Thanks to Asa and Martian Soil for links to these stories.
JPL/NASA Press release (4 June) about the Okay To Go In Yesterday's (8 June) press release has more on the strategy.
The strategy for driving on the crater's inner slope is to keep wheels on rock surfaces instead of sand, said JPL rover-mobility engineer Randy Lindemann. The team ran trials with a test rover on a surface specifically built to simulate Karatepe's surface conditions. "The tests indicate we have a substantial margin of safety for going up a rocky slope of 25 degrees," Lindemann said. Opportunity's observations from the rim at the top of the planned entry route show a slope of less than 20 degrees.
Space.com: Wintering on the Red Planet. A recap of Spirit near Columbia Hills, Opportunity about to dive into Endurance Crater, and Wintering over.
I asked a question about "deep sleep" at the CalTech Mars presentation at the beginning of May. Mark Adler said that Earth's August and September are the months where winter sets in on Mars... the reduced hours of sunlight, and the lower sun in the sky means that sunlight is glancing off the solar panels about at 30 - 40 degree angle (rather than, say, a 90-degree directly overhead sort of angle). Also, Mars is farthest from the sun. The rovers can't get much of a charge to solar panels in that condition, so the engineers will put them into a kind of hibernation. Dust has been accumulating on the panels all this time, of course. The sun will move back as the Martian winter passes, but the dust will continue to accumulate.
Also, Pasadena Star News: Salt deposits (found by Spirit) shed light on planet's history. yes, and Opportunity's begun the journey in.
Although there is the possibility that Opportunity will not be able to climb back out of Endurance Crater, Naderi said, "If you want to study history, there are worse places to get stuck than a library,' which is virtually what the crater is to scientists.
Recent Comments