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TMCNet: Wheel tests show stuck rover is ready to roll over holiday weekend

[November 25, 2009]

Wheel tests show stuck rover is ready to roll over holiday weekend

Nov 25, 2009 (Pasadena Star-News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- LA CAnADA FLINTRIDGE -- The Mars rover Spirit's wheels are ready to roll.

Now, the rover team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is preparing to send a fourth set of signals over the Thanksgiving weekend aimed at freeing the rover from the rut it's been stuck in for more than six months.

Last Saturday one of Spirit's wheels stalled, which cut short the team's third attempt to free the robot from the loose soil that it got caught in on its way to Troy.

Spirit passed a Tuesday morning test that the team created to make sure that the right rear wheel was still working, clearing the way for the team to send more signals to the rover Saturday morning, JPL project manager John Callas said.

The rover even managed to edge forward a few millimeters during the test. But the team still wasn't sure what stopped its wheels from moving.

"The speculation was that there was a rock that slowed it down, but we don't know for sure," Callas said. "We've now moved away from that obstruction." The Mars rover team has choreographed a two-step drive that will be carried out Saturday morning in an attempt to edge the robot forward, Callas said.

The team didn't send any signals to the rover for about six months. The first signals were beamed Nov. 17. Callas has emphasized that freeing the rover will be a slow process -- nothing like "gunning it" out of a mud or snow rut on planet Earth.

Even as the team sends signals to Spirit commanding it to roll through several feet of wheel rotations -- 16 feet so far -- its progress is best measured in fractions of inches.

The rover has shown some life: It has moved forward just over three-fifths of an inch, Callas said.

But he said the robot also has been sinking as it moves forward. It has sunk about one-fifth of an inch.

"We want to avoid sinkage but get forward progress," Callas said.

The rover team has called Spirit's predicament the most difficult it has faced. A host of factors have made it especially problematic, including a rock underneath the rover's belly that threatens to impede its escape.

Even though the rover has been sending back more information about its position, the team still doesn't know whether the rock under the belly is touching the mechanical explorer, Callas said.

Spirit and its identical twin Opportunity have been roving Mars for nearly six years, providing scientists with data about the planet's geologic past while searching for places where water once flowed.

The team will have until at least February to free Spirit from its rut. That's when an independent panel will assess its progress and decide whether to continue trying to extricate the little rover.

emma.gallegos@sgvn.com (626) 578-6300, Ext. 4444 http://www.twitter.com/emmaggallegos To see more of the Pasadena Star-News or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/.com/. Copyright (c) 2009, Pasadena Star-News, Calif. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

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