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NASA's Curiosity rover: 3k days on Mars

279 points by ystad 6y ago

shadowfaxRodeo 6y ago
That's 3000 martian sols. So ~3090 earth days. 90 days more impressive than the headline suggests.
- dmurray 6y ago
  3000 day/night cycles, which are possibly more wearing on the equipment than the sheer passage of time.
  - messe 6y ago
    Probably less so for Curiosity than the other Martian rovers. It's powered by an RTG rather than solar panels, so the only difference between day and night is the temperature fluctuations, which is still significant.
    - anoncake 6y ago
      Do light fluctuations cause wear on solar panels?
      - madaxe_again 6y ago
        Panels wear slowly, but just from being hit by photons, blasted by dust, etc. - but that’s not the problem - batteries are. They don’t last forever, and every cycle takes a little out of their lifetime.
      - jccooper 6y ago
        Not really, but battery cycles and powering things on and off constantly does take a toll.
lambda_obrien 6y ago
I don't think I've lived in one place that long ever in my life. This is some amazing engineering, considering everything I own breaks after about 5 years.
- tokai 6y ago
  >considering everything I own breaks after about 5 years. Brilliant people are working hard to make that happen.
  - jrockway 6y ago
    What kind of stuff do you guys have that breaks? Sometimes I wish my stuff broke so I could upgrade it guilt-free, but it just doesn't happen. I have to find some unwilling victim to donate it to so it doesn't end up in a landfill. The only thing I own that's broken in recent memory is this duvet cover I bought in 2008 that I've used every night since then... it developed some big holes after 13 years and I threw it away. None of my tools, computer parts, furniture, etc. have broken. I've honestly never even broken a mobile phone, though I have dropped them a couple times. I agree that computers from 10 years ago kind of suck when asked to run modern software. That's not "planned obsolescence", that's more like "software engineers made more complicated stuff more quickly; the downside is that you need a new $300 CPU instead of a decade-old $300 CPU". I'm okay with that.
    - lambda_obrien 6y ago
      I wasn't being too serious, but you're correct, usually things age out for other reasons, like old WiFi access points becoming obsolete or shoes getting worn, and the occasional cheap electronic crap from some startup that outsourced to China's lowest bidder.
- pearjuice 6y ago
  Planned obsolescence is also amazing engineering if you think about it.
mabbo 6y ago
It still blows my mind how they landed that rover on Mars. Heat shield to use the atmosphere to aerobreak. Then it opened the largest hypersonic parachute ever to slow it down further (dropping the heat shield after it opened). Then eventually it cut off the parachute, turned on rockets, and flew sideways so that it didn't run back into the parachute. THEN, to avoid spitting up too much dust during landing, it lowered the rover on a 21 foot tether down to the surface, while hovering above it, before flying away to crash somewhere safe.[0] It's so ridiculous you'd think it came from a movie. And it worked. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Curiosity%27s_Seven_Minutes_of_Terror.ogv https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Curiosity%27s_Seven_Minut...
- parhamn 6y ago
  Great point. In a weird way it makes the whole relanding the boosters thing SpaceX did seem like it was obviously within the realm of our capabilities if we were ambitious enough. And it makes their next goal of 'catching rockets' seem less ridiculous too.
  - Sharlin 6y ago
    It was always within capacity, the question was just whether it made sense economically compared to dumb boosters. SpaceX was always an extremely-high-stakes gamble that did happen to pay off in the end.
    - mlyle 6y ago
      Yup. There were plans to give the Shuttle flyback boosters at various points, but each time it was thought it wouldn't pay off.
      - blackrock 6y ago
        It seems the Space Shuttle’s orange fuel tank should’ve been a flyback booster. It’s fuel was connected to the shuttle main engines via a tube. And the main engines were useless in space, once the tank was de-staged. The tank burned up in the atmosphere. But it would’ve been nice if it flew back and landed instead.
monocasa 6y ago
Shoutout to Dr. Kathryn Weiss's great conference talk on Curiosity's Flight Software Architecture. I know of at least one other high availability robotic system that took a lot of inspiration from it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jVt5vb68xA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jVt5vb68xA
yig 6y ago
Is there a New Year's Day on Mars?
- mbrubeck 6y ago
  Mars scientists have a convention that the year starts at L_s = 0°, which is the vernal equinox in Mars’s northern hemisphere. The next Martian new year by this convention starts on Earth date 2021-02-07, and lasts through 2022-12-25 (Christmas day!).
  - nickserv 6y ago
    Interesting that they didn't go with what we base it in Western society, essentially the winter solstice. That said I've always thought the vernal equinox makes more sense.
tambeb 6y ago
I recommend the stop motion video of the final two and a half minutes of the descent. Even with its low quality I think it's absolutely mind boggling because you're seeing the actual event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZVUKyFNDik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZVUKyFNDik
- myself248 6y ago
  And somehow it managed to have LESS shaky-cam than the official animation.
trestenhortz 6y ago
This book is written by Steven Squyres, the principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. I got at as a Christmas present and didn’t expect much but it turned out to be one of the best books I have read: https://www.amazon.com.au/Roving-Mars-Steve-Squyres/dp/1401308511 https://www.amazon.com.au/Roving-Mars-Steve-Squyres/dp/14013...
- jcurbo 6y ago
  There's also this book by Emily Lakdawalla, "The Design and Engineering of Curiosity" https://www.amazon.com/Design-Engineering-Curiosity-Performs-Springer/dp/3319681443 https://www.amazon.com/Design-Engineering-Curiosity-Performs...
peter303 6y ago
Several years back NASA issued a warning on the slow progress of this mission. Their main objective was to traverse the sedimentary layers up Mt. Sharp. They havent really begun the climb yet. A long, dangerous sand dune caused a couple year delay. Plus lots of investigative stops along the way. The power will last 20 years. The wheels are damaged from being too thin. If funding becomes tight, other missions will have precedence. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/09/04/nasa-hurls-insults-at-curiosity-the-worlds-favorite-rover/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2...
walty8 6y ago
It's for another rover, but I can't help thinking about it :) https://xkcd.com/1504/ https://xkcd.com/1504/
pachico 6y ago
Sorry for the unrelated question but, do those who doubt men walked on the moon doubt about rovers in Mars too? I'm honestly asking.

