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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
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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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.”