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Ravenous

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. o O ( What's the last thing that goes through a lander's mind when it hits the windshield of a Mars . . . )

Its crushable understructure :(

(So much for "landing attenuation".)

---------- Post added at 10:00 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:24 AM ----------

I was looking at the impact site picture over the weekend and I thought about the Whale in the Hitch Hiker's Guide...

"What's this big thing rushing towards me... so big and round - I think I'll call it...Ground. I wonder if it'll be friends with me..."

:rofl:
 

Face

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A friend yesterday misspelled "Schiaparelli" as "Schrapnelli". He did not understand why I was laughing so hard. :rofl:
 

RGClark

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"Photos show European Mars probe crashed, may have exploded"

https://www.yahoo.com/news/european-space-agency-says-mars-170708902.html

The crater observed by MRO due to the Schiaparelli impact reminded me of something.

Surprising MRO images had shown ice at the bottom of recent meteor impact craters on Mars. This was due to ice being revealed that was already existing in the subsurface on Mars. What was surprising was this ice was close to the surface even at midlatitudes:

NEW IMAGES REVEAL “PURE” WATER ICE AT LOW LATITUDES ON MARS
Article Updated: 24 Dec , 2015
by Nancy Atkinson
...
The discovery of these “white” impact craters began in August 2008, the orbiter’s Context camera team examined their images for any dark spots or other changes that weren’t visible in earlier images of the same area. Meteorites usually leave dark marks when they crash into dust-covered Mars terrain.
The HiRISE team followed up in September 2008 by taking high-resolution images of the dark spots.

“We saw something very unusual when we followed up on the first of these impact craters,” Byrne said, “and that was this bright blue material poking up from the bottom of the crater. It looked a lot like water ice. And sure enough, when we started monitoring this material, it faded away like you’d expect water ice to fade, because water ice is unstable on Mars’ surface and turns directly into water vapor in the atmosphere.”

A few days later in September 2008, the orbiter’s “CRISM” team used their Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars and got the spectral signature of water ice exposed in one of the impact craters, further clinching the discovery.
“All of this had to happen very quickly because 200 days after we first saw the ice, it was gone, it was the color of dirt,” Byrne said. “If we had taken HiRISE images just a few months later, we wouldn’t have noticed anything unusual. This discovery would have just passed us by.”
MRO-water-ice-comparison.jpg

http://www.universetoday.com/41337/new-images-reveal-pure-water-ice-at-low-latitudes-on-mars/

This was at midlatitudes around 40 degrees North. But other observations suggest there might even be subsurface ice even at near equatorial latitudes dependent on depth beneath the surface.

So perhaps the Schiaparelli crash unearthed some near surface ice there. We should do spectrographic imaging at the crash site. Could we even have one of the current rovers operating on Mars, Opportunity and Curiosity, visit the crash site?


Bob Clark
 
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Keatah

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I don't think Opportunity is too far away for a visit?
 

Andy44

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You mean it's not like in the movies where everything and everyone who ever lands on Mars is close enough to just stroll over to each other even though it's an entire planet? (Talking to you, Val Kilmer's Red Planet!).
 

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54km too far. And depressing, because we know Oppy won't last 54 more km.

So, theoretically, how close would Op have to be for the mission planners to have considered a detour? 1km? 2km 5km?
 

MaverickSawyer

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Couple dozen meters. Otherwise, the ice will have sublimated before the rover arrives.
 

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Considering Opportunity's limitations and current objectives (risky decent in to a crater), landing really close (less than a 1km) to the rover would have been needed for a detour. And a set of really good scientific reasons (that the rover could accomplish) to do it. And the funding.

In the rovers current state a 1000m drive would take upwards of a 100 days then the drive back to continue its current objectives, plus 50 days at the crash site. That would take most of the summer, Opportunity may not survive another winter.
 
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Ravenous

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54km too far. And depressing, because we know Oppy won't last 54 more km.

So, theoretically, how close would Op have to be for the mission planners to have considered a detour? 1km? 2km 5km?

Don't forget, Opportunity was designed to last for 90 days. Despite some early injuries it has fulfilled the mission, and is now a little old, slightly worn, forgotten by some these days, but still showing some of the newer models how to last. (Kind of like the Michael Collins of Mars.)
 

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Couple dozen meters. Otherwise, the ice will have sublimated before the rover arrives.

That would depend on how thick was the subsurface ice at this near equatorial site. According to the article I linked to, it took 200 days for it to sublimate at the mid latitude site.
The Opportunity rover has a top speed of 5 cm per second, 0.18 km/hr, though it commonly travels at 1/5th that speed because it constantly checks the terrain ahead before proceeding.

So at top speed it would take 12.5 days to get there. Perhaps MRO could do imaging of the area in order to plot a route with few obstacles so Opportunity could travel near top speed.

Bob Clark
 

Gerdih

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That would depend on how thick was the subsurface ice at this near equatorial site. According to the article I linked to, it took 200 days for it to sublimate at the mid latitude site.
The Opportunity rover has a top speed of 5 cm per second, 0.18 km/hr, though it commonly travels at 1/5th that speed because it constantly checks the terrain ahead before proceeding.

So at top speed it would take 12.5 days to get there. Perhaps MRO could do imaging of the area in order to plot a route with few obstacles so Opportunity could travel near top speed.

Bob Clark

In the article you quoted says Opportunity has travelled 40,25 km since 2004. I dont think its realistic to double that distance in 13 days?
 

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No, so long as there is funding and the rover can still communicate it will keep on plodding on.
 

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Are the mechanical parts all in order? That's kinda what I was referring to. Anything showing signs of excess wear? Or getting close to failing?
 

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One of the arm joints is damaged but operational,

one of the wheels is showing the same signs as Spirits prior to is failure (its been that way for a while),

The solar cells are coverd in dust(periodic cleaning events happen)
738px-PIA17759-MarsOpportunityRover-SelfPortrait-20140106.jpg
 

Ravenous

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Come on chaps - I'm not sure if the Opportunity debate is just a bit of fun speculation or some people actually wish for it - but there is NO WAY that JPL are going to send their vehicle on a long sprint across the desert just to peer into someone else's smoking hole.

Anyway (1) Opp. is in such a state it probably won't survive (it's on year 12 of its 90-day design life) and (2) I doubt Schiaparelli dug deep enough to extract much ice, its mass and impact velocity were not very high.

If you want to dig for ice, look to future missions with a drill so you can pick your site.
 

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Alot of that time was spent studying a particular location, not traveling continually to a single spot.


Bob Clark


Of course, still, I would place my bet on it breaking into pieces before reaching Schiaparelli.
 

Ravenous

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This interesting news article has come up (someone on Cloudy Nights posted it):

http://www.nature.com/news/computing-glitch-may-have-doomed-mars-lander-1.20861

I haven't seen another source, but apparently Jorge Vago does reckon an error in the logic somewhere (of course this could be a software bug OR a sensor failure feeding the software.)

The lander’s heat shield and parachute ejected ahead of time, says Vago. Then thrusters, designed to decelerate the craft for 30 seconds until it was metres off the ground, engaged for only around 3 seconds before they were commanded to switch off, because the lander's computer thought it was on the ground.

The lander even switched on its suite of instruments, ready to record Mars’s weather and electrical field, although they did not collect data. “My guess is that at that point we were still too high. And the most likely scenario is that, from then, we just dropped to the surface,” says Vago.

Of course it looked like software all along, but the quote is interesting anyway.
 
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