279 points by ystad 6y ago

shadowfaxRodeo 6y ago

That's 3000 martian sols. So ~3090 earth days. 90 days more impressive than the headline suggests.

dmurray 6y ago
3000 day/night cycles, which are possibly more wearing on the equipment than the sheer passage of time.
- messe 6y ago
  Probably less so for Curiosity than the other Martian rovers. It's powered by an RTG rather than solar panels, so the only difference between day and night is the temperature fluctuations, which is still significant.
  - anoncake 6y ago
    Do light fluctuations cause wear on solar panels?
    - madaxe_again 6y ago
      Panels wear slowly, but just from being hit by photons, blasted by dust, etc. - but that’s not the problem - batteries are. They don’t last forever, and every cycle takes a little out of their lifetime.
    - jccooper 6y ago
      Not really, but battery cycles and powering things on and off constantly does take a toll.

lambda_obrien 6y ago

I don't think I've lived in one place that long ever in my life. This is some amazing engineering, considering everything I own breaks after about 5 years.

tokai 6y ago
>considering everything I own breaks after about 5 years. Brilliant people are working hard to make that happen.
- jrockway 6y ago
  What kind of stuff do you guys have that breaks? Sometimes I wish my stuff broke so I could upgrade it guilt-free, but it just doesn't happen. I have to find some unwilling victim to donate it to so it doesn't end up in a landfill. The only thing I own that's broken in recent memory is this duvet cover I bought in 2008 that I've used every night since then... it developed some big holes after 13 years and I threw it away. None of my tools, computer parts, furniture, etc. have broken. I've honestly never even broken a mobile phone, though I have dropped them a couple times. I agree that computers from 10 years ago kind of suck when asked to run modern software. That's not "planned obsolescence", that's more like "software engineers made more complicated stuff more quickly; the downside is that you need a new $300 CPU instead of a decade-old $300 CPU". I'm okay with that.
  - lambda_obrien 6y ago
    I wasn't being too serious, but you're correct, usually things age out for other reasons, like old WiFi access points becoming obsolete or shoes getting worn, and the occasional cheap electronic crap from some startup that outsourced to China's lowest bidder.
pearjuice 6y ago
Planned obsolescence is also amazing engineering if you think about it.

