as getting the rovers to Mars in the first place.
- hart_russell 8y agoIt's a testament to the engineering excellence happening at NASA.
- Will_Parker 8y agoAlso a testament to the value of under-promising. :)
- sizzzzlerz 8y agoThen that was the mother of all under-promises!
- LifeLiverTransp 8y agoIf they make it over 9000 days, they can state the just did a error on the exponent
- Simon_says 8y agoThen the units would be time squared. That doesn’t make any sense!
- mattkrause 8y agoNah, just use scientific notation: 9e1 vs 9e3 days.
- Simon_says 8y ago
- gus_massa 8y agoRelevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1504/ https://xkcd.com/1504/
- Shelnutt2 8y agoToday's https://xkcd.com/2111/ https://xkcd.com/2111/
- Crosseye_Jack 8y agoI’m still not convinced that it died but rather it cut ties with us...
- sanj 8y agoIs it possible for someone other than NASA to send a message to the rover? I'd be happy throwing a little money at a project to ping it monthly to see if there is a response.
- ChuckMcM 8y agoYes and unlikely :-) The protocols are all documented but the ability to receive signals from the rover requires a pretty sensitive receiver and antenna combination. If you have the resources to build a 10m or 15m steerable radio antenna parabolic dish then you could probably manage it.
- jacquesm 8y agoThat can't be that expensive unless you want it to be storm proofed. But it wouldn't be super cheap either, the receiver is probably going to be a bigger problem. http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/dish-antenna-building.htm http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/dish-antenna-building.htm Would be a good starting point. But keeping it stable under wind load is going to be the major challenge. That would be one heck of a project, it would likely take a few years of your time to pull it off.
- ChuckMcM 8y agoThis quora answer (https://www.quora.com/What-bands-signals-and-protocols-are-used-in-the-communication-from-the-Mars-rovers-satellites-to-Earths-NASA-ISRO-and-other-agencies https://www.quora.com/What-bands-signals-and-protocols-are-u...) claims that even the 70m DSN antennas have a hard time hearing the rover to earth transmissions. That is 10x the diameter so 1000x the surface area of a 4.8m dish like the one the guy built. That said, there are no doubt interesting hacks you can do to help this but steerability is always going to be a concern to maximize the SNR of the very weak signal coming from the rover.
- jacquesm 8y agoYes, the precision required would be insane. That is also what makes this an interesting project, even if you fail you will still learn a ton about all kinds of engineering principles. Expensive lesson though! Another big factor would likely be how far Mars is away from Earth, at the close extreme it will probably be substantially easier to pull this off. What an interesting article by the way, thank you for that link.
- deusofnull 8y agoRIP we will never forget you.
- wiremine 8y agoWas looking through Opportunity's Wikipedia page, and found this cool comparison of the embedded systems used in Mars rovers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_embedded_computer_systems_on_board_the_Mars_rovers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_embedded_compute... That lead me to the RAD6000 page, which was new to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RAD6000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RAD6000 "Reported to have a unit cost somewhere between US$200,000 and US$300,000, RAD6000 computers were released for sale in the general commercial market in 1996" Anybody know why the per unit cost is so high? Low yields or is it that much more expensive?
- monocasa 8y agoLow sales, meaning the R&D cost (which'll be higher than a non rad hard chip anyway) can't be as easily amortized. And probably half of it is or so is just the .gov markup.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- p1necone 8y agoI would assume the kinds of use cases that people might need radiation hardened equipment for just have people willing to spend much more money. They're charging what people are willing to pay, not how much it costs to make.
- kayfox 8y agoLow yields, low volume, high development cost, high certification costs, strict QA. Vorago makes a cheaper option these days at $800 a chip: https://www.voragotech.com/products/va10820-radiation-hardened-arm®-cortex®-m0-mcu https://www.voragotech.com/products/va10820-radiation-harden...
- justin66 8y agoThey're not comparable chips. The RAD6000 has a thousand times more RAM, for starters.
- 8y ago
- zaarn 8y agoI'm really sad that the mission is over, it was an amazing piece of hardware! Thanks Opportunity, for all the knowledge you gave us. Thanks for the amazing pictures you sent us. Rest in Peace.
- duxup 8y agoIt was such an amazing mission and it went so well. The idea that we send a robot to another planet and it drives around for that long still astounds me.
