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The Planetary Society Blog: Curiosity update: Roving through the shutdown toward Waypoint 2, sols 388-432
Updates Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity)
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NASA / NASA JPL:
NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Approaches 'Cooperstown'
October 29, 2013
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity completed its first two-day autonomous drive Monday, bringing the mobile laboratory to a good vantage point for pictures useful in selecting the next target the rover will reach out and touch.
When it drives autonomously, the rover chooses a safe route to designated waypoints by using its onboard computer to analyze stereo images that it takes during pauses in the drive. Prior to Monday, each day's autonomous drive came after a segment earlier that day that was exactly charted by rover team members using images sent to Earth. The Sunday-Monday drive was the first time Curiosity ended an autonomous driving segment, then continued autonomously from that same point the next day.
The drives brought Curiosity to about 262 feet (about 80 meters) from "Cooperstown," an outcrop bearing candidate targets for examination with instruments on the rover's arm. The moniker, appropriate for baseball season, comes from a named rock deposit in New York. Curiosity has not used its arm-mounted instruments to examine a target since departing an outcrop called "Darwin" on Sept. 22. Researchers used the arm's camera and spectrometer for four days at Darwin; they plan to use them on just one day at Cooperstown.
Starting to use two-day autonomous driving and the shorter duration planned for examining Cooperstown serve to accelerate Curiosity's progress toward the mission's main destination: Mount Sharp.
In July, Curiosity began a trek of about 5.3 miles (8.6 kilometers), starting from the area where it worked for the first half of 2013, headed to an entry point to Mount Sharp. Cooperstown is about one-third of the way along the route. The team used images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to plot the route and choose a few points of potential special interest along the way, including Darwin and Cooperstown.
"What interests us about this site is an intriguing outcrop of layered material visible in the orbital images," said Kevin Lewis of Princeton University, Princeton, N.J., a participating scientist for the mission who has been a leader in planning the Cooperstown activities. "We want to see how the local layered outcrop at Cooperstown may help us relate the geology of Yellowknife Bay to the geology of Mount Sharp."
The team is using images taken from the vantage point reached on Monday to decide what part of the Cooperstown outcrop to investigate with the arm-mounted instruments.
The first day of the two-day drive began Sunday with about 180 feet (55 meters) on a southwestward path that rover drivers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., evaluated ahead of time as safe. The autonomous-driving portion began where that left off, with Curiosity evaluating the best way to reach designated waypoints ahead. The vehicle drove about 125 feet (38 meters) autonomously on Sunday.
"We needed to store some key variables in the rover's non-volatile memory for the next day," said JPL rover driver John Wright. Curiosity's volatile memory is cleared when the rover goes into energy-conserving sleep mode overnight.
The stored variables included what direction the rover was driving when it ended the first day's drive, and whether it had classified the next 10 feet (3 meters) in that direction as safe for driving. When it began its second day of driving, Curiosity resumed evaluating the terrain ahead for safe driving and drove 105 feet (32 meters), all autonomously.
This new capability enables driving extra days during multi-day activity plans that the rover team develops on Fridays and before holidays.
A key activity planned for the week of Nov. 4 is uploading a new version of onboard software -- the third such upgrade since landing. These upgrades allow continued advances in the rover's capabilities. The version prepared for upload next week includes, for example, improvements in what information the rover can store overnight to resume autonomous driving the next day. It also expands capabilities for using the robotic arm while parked on slopes. The team expects that to be crucial for investigations on Mount Sharp.
{...}
NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Approaches 'Cooperstown'
October 29, 2013
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity completed its first two-day autonomous drive Monday, bringing the mobile laboratory to a good vantage point for pictures useful in selecting the next target the rover will reach out and touch.
When it drives autonomously, the rover chooses a safe route to designated waypoints by using its onboard computer to analyze stereo images that it takes during pauses in the drive. Prior to Monday, each day's autonomous drive came after a segment earlier that day that was exactly charted by rover team members using images sent to Earth. The Sunday-Monday drive was the first time Curiosity ended an autonomous driving segment, then continued autonomously from that same point the next day.