mabbo 6y ago

It still blows my mind how they landed that rover on Mars. Heat shield to use the atmosphere to aerobreak. Then it opened the largest hypersonic parachute ever to slow it down further (dropping the heat shield after it opened). Then eventually it cut off the parachute, turned on rockets, and flew sideways so that it didn't run back into the parachute. THEN, to avoid spitting up too much dust during landing, it lowered the rover on a 21 foot tether down to the surface, while hovering above it, before flying away to crash somewhere safe.[0] It's so ridiculous you'd think it came from a movie. And it worked. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Curiosity%27s_Seven_Minutes_of_Terror.ogv https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Curiosity%27s_Seven_Minut...

parhamn 6y ago
Great point. In a weird way it makes the whole relanding the boosters thing SpaceX did seem like it was obviously within the realm of our capabilities if we were ambitious enough. And it makes their next goal of 'catching rockets' seem less ridiculous too.
- Sharlin 6y ago
  It was always within capacity, the question was just whether it made sense economically compared to dumb boosters. SpaceX was always an extremely-high-stakes gamble that did happen to pay off in the end.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    Yup. There were plans to give the Shuttle flyback boosters at various points, but each time it was thought it wouldn't pay off.
    - blackrock 6y ago
      It seems the Space Shuttle’s orange fuel tank should’ve been a flyback booster. It’s fuel was connected to the shuttle main engines via a tube. And the main engines were useless in space, once the tank was de-staged. The tank burned up in the atmosphere. But it would’ve been nice if it flew back and landed instead.

monocasa 6y ago

Shoutout to Dr. Kathryn Weiss's great conference talk on Curiosity's Flight Software Architecture. I know of at least one other high availability robotic system that took a lot of inspiration from it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jVt5vb68xA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jVt5vb68xA

yig 6y ago

Is there a New Year's Day on Mars?

mbrubeck 6y ago
Mars scientists have a convention that the year starts at L_s = 0°, which is the vernal equinox in Mars’s northern hemisphere. The next Martian new year by this convention starts on Earth date 2021-02-07, and lasts through 2022-12-25 (Christmas day!).
- nickserv 6y ago
  Interesting that they didn't go with what we base it in Western society, essentially the winter solstice. That said I've always thought the vernal equinox makes more sense.

tambeb 6y ago

I recommend the stop motion video of the final two and a half minutes of the descent. Even with its low quality I think it's absolutely mind boggling because you're seeing the actual event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZVUKyFNDik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZVUKyFNDik

myself248 6y ago
And somehow it managed to have LESS shaky-cam than the official animation.

trestenhortz 6y ago

This book is written by Steven Squyres, the principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. I got at as a Christmas present and didn’t expect much but it turned out to be one of the best books I have read: https://www.amazon.com.au/Roving-Mars-Steve-Squyres/dp/1401308511 https://www.amazon.com.au/Roving-Mars-Steve-Squyres/dp/14013...

jcurbo 6y ago
There's also this book by Emily Lakdawalla, "The Design and Engineering of Curiosity" https://www.amazon.com/Design-Engineering-Curiosity-Performs-Springer/dp/3319681443 https://www.amazon.com/Design-Engineering-Curiosity-Performs...

peter303 6y ago

Several years back NASA issued a warning on the slow progress of this mission. Their main objective was to traverse the sedimentary layers up Mt. Sharp. They havent really begun the climb yet. A long, dangerous sand dune caused a couple year delay. Plus lots of investigative stops along the way. The power will last 20 years. The wheels are damaged from being too thin. If funding becomes tight, other missions will have precedence. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/09/04/nasa-hurls-insults-at-curiosity-the-worlds-favorite-rover/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2...

walty8 6y ago

It's for another rover, but I can't help thinking about it :) https://xkcd.com/1504/ https://xkcd.com/1504/

pachico 6y ago

Sorry for the unrelated question but, do those who doubt men walked on the moon doubt about rovers in Mars too? I'm honestly asking.