- tannhaeuser 8y agoI'm feeling humbled by NASA's achievements compared to those of our profession here wrt sustainability and longevity.
- Entangled 8y agoI built some warehousing apps in VFP 20 years ago and they're still running fine. Every time I go ship something the owner asks me to prune and reindex the DB and that's it, another year running smooth.
- nobleach 8y agoCA Clipper app that I updated to Visual Fox Pro back in 1998 is still chugging along running an oil company's accounts payable/receivable.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoOpportunity is going to be the standard for longevity that all future rovers are measured against until one surpasses it. If you said you expected a rover to last 5yr in 2004 you'd have been called crazy. Here we are in 2019 and after ~15yr of Opportunity driving around up there the idea of rover lasting 5yr or seems perfectly normal. Opportunity has raised the bar for all future missions.
- brandonjm 8y agoCuriosity is doing well at about 6.5 years and had a 2 year mission but it probably won't stay fully operational that long. Its RTG could last that long but it will eventually stop producing enough power for the rover to move.
- Timothycquinn 8y agoPlease have one minute of silence to remember this wonderful machine that gave us all so much... Kudos to all those who contributed to make this such an overwhelming success. Science FTW.
- slowhand09 8y agoEarth minute or Martian minute?
- Timothycquinn 8y agoExcellent question. I assumed that one mars minute differs from an earth minute but I just learned that they don't. Seconds, minutes and hours are universal. Hours in a day is what varies by planets, moons etc. Funny that I never thought of that before :)
- jordz 8y agoSurely this is effected by relativity? Edit: Or rather should I say it’s relative... (lol?)
- Evidlo 8y agoIt just depends on what your definition of a Martian minute is. If you define it as 1/(24*60) of a Martian day, it is different from an Earth minute.
- m3at 8y agoYou're likely joking, but just in case: on earth the second is not defined as a fraction of the day, it's a SI unit defined as a constant count of energy level variations of an caesium-133 atom.
- justinator 8y agoWhat came first, the definition/concept/time span of a second, or the discovery of the Caesium-133 atom?
- perfmode 8y agoHow much money would you pay me if I were to travel to Mars, find it, and bring it home?
- Jetroid 8y agoI'd argue that Opportunity is already home...
- perfmode 8y agoFair. I'm embarrassed to have been so presumptuous.
- the6threplicant 8y agoAs one of the PIs said at the NASA briefing. If you can bring Opportunity home I'll prefer if you bring back 180kg of Mars rocks. We already know what the rover is made of. :)
- yellowapple 8y agoBetter yet: humanity's mission should be to find Opportunity (and Spirit) and clean off the solar panels :)
- mrwnmonm 8y agoSeriously, what is the point of space exploration anyway? and what if we found water on Mars? shouldn't it be a huge amount of water to support life?
- agildehaus 8y agoWe've found water on Mars, but we've also found ancient river and lake beds, deltas, and minerals that can only be found in water on areas of Mars where no water currently exists. We wouldn't know any of that without having gone there to explore it. By learning about the mechanisms behind why Mars went from water-rich planet to its current state, we learn more about what could happen us, its closest neighbor. There also remains the possibility Mars could currently harbor life, or once did and there's evidence of that to uncover. Mars represents our best chance of finding direct evidence of extraterrestrial life. Please try to have a richer view of this.
- sandis 8y agoCCC talk on Curiosity rover onboard computers, for those interested - https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9783-the_mars_rover_on-board_computer https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9783-the_mars_rover_on-board_com... (different rover, different CPU - RAD750 instead of RAD6000 that's on Opportunity)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- rdl 8y agoIt will be interesting to go visit this in person in 10-20 years.
- aspectmin 8y agoSteven Squyres, the Principal Scientist of the program came to Microsoft to give a talk. One of the best talks I’ve been to. So many interesting tidbits like the parts about the rovers expected short lifetime due to the dust, and how (if I remember correctly) they fixed this by shaking the solar panels like wings. He talked about the rover drivers, and how they all had to live in special light cycle controlled buildings to get them used to working on Martian days vs. Earth (the extra hour adds up over time). He wrote a book, a worthy read. The printing I got had some amazing pictures in it: https://www.amazon.com/Roving-Mars-Spirit-Opportunity-Exploration-ebook/dp/B000FCKC9M/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550107198&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=steven+squyres&dpPl=1&dpID=41NPVsOJAKL&ref=plSrch https://www.amazon.com/Roving-Mars-Spirit-Opportunity-Explor... RIP Opportunity. An amazing testament to our need to explore.