The drives brought Curiosity to about 262 feet (about 80 meters) from "Cooperstown," an outcrop bearing candidate targets for examination with instruments on the rover's arm. The moniker, appropriate for baseball season, comes from a named rock deposit in New York. Curiosity has not used its arm-mounted instruments to examine a target since departing an outcrop called "Darwin" on Sept. 22. Researchers used the arm's camera and spectrometer for four days at Darwin; they plan to use them on just one day at Cooperstown.
[table="head;width=225"]
The low ridge that appears as a dark band below the horizon in the center of this scene is a Martian outcrop called "Cooperstown," a possible site for contact inspection with tools on the robotic arm of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity. The ridge extends roughly 100 feet (about 30 meters) from left to right, and it is about 260 feet (about 80 meters) away from the location from which Curiosity captured this view.[/table]
Click on image for details
The low ridge that appears as a dark band below the horizon in the center of this scene is a Martian outcrop called "Cooperstown," a possible site for contact inspection with tools on the robotic arm of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity. The ridge extends roughly 100 feet (about 30 meters) from left to right, and it is about 260 feet (about 80 meters) away from the location from which Curiosity captured this view.[/table]
Starting to use two-day autonomous driving and the shorter duration planned for examining Cooperstown serve to accelerate Curiosity's progress toward the mission's main destination: Mount Sharp.
In July, Curiosity began a trek of about 5.3 miles (8.6 kilometers), starting from the area where it worked for the first half of 2013, headed to an entry point to Mount Sharp. Cooperstown is about one-third of the way along the route. The team used images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to plot the route and choose a few points of potential special interest along the way, including Darwin and Cooperstown.
"What interests us about this site is an intriguing outcrop of layered material visible in the orbital images," said Kevin Lewis of Princeton University, Princeton, N.J., a participating scientist for the mission who has been a leader in planning the Cooperstown activities. "We want to see how the local layered outcrop at Cooperstown may help us relate the geology of Yellowknife Bay to the geology of Mount Sharp."
The team is using images taken from the vantage point reached on Monday to decide what part of the Cooperstown outcrop to investigate with the arm-mounted instruments.
The first day of the two-day drive began Sunday with about 180 feet (55 meters) on a southwestward path that rover drivers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., evaluated ahead of time as safe. The autonomous-driving portion began where that left off, with Curiosity evaluating the best way to reach designated waypoints ahead. The vehicle drove about 125 feet (38 meters) autonomously on Sunday.
"We needed to store some key variables in the rover's non-volatile memory for the next day," said JPL rover driver John Wright. Curiosity's volatile memory is cleared when the rover goes into energy-conserving sleep mode overnight.
The stored variables included what direction the rover was driving when it ended the first day's drive, and whether it had classified the next 10 feet (3 meters) in that direction as safe for driving. When it began its second day of driving, Curiosity resumed evaluating the terrain ahead for safe driving and drove 105 feet (32 meters), all autonomously.
This new capability enables driving extra days during multi-day activity plans that the rover team develops on Fridays and before holidays.
A key activity planned for the week of Nov. 4 is uploading a new version of onboard software -- the third such upgrade since landing. These upgrades allow continued advances in the rover's capabilities. The version prepared for upload next week includes, for example, improvements in what information the rover can store overnight to resume autonomous driving the next day. It also expands capabilities for using the robotic arm while parked on slopes. The team expects that to be crucial for investigations on Mount Sharp.
{...}
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NASA / NASA JPL:
Curiosity Performs Warm Reset
November 08, 2013
Mars Science Laboratory Mission Status Report
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity experienced an unexpected software reboot (also known as a warm reset) yesterday (11/7/13) during a communications pass as it was sending engineering and science data to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, for later downlinking to Earth. This computer reset occurred about four-and-half hours after new flight software had been temporarily loaded into the rover's memory. At the time the event occurred, Curiosity was in the middle of a scheduled, week-long flight software update and checkout activity.
"Telemetry later downlinked from the rover indicates the warm reset was performed as would be expected in response to an unanticipated event," said Jim Erickson, project manager for the Mars Science Laboratory mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
A warm reset is executed by flight software when it identifies a problem with one of its operations. The reset restarts the flight software into its initial state. Since the reset, the rover has been performing operations and communications as expected. The team is currently working toward understanding the cause of the reset and returning the rover to normal operations. This is the first time that Curiosity has executed a fault-related warm reset during its 16-plus months of Mars surface operations.
