A Mars Odyssey

Despite the various age-related problems, John Callas of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, US, is optimistic about the future of the rovers. “I’m planning to keep these rovers going for years more,” he says. “They’re still very effective robotic geologists. We’re going into the next Martian winter with more dust than we’ve ever had on [Spirit's] solar arrays,” Callas says. “We think it will survive, but it’s going to be close.”

NASA has suspended its work on Mars involving Opportunity’s rock grinding tool, in addition to its infrared spectrometer as engineers attempt to repair the little rover. Nearly four years old, the original plan of lasting only 90 days has went way beyond the life expectancy of the two NASA rovers, Opportunity and Spirit.

The NASA rover team had been working on an encoder that monitors the brush on Opportunity that clears away the rock dust produced by the grinder. When the rover team had been working on this problem, they accidentally rotated the brush the wrong way which resulted in bending the bristles. Since they do not know if the rover can work in this condition, they are beginning testing of Opportunity to make sure it is safe to work with bent brushes. Of course, problems with the red Martian dust has always been a problem, and is hindering the repair jobs. The suspended use of Opportunity’s miniature infrared spectrometer is in effect due to the dust, with NASA hoping to jiggle the effected part of the rover enough to remove it. But other than that, its other cameras and instruments are working well.

Both of the twin rovers have been experiencing encoder problems on their rock grinding tools, a part which tells their computers whether the grind head is moving or not. The purpose of the grinding tool is to study the Martian rocks’ interior by cutting away the surface. Opportunity has been developing slightly more problems as it had developed an “arthritic” instrumental arm in November of 2005. The motor of its shoulder joint had degraded over time, not producing as much torque as it was supposed to. Its right front wheel has also become injured—still able to spin, but since April of 2005 it has not been able to turn in different directions, allowing the rover to make different turns. The driving aspect is still good, because the other front wheel and two back wheels are able to swivel.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 10:59 am and is filed under Mission Objectives, Space Agency News, Technical Concerns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.