Engineers revive instrument on Perseverance
Engineers in the Perseverance science team have successfully gotten a stuck cover moved so that it no longer blocked a camera and spectroscopic instrument mounted on the rover’s robot arm from gathering data.
The cover had gotten stuck partially closed in January 2024.
Analysis by the SHERLOC team pointed to the malfunction of a small motor responsible for moving the protective lens cover as well as adjusting focus for the spectrometer and the Autofocus and Context Imager (ACI) camera. By testing potential solutions on a duplicate SHERLOC instrument at JPL, the team began a long, meticulous evaluation process to see if, and how, the lens cover could be moved into the open position.
Among many other steps taken, the team tried heating the lens cover’s small motor, commanding the rover’s robotic arm to rotate the SHERLOC instrument under different orientations with supporting Mastcam-Z imagery, rocking the mechanism back and forth to loosen any debris potentially jamming the lens cover, and even engaging the rover’s percussive drill to try jostling it loose. On March 3, imagery returned from Perseverance showed that the ACI cover had opened more than 180 degrees, clearing the imager’s field of view and enabling the ACI to be placed near its target.
Because the cover could no longer be moved, focusing was no longer possible. They then had to use the robot arm to do a long sequence of careful focus tests to determine the best distance for sharp imagery, which was found to be about 1.58 inches.
As is usual for all Perseverance press releases from NASA, this one starts out with the lie that the purpose of this instrument is to “look for potential signs of ancient microbial life.” That is false. While finding such things would be possible with SHERLOC, its real purpose is to study close-up the geology of Mars. To claim its purpose is to look for microbial life is sheer blarney.
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Engineers in the Perseverance science team have successfully gotten a stuck cover moved so that it no longer blocked a camera and spectroscopic instrument mounted on the rover’s robot arm from gathering data.
The cover had gotten stuck partially closed in January 2024.
Analysis by the SHERLOC team pointed to the malfunction of a small motor responsible for moving the protective lens cover as well as adjusting focus for the spectrometer and the Autofocus and Context Imager (ACI) camera. By testing potential solutions on a duplicate SHERLOC instrument at JPL, the team began a long, meticulous evaluation process to see if, and how, the lens cover could be moved into the open position.
Among many other steps taken, the team tried heating the lens cover’s small motor, commanding the rover’s robotic arm to rotate the SHERLOC instrument under different orientations with supporting Mastcam-Z imagery, rocking the mechanism back and forth to loosen any debris potentially jamming the lens cover, and even engaging the rover’s percussive drill to try jostling it loose. On March 3, imagery returned from Perseverance showed that the ACI cover had opened more than 180 degrees, clearing the imager’s field of view and enabling the ACI to be placed near its target.
Because the cover could no longer be moved, focusing was no longer possible. They then had to use the robot arm to do a long sequence of careful focus tests to determine the best distance for sharp imagery, which was found to be about 1.58 inches.
As is usual for all Perseverance press releases from NASA, this one starts out with the lie that the purpose of this instrument is to “look for potential signs of ancient microbial life.” That is false. While finding such things would be possible with SHERLOC, its real purpose is to study close-up the geology of Mars. To claim its purpose is to look for microbial life is sheer blarney.
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
P.O.Box 1262
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.
If the Never A Straight Answer Agency really wanted to “look for life” on Mars, they would have included upgraded instrumentation similar to what was used on the Viking missions back in the 1970s. But, no, since this effort “didn’t work,” they have given up looking for biological markers in this way? Really? Forget that almost half a century later, there have been tremendous advances such as DNA amplification and other sensitive forensic tests for biology that could now be used — if anyone wanted to.
https://airandspace.si.edu/multimedia-gallery/saganvikingjpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_experiments
Similarly, instead of the vastly — and probably prohibitively — costly sample return missions, they could instead send some kind of an in situ package laboratory to analyze samples that could replicate much, if not all, of the testing done on earth. But, again, The Powers That Be at NASA apparently have “no interest” in doing anything like this. God, no.
At NASA, time stands still, and just as it has “forgotten” how to send human beings back to the moon, it would seem that it is no longer capable of “looking for life” on other worlds in the way that it tried to do back in 1976.
All rather curious, wouldn’t you say?
PS — As we are reading, the Webb Space Telescope continues to “look for signs of life” in the spectra of exoplanets many light years from earth. Looking for signs of life on Mars, on the other hand, is simply “too difficult.” Or, “Exploring Mars is a step by step process,” and we’ll look for life “later,” after we do everything else. (After, say, a Starship and crew have landed there.)