{...}
Curiosity Performs Warm Reset
November 08, 2013
Mars Science Laboratory Mission Status Report
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity experienced an unexpected software reboot (also known as a warm reset) yesterday (11/7/13) during a communications pass as it was sending engineering and science data to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, for later downlinking to Earth. This computer reset occurred about four-and-half hours after new flight software had been temporarily loaded into the rover's memory. At the time the event occurred, Curiosity was in the middle of a scheduled, week-long flight software update and checkout activity.
"Telemetry later downlinked from the rover indicates the warm reset was performed as would be expected in response to an unanticipated event," said Jim Erickson, project manager for the Mars Science Laboratory mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
A warm reset is executed by flight software when it identifies a problem with one of its operations. The reset restarts the flight software into its initial state. Since the reset, the rover has been performing operations and communications as expected. The team is currently working toward understanding the cause of the reset and returning the rover to normal operations. This is the first time that Curiosity has executed a fault-related warm reset during its 16-plus months of Mars surface operations.
{...}
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Universe Today: Go Mars-Digging Beside Curiosity In New Interactive Panorama
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Universe Today: A Guided Aerial Tour of Curiosity’s Journey So Far on Mars
NASA JPL:
Curiosity Out of Safe Mode
November 12, 2013
Mars Science Laboratory Mission Status Report
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project received confirmation from Mars Sunday (Nov. 10) that the Curiosity rover has successfully transitioned back into nominal surface operations mode. Curiosity had been in safe mode since Nov. 7, when an unexpected software reboot (also known as a warm reset) occurred during a communications pass with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Mission science planning will resume tomorrow, and Curiosity science operations will recommence on Thursday.
"We returned to normal engineering operations," said Rajeev Joshi, a software and systems engineer for the Curiosity mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We are well into planning the next several days of surface operations and expect to resume our drive to Mount Sharp this week."
After analyzing the data returned by the spacecraft on Thursday evening, Nov. 7 (Pacific Time), the Curiosity operations team was able to determine the root cause. An error in existing onboard software resulted in an error in a catalog file. This caused an unexpected reset when the catalog was processed by a new version of flight software which had been installed on Thursday. The team was able to replicate the problem on ground testbeds the following day. Commands recovering the spacecraft were uplinked to the spacecraft early Sunday morning.
{...}
NASA JPL:
Curiosity Out of Safe Mode
November 12, 2013
Mars Science Laboratory Mission Status Report
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project received confirmation from Mars Sunday (Nov. 10) that the Curiosity rover has successfully transitioned back into nominal surface operations mode. Curiosity had been in safe mode since Nov. 7, when an unexpected software reboot (also known as a warm reset) occurred during a communications pass with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Mission science planning will resume tomorrow, and Curiosity science operations will recommence on Thursday.
"We returned to normal engineering operations," said Rajeev Joshi, a software and systems engineer for the Curiosity mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We are well into planning the next several days of surface operations and expect to resume our drive to Mount Sharp this week."
After analyzing the data returned by the spacecraft on Thursday evening, Nov. 7 (Pacific Time), the Curiosity operations team was able to determine the root cause. An error in existing onboard software resulted in an error in a catalog file. This caused an unexpected reset when the catalog was processed by a new version of flight software which had been installed on Thursday. The team was able to replicate the problem on ground testbeds the following day. Commands recovering the spacecraft were uplinked to the spacecraft early Sunday morning.
{...}
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The Planetary Society Blog - Ken Herkenhoff: Curiosity Update: A stop at Cooperstown and a warm reset, sols 433-451
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The Planetary Society Blog - Emily Lakdawalla: Features at both rover field sites on Mars named for Bruce Murray:
{...}
For Curiosity, though, the choice was harder. The plains on which Curiosity is driving are more interesting than the trackless wastes of Meridiani's sand sea, but they're still not compelling enough to spend a long time at. Curiosity is bent on her destination of Mount Sharp. So I really like what the team chose to do to commemmorate Bruce. They didn't name anything nearby for him; they named the features that they're aiming for.
