2020 Hindsight

Last weekend's JPL Open House: Now with pictures!

I've uploaded photos from the JPL open house, added more to the story and put it all in a page of its own: JPL Open House Report.

Report on last weekend's JPL Open House

Now with Bandwidth-crushing pictures! One Of These Days I'll post the pictures I took at last weekend's JPL Open House (the camera that shot them is not in my current possession).

I expanded my report a bit, added a buncha pictures, and moved the whole thing to its own page: JPL Open House Report

Spirit gets rebooted

Spirit mission manager Mark Adler says it wasn't much of a problem, and one day's productivity was lost (original mission plans called for many more unproductive days than Spirit's been having).

"It was just bad luck, just a weird off chance," he said from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

The rover's computer is programmed to "write-protect" its software unless a specific command is given to lift that protection to make a change, Adler explained. On Sunday, such a command was given as part of one software routine — but before the change could be written to the rover's memory, a different routine apparently put the write protection back in place.

"It caused the system to say, 'I can't write to that area, so this is a software problem I can't do anything about, so therefore I have to reboot,'" Adler explained. The reset canceled all the work sequences that had been stored on the computer, leaving Spirit idle for the rest of the day, he said.

Scrappleface gets it better, though:

(2004-05-18) -- Almost a day after phoning tech support to solve a software glitch, NASA's Mars Rover rebooted this morning and seems to be functioning normally.

Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, said the Rover dialed the tech support number for the vendor of its operating system software late Sunday night, but the automated phone system notified the Rover that "due to the unusually high call volume your estimated time on hold will be 72 hours, six minutes, 33 seconds." [Read More]

How Bush's new space policy actually ought to justify a Hubble mission

Rand Simberg looks at the CAIB report... which came out before the Bush new space policy announcement, and sees in the now-shortened life of the Shuttle program a justification for the Hubble repair mission.

While its critics are lambasting the agency for sacrificing Hubble on the altar of the new space policy, the new policy in fact would actually justify a Hubble mission. Consider--if it's no longer essential to maintain a three-orbiter fleet into the indefinite future, the two percent risk of losing an orbiter now looks small compared to the value of keeping Hubble going for several more years, until we can be assured of a worthy replacement. If, against the odds, we do lose another orbiter on that mission, the worst case is that it will simply take another couple of years to complete station, at which point we'll still shut down the fleet, if the new policy is to be believed.

So here's the policy disconnect.

We have one part of NASA (the Shuttle program) furiously running off to implement the recommendations of the CAIB, recommendations which were based on a circa-2003 policy made obsolete on January 14th, 2004, with apparently no recognition of the events of that date. We have another part of NASA desperately trying to implement the new, January policy.

Looking at Mars from Both Sides

Just back from the Caltech Management Association noontime program at Caltech, "Looking at Mars from Both Sides." Pete Theisinger, Richard Cook, Mark Adler, Rob Manning, and Joy Crisp. Took copious notes, which I'll transcribe as my other commitments allow.

Lots of war stories about challenges and obstacles overcome to get the rovers designed, built, launched, landed and running on the surface.

Joy Crisp talked about the science discoveries.

And.. there *was* a free lunch! (complete with a Mars candy bar with a custom-extra label with an image from the Mars Rover mission.)

Highlights from Joy Crisp, whose presentation concluded with the latest: on Friday, Opportunity arrived at the edge of Endurance Crater on Meridiani Planum, and sent back images. Go see them here (panorama and 3D red-blue) and here (detail shot).

Dr. Crisp (showing the latter image in her presentation): the crater is 30 meters deep and 130 meters across. At the top you can see the same kind of outcroppings as Opportunity encountered at Eagle Crater (where it landed). There are additional rocks below, those are older. Those deeper rocks, they hope, will show how long liquid water was around, allowing for a better understanding of the extent of liquid water. (The entire Meridiani Planum is about the size of the state of Oklahoma). She says: Keep watch on the web site, higher rez color images to come!

Note: I adjusted contrast and brightness on both images after resizing.

Seeing Mars from Both Sides - Tuesday May 4 (lunchtime), Pasadena

Mars Exploration Rover (MER) team members, including Pete Theisinger, Richard Cook, and Joy Crisp, will take part in a panel discussion at this CMA [Caltech Management Association] event on Tuesday, May 4, from noon to 1:30 in Beckman Auditorium, Caltech.

The incredible feat of landing, operating, and interpreting the science results from twin Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars has a human side. Join key members of MER as they tell their fascinating stories and show the most recent results from the always-surprising surface of Mars. Even though MER has been one of the most publicized robotic space missions to date, you won't want to miss this event held exclusively for the Caltech/JPL community.

Now here's something that, if true, sounds pretty good:

Attendees will be provided with a box lunch as they leave Beckman auditorium. [...]

This event is free.

Ya think there *is* such thing as a free lunch? (I doubt it; depends what they mean by 'provide'.)

JPL's having an open house May 15 & 16

The public gets to wander over the lab and see cool stuff. Like the Mars Yard, which has a lovely glassed-off observation corridor. For family open house, I got to see the Rovers being built in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility. Don't know that they're building anything there now. My big question about this open house: Will we get to go to observe the room where they run the rovers?

No doubt the lab'll be mobbed. But I'm gonna go.

How much is the Mars mission costing?

This link to an Alan Boyle piece came via the Martian Soil weblog whom I neglected to credit for the link to yesterday's post about The New Geek.

"The cost of robotic space exploration is not incremental. In fact, the bulk of the $835 million (I've seen a variety of numbers for this) is spent upfront in the design, construction and testing of the rovers, the launch vehicle and the ground support. If one or both of the rovers had failed at some point in their journey, most of that budget would still have been gone. It's not being there that is costly, it's getting there.

Mars Mission team returns to Earth Time

My comments yesterday about staying in Mars time were off; the scientists have moved back to Earth Time. The local paper, Pasadena Star News, tells the story... The mission has been extended, and they're re-calibrating the earthling scientists' body clocks back to earth time.

Ray Arvidson, deputy principal investigator for the mission from Washington University in St. Louis, said it took him about four days to adjust back to Earth time, a process he compared to getting over a bad case of jet-lag from a trip to Europe.

"We're just tootin' glad to be on Earth time,' he said.

Working normal hours is not the only thing changing for the team as the rovers enter their extended missions. The operations will be working with a decreased budget. NASA granted $15 million for the extended mission, less than 2 percent of the initial investment in the mission. As a result, the teams are downsizing, streamlining and accepting some loss of productivity.

Other stories, from Universe Today

Naderi noted that the switch of mission personnel back to Earth time has been a welcome transition. For future missions, he said, the consensus for long-term operations will likely move away from following Mars' sunrise and sunset times. One problem other than the late and early on-site shifts at JPL has been the inability to sleep at consistent times because the approximately 39 minute longer martian day continues always to push and rotate schedules.

Mars Rovers: To September... (and beyond?)

NASA extends the Rovers' missions. Very cool. From 3 months to 9 months. My heart goes out to the scientists and engineers whose intrepid tinkering with their diurnal rhythms are being pushed for 9 months' worth of Martian days. Here's a link to an NPR story about working MST -- Martian Standard Time.

UPDATE: A search on NPR for Mars reveals other recent news stories:

• March 29 - Fresh Air - interview with Steve Squyres
• March 27 - All Things Considered - Rob Manning describes averting a crisis just before landing.
• April 9 - All Things Considered - Driving the Mars Rovers
• March 26 - Talk of the Nation - Mars Update with Steve Squyres