Free Spirit Update August 27, 2009

A Second Rover Rolls in Test Area.
JPL engineers are using a second, lighter rover to test maneuvers to Free Spirit.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Spirit
• Opportunity
• MER
• Mars
• rovers
• solar
• system
• NASA
• JPL
• space
• exploration
• astronomy

[JPLnews]

Dear raosn:

Here's an answer from Mars Rover Project Manager, John Callas:

There are phenomenon where gravity is important and others where the effects of gravity cancel out. We are doing testing with both an Earth-weight rover (400 lbs) and a Mars-weight rover (150 lbs) to differentiate those phenomenon that are effected by gravity from those that are not. Then, careful test analysis will allow us to apply those earth-bound test results to Spirit's situation on Mars.

[JPLnews]

Dear raosn:

The engineers have two vehicles they can use for testing: SSTB1*, a full-size replica of the rover with the same mass as Spirit (and therefore a higher weight on Earth than Spirit has on Mars); and SSTB Lite, a stripped down version of the rover that makes it similar to the weight of Spirit on Mars. When Opportunity was trapped in soft soil on Mars in 2005, engineers found SSTB1 better suited for the testing because both the vehicle and soil are subject to the same gravity vector.

[JPLnews]

Dear Darw1n1st :

Thanks for your comment.

Opportunity is doing just fine. As Ashley mentioned in her last update, Opportunity is studying a meteorite called "Block Island." It's mission manager reports, the rover is healthy and doing fine.

[j4shortee]

I wanna be a nasa engineer. Please hire me.

[raosn]

Thanks for the great videos on Spirit rover. One question when you are doing the maneuvers on earth how do you take into account the gravity part of the equation? Just curious.

[mariuszny]

There is a lot of movies on YT about women driving.

Poor Spirit.

[PlanetaryTV]

Looks great. I ended up doing this same update, releasing it yesterday. Great to see more footage. The difficult part is while Spirit might get traction, the weight of the soil on its wheels and the surrouding collapses soil may be too much strain on the wheel.

[setneg]

err...me too please