There are black sand dunes in between Curiosity and the mountain, forming a nearly continuous band. But at about 6 kilometers from Curiosity's current position, the band of dunes is broken up, interrupted by a set of buttes poking up above the landscape. That's where Curiosity will turn toward the mountain, weaving her way among the buttes to cross the sand hazard to get to the enticing rocks at the foot of Mount Sharp. Getting to the Murray Buttes will mark the end of Curiosity's arduous road trip and the beginning of her journey upward through Martian time.
{...}
A strip of black sand dunes separates Curiosity's landing site in the flat northern floor of Gale crater from the enticing rocks of Mount Sharp. A gap in the dunes occurs in a field of buttes, which the rover team has named for Bruce Murray, a founder of The Planetary Society. Two HiRISE images taken on August 17 and 22, 2008, allow a 3D view of the landscape.
NASA / JPL / UA / Emily Lakdawalla
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NASA JPL:
Rover Team Working to Diagnose Electrical Issue
November 20, 2013
Mars Science Laboratory Mission Status Report
Science observations by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity have been suspended for a few days while engineers run tests to check possible causes of a voltage change detected on Nov. 17.
"The vehicle is safe and stable, fully capable of operating in its present condition, but we are taking the precaution of investigating what may be a soft short," said Mars Science Laboratory Project Manager Jim Erickson at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
A "soft" short is a leak through something that's partially conductive of electricity, rather than a hard short such as one electrical wire contacting another.
The team detected a change in the voltage difference between the chassis and the 32-volt power bus that distributes electricity to systems throughout the rover. Data indicating the change were received on Sunday, during Curiosity's 456th Martian day. The level had been about 11 volts since landing day, and is now about 4 volts. The rover's electrical system is designed with the flexibility to work properly throughout that range and more -- a design feature called "floating bus."
A soft short can cause such a voltage change. Curiosity had already experienced one soft short on landing day in August 2012. That one was related to explosive-release devices used for deployments shortly before and after the landing. It lowered the bus-to-chassis voltage from about 16 volts to about 11 volts but has not affected subsequent rover operations.
Soft shorts reduce the level of robustness for tolerating other shorts in the future, and they can indicate a possible problem in whichever component is the site of the short. Operations planned for Curiosity for the next few days are designed to check some of the possible root causes for the voltage change. Analysis so far has determined that the change appeared intermittently three times during the hours before it became persistent.
The electrical issue did not cause the rover to enter a safe-mode status, in which most activities automatically cease pending further instructions, and there is no indication the issue is related to a computer reboot that triggered a "safe-mode" earlier this month.
{...}
Rover Team Working to Diagnose Electrical Issue
November 20, 2013
Mars Science Laboratory Mission Status Report
Science observations by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity have been suspended for a few days while engineers run tests to check possible causes of a voltage change detected on Nov. 17.
"The vehicle is safe and stable, fully capable of operating in its present condition, but we are taking the precaution of investigating what may be a soft short," said Mars Science Laboratory Project Manager Jim Erickson at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
A "soft" short is a leak through something that's partially conductive of electricity, rather than a hard short such as one electrical wire contacting another.
The team detected a change in the voltage difference between the chassis and the 32-volt power bus that distributes electricity to systems throughout the rover. Data indicating the change were received on Sunday, during Curiosity's 456th Martian day. The level had been about 11 volts since landing day, and is now about 4 volts. The rover's electrical system is designed with the flexibility to work properly throughout that range and more -- a design feature called "floating bus."
A soft short can cause such a voltage change. Curiosity had already experienced one soft short on landing day in August 2012. That one was related to explosive-release devices used for deployments shortly before and after the landing. It lowered the bus-to-chassis voltage from about 16 volts to about 11 volts but has not affected subsequent rover operations.
Soft shorts reduce the level of robustness for tolerating other shorts in the future, and they can indicate a possible problem in whichever component is the site of the short. Operations planned for Curiosity for the next few days are designed to check some of the possible root causes for the voltage change. Analysis so far has determined that the change appeared intermittently three times during the hours before it became persistent.
The electrical issue did not cause the rover to enter a safe-mode status, in which most activities automatically cease pending further instructions, and there is no indication the issue is related to a computer reboot that triggered a "safe-mode" earlier this month.
{...}
Proximus
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The engineers will no doubt wish to systematically shut down suspect systems and monitor the bus voltage.