- dbg31415 8y agoI was really fortunate to have him as an astronomy professor right around the time of the launch. He's great at making complex things easy to understand, and his enthusiasm is contagious. Highly recommend his book, but if you've only got an hour here's a good video conversation. * Roving Mars with Steve Squyres - Conversations with History - YouTube || https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI6KEzsb26U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI6KEzsb26U
- dba7dba 8y agoIn an IT industry magazine website (Information Week? not sure) had an article about an IT engineer at JPL who was picked/trained to be one of the drivers of the rovers. He was just a normal IT guy, but got the chance to be a driver for the rover. He recalled that the first night after he spent a day driving the rover on Mars, he couldn't sleep at home. He had just driven a vehicle on the Mars. Certainly one of the first in human history.
- teslaberry 8y agoit's ALL ABOUT POWER. the 800 pound gorilla is the lack of power IN martian orbit and moreso on the surface of mars. no nuclear reactor of any major size can be launched into orbit let alone deep space and solar panels get less powerful as you travel away from the sun. we can imagine a bunch of chemical energy technologies will be invented to be launched to mars and then reach its surface, but realistically a satellite with solar panels around venus can generate massive power , over 4.5 times the power of that satellite around mars according to basic solar irradiance calculations. and probably even more than that , people love the idea of touching down on a solid surface on mars, but why? especially when the prospects of launching heat tolerant robots to venus might open up a world of possibilities. i'd sooner believe longrun humans find a way to colonize a world with a tremendous amount of energy easily available to harness, than one without. and also, consider how much more of our attention mars has gotten than venus, isn't it maybe worth thinking about that venus might deserve some more attention , relatively speaking? http://em01.powweb.com/sciencetoday/solar_constants_%20planets.html http://em01.powweb.com/sciencetoday/solar_constants_%20plane... TABLE 2. Solar Irradiance at the Planets Planet Solar Irradiance, W/m-2 Mean Perihelion Aphelion Mercury 9116.4 14447.5 6271.1 Venus 2611.0 2646.4 2575.7 Earth 1366.1 1412.5 1321.7 Mars 588.6 715.9 491.7 Jupiter 50.5 55.7 45.9 Saturn 15.04 16.76 13.53 Uranus 3.72 4.11 3.37 Neptune 1.510 1.515 1.507 Pluto 0.878 1.571 0.560
- teslaberry 8y agolet's go to venus. satellites get almost 5 times more solar energy at venus than mars. and venus has been extremely neglected relative to mars as a target of study. the delta V to get to orbit around venus is about the same as mars. if future energy STOREAGE systems are improved dramatically, we can simply store more energy by being closer to the sun, so a mission to orbit venus would have a far easier time RETURNING to earth than an equivalent one to mars orbit, all things being equal. launching a substantial power source into space isn't happening anytime soon. http://em01.powweb.com/sciencetoday/solar_constants_%20planets.html http://em01.powweb.com/sciencetoday/solar_constants_%20plane...
- torpfactory 8y agoYou know the craziest thing about all of the mars exploration programs is to me? The first time there is an entire full-up test of the system is live, AT MARS. There isn't a good way to test the entire entry descent and landing sequence because the earth's atmosphere is so different than mars. I know NASA works hard to test parts of it in the vicinity of earth, but I can't imagine designing something so complicated (especially the system for curiosity) and then not being able to test it completely before the real thing.
- FrojoS 8y agoI've actually read, that the upper part of the atmosphere, where a returning Falcon 9 booster does retro burns to slow down, is similar to Mars (in terms of pressure I guess). edit: found a paper on the topic https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20170008725.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/201700... also: https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/spacex-has-already-demonstrated-its-key-mars-landing-tech-with-the-falcon-9/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/spacex-has-already-d...
- torpfactory 8y agoI had heard about them doing some study of using an inflatable heat shield and testing in earth's upper. I guess it could be used for Earth or Mars. Neat! Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojgDZZIsWA4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojgDZZIsWA4