Contact with Opportunity lost
The Opportunity science team has lost contact with Opportunity as it automatically shuts down operations to survive low battery power due to the dust storm.
This does not necessarily mean the rover is dead. Depending on how long this period of low power lasts, the rover could return to life once the dust storm passes. Or not. We can only wait and see.
A press conference today on the dust storm and Opportunity’s status begins at 1:30 Eastern time today.
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The Opportunity science team has lost contact with Opportunity as it automatically shuts down operations to survive low battery power due to the dust storm.
This does not necessarily mean the rover is dead. Depending on how long this period of low power lasts, the rover could return to life once the dust storm passes. Or not. We can only wait and see.
A press conference today on the dust storm and Opportunity’s status begins at 1:30 Eastern time today.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Q: Does the rover detect these conditions and then fold itself up for protection and wait to detect favorable conditions in order to reestablish communications?
If the storm is big enough and lasts long enough I would expect that there is a danger of it being entirely buried and entombed for eternity or until the winds uncover it?
Cotour: The amount of dust involved is tiny. Even at its worst, the only dust concern would be whether there will be a very thin layer on the solar panels or on the camera lens, affecting future operations. In both cases, the amount of dust is still tiny, and with the solar panels, it has historically been blown away very quickly. With the cameras, they are unworried about the amount of dust.
The rover does not “fold itself up.” Doesn’t need to. This is NOT the kind of dust storm you see on Earth, or in movies. It might block the light from the sun, but if you were standing there you would hardly be bothered by the dust. The rover simply turns off instruments to save power and waits out the storm.
Yes, my default imaginings about a dust or sand storm is more geared to an earth storm in the Sahara desert or images of the Sphynx being 75 percent buried in sand.
Its interesting the difference between the two atmospheres and planets.
I believe that the difference isn’t just the atmospheres, but also the dust itself. On Earth, the oceans help limit the amount of very fine dust particles, as those sufficiently small to remain airborne for long periods of time will eventually fall into the ocean, adding to the benthic ooze (more properly, the pelagic sediment). Without oceans, Mars lacks a sink for its ultra-fine dust particles.
Lesson: First colonists should be from the Lubbock region and maybe the middle east. We’re used to such storms.
This of course is why Andy Weir’s premise of a dust storm of a magnitude possible to knock over the MAV in THE MARTIAN was not remotely realistic – as Weir himself admitted. He was just unable to come up with a more realistic scenario for why a NASA crew would leave behind one of their own on Mars.
Let’s hope Opportunity can ride this thing out, though.
“Mars Dust Storm”
JPL teleconference
June 13, 2018
https://youtu.be/fIKxdRFx2Wo
(1:00:32)
“The storm is one of the most intense ever observed on the Red Planet. As of June 10, it covered more than 15.8 million square miles (41 million square kilometers) — about the area of North America and Russia combined. It has blocked out so much sunlight, it has effectively turned day into night for Opportunity, which is located near the center of the storm, inside Mars’ Perseverance Valley.”
Participants in the teleconference included:
· John Callas, Opportunity project manager, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
· Rich Zurek, Mars Program Office chief scientist, JPL
· Jim Watzin, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters, Washington
· Dave Lavery, program executive at NASA Headquarters for the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers
>JPL teleconference is filled with great factoids.
“atmospheric opacity on Mars is normally “0.5,” & the Rover normally generates 600+ watts, opacity is now measured at “10.8,” and energy production dropped to 22 watts.”