Floating bus or not, a TTL logic calculator on earth would struggle with 4V DC not to mention the extra current load on the power supply :facepalm:
I can only hope the bus in question is not linked to anything too important:uhh:
Floating bus or not, a TTL logic calculator on earth would struggle with 4V DC not to mention the extra current load on the power supply :facepalm:
I can only hope the bus in question is not linked to anything too important:uhh:
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...the 32-volt power bus that distributes electricity to systems throughout the rover.
nah, probably not linked to anything important...
the word that bothers me the most in that statement is "the" at the beginning. Why doesn't it say "one of the"
nah, probably not linked to anything important...
the word that bothers me the most in that statement is "the" at the beginning. Why doesn't it say "one of the"
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Because there is likely just one power supply, the RTG.
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/43261/1/12-5442_A1b.pdf
This file explains this a bit more, you have essentially five separate bus systems, that are all supplied with electrical power by the same source. Only three are active now, two had been supply only by battery power.
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/43261/1/12-5442_A1b.pdf
This file explains this a bit more, you have essentially five separate bus systems, that are all supplied with electrical power by the same source. Only three are active now, two had been supply only by battery power.
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I thought there would be multiple isolated bus's running varying voltages (32V for motor drives, 5V for CPU's etc...) rather than all power coming directly from the RTG!
Pulling your main power supply as low as 4V I'm surprised communications are even possible never mind "not being in safe mode" .
Pulling your main power supply as low as 4V I'm surprised communications are even possible never mind "not being in safe mode" .
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Well, it only has one single RTG and some batteries to provide peak power. The power does not come directly from the RTG, but it all passes through one single power supply.
The consumers of electrical power on the other hand, have three busses then, which could all fail individually.
N_Molson
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Volts are not so important as long as the components are designed to operate at various values, but Amperes are critical. But of course they are related : you can lower the Volts to keep the Amps constant, but there is a limit to that, and 4V is close to that limit.
BTW a RTG is not a computer PSU, and I guess that "normalizing" and distributing its raw power takes several steps.
BTW a RTG is not a computer PSU, and I guess that "normalizing" and distributing its raw power takes several steps.
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One important detail of a RTG is, that you can't turn it off. It always provides electricity, if you want it or not. If you can't store it anymore, you need to turn it into heat by directing it into so-called "Shunts".
One big deal of problems in the MSL power supply was this tiny detail - for example, instead of having big batteries in the cruise stage, the MSL power supply managed all power demands and used the solar arrays for additional power.
N_Molson
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Yeah, again it's one of the reason why space electronics are :
- much more expensive
- heavier
- less "advanced" in terms of raw performance
... than everyday hardware. If we could teleport a desktop computer on Mars with a Magic Power Supply (MPS), it would probably get flashed very quickly by solar radiations that would also create shorts, circuits couldn't handle for long the variations of temperature, dust would clog everything in no time, it would overheat in no time because the fan would be near-useless given the low-density of the atmosphere, etc...
Not a much better place for electronics than it is for humans, in fact. Difference is that electronics are expendable, (I hope) don't suffer, and overall have less needs, which are a bit easier to provide. A severe lack of initiative, a purely logical "intelligence" and a very reduced mobility is the price to pay.
Unmanned tech vs. Manned tech, an old debate, IMHO both have advantages and drawbacks. The main point of Unmanned is that, by definition, nobody dies when there is a failure. :hmm:
- much more expensive
- heavier
- less "advanced" in terms of raw performance
... than everyday hardware. If we could teleport a desktop computer on Mars with a Magic Power Supply (MPS), it would probably get flashed very quickly by solar radiations that would also create shorts, circuits couldn't handle for long the variations of temperature, dust would clog everything in no time, it would overheat in no time because the fan would be near-useless given the low-density of the atmosphere, etc...
Not a much better place for electronics than it is for humans, in fact. Difference is that electronics are expendable, (I hope) don't suffer, and overall have less needs, which are a bit easier to provide. A severe lack of initiative, a purely logical "intelligence" and a very reduced mobility is the price to pay.
Unmanned tech vs. Manned tech, an old debate, IMHO both have advantages and drawbacks. The main point of Unmanned is that, by definition, nobody dies when there is a failure. :hmm:
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