Mars Rover Spirit Falls Silent ... - Page 4

asleepathewheel · January 24, 2004, 22:37

thanks ned

Ned · January 24, 2004, 23:04

Spirit awakes!

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/0...ers/index.html

Winston · January 24, 2004, 23:59

Bump.

A little over an hour away from expected entry and landing of Opportunity.

Tune in to NASA TV or view live video and commentary at NASA TV using RealPlayer.

5 minutes ago, the vehicle succesfully completed a manoeuvre to turn itself around, preparing for the entry at the correct angle.

asleepathewheel · January 25, 2004, 00:17

Quote:

Originally posted by Ned
NASA TV is channel 376 on DirectTV. They have a newsconference right now, 6:10 pm, Pacific.

damn, I can't get it. Apparently: you need to have Directv Plus which requires you to have an oval dish and 2 LNBs so you can pick up the other satellite. If you just have a regular Directv service and a round dish you won't get it.

So no dice for me.

(just have the round dish)

Winston · January 25, 2004, 00:51

The cruise stage has separated successfully. 10 minutes until the craft enters the Martian athmosphere.

I'm so hoping this will be a success.

Winston · January 25, 2004, 01:05

Parachute deployed 11,000 feet.

Winston · January 25, 2004, 01:06

Bouncing on Mars!!!

Ted Striker · January 25, 2004, 01:09

where you getting this info?

i want to watch

Winston · January 25, 2004, 01:11

It's a madhouse once again at the control center.

Two in a row, well done NASA!!

Winston · January 25, 2004, 01:13

Ted, at NASA TV

Al Gore is there, and Arnold Swarzenegger as well.

Winston · January 25, 2004, 01:17

It's amazing, the landing module is still rolling on the surface, 12 minutes after touchdown. Must really be flat in Meridianum Planum.

Winston · January 25, 2004, 01:52

Ok, there's a press conference in 45 minutes. Everything seems to have gone according to plan, which is really extraordinary when you think about it. The procedure used for landing these rovers is just so incredibly intricate and complicated, yet they've managed to do it twice. It really bodes well for future missions to Mars, as opposed to the many many failures we've seen in the past.

Great show tonight.

Kaak · January 25, 2004, 02:24

is anyone else having problems with that nasa tv thing?!
grrrrr

Winston · January 25, 2004, 02:40

What's the problem you're having, Kaak? The press conference is about to begin, I have live pictures here.

MrFun · January 25, 2004, 03:44

Are you going for the record number of multiple posts on one page of a thread, Winston?

Ned · January 25, 2004, 07:01

The first pictures from opportunity show a really different landscape and features that look like the remnants of a seabed.

Gatekeeper · January 25, 2004, 16:26

All in all, this turning out to be quite good. Spirit seems to be making a slow, but steady, recovery and now Opportunity is raring to go. In addition to the usual benefits successes like this provide to the scientific community, it's also a big morale booster for the good folks at NASA.

Gatekeeper

Ned · January 25, 2004, 23:02

Gatekeeper, in a way, I sense this is a morale booster for all of mankind.

Ned · January 25, 2004, 23:05

Now here is an interesting foto:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...V_bw-B22R3.jpg

Too large to post.

The Mad Monk · January 28, 2004, 21:23

Okay, over at another site we have a poster who actually works for NASA. This is what he posted about Spirit over the past few days:

01-26:

Quote:

OK...
So far...

Official Explanation #1: The problem is that the rovers are programmed with Java, and it cannot handle more then 3 tasks at once.

Official Explanation #2 (less favored): It's the Java. Really! Java sucks! We told you not to go with Java! The 16 different flavors of embedded Java are not actually working together very well.

Official Explaination #3 (from engineering, not as favored as #1 and 2): Well, we told everyone that Flash was great. But if you are reading to/from Flash, or writing TO Flash, whenever there is above average solar activitity, then the Flash will corrupt. But flash was just so freaking CHEAP! And, there was a serious solar storm that happened while we were doing science. But it's not OUR fault. You guys said you wouldn't be constantly reading or writing to Flash! Except for those 56 hour straight science things. And the 125,000 hour straight science observations. And running the clock to know when to power back up... and ...

Official Explanation #4: Well, this is just more Columbia management ****. Yuu see, we didn't actually TEST the rover, on orders from management. Because if anything failed, it would then have to be fixed, and that would have made it cost too much. Project cancelled. And even if the fix/correction didn't put us over (we were on the bubble), then we'd have lost our launch from the time it took to work (because we were on the bubble for time as well), and we were told "It's going, regardless. Just send back pretty pictures, so that we don't look like balless space powers, since Japan and ESA (Europe) is going! It has to go! So, make it happen, or be fired".

That's all straight up from the Mars teams and their management.

So... it's either politics as usual and shitty engineering, or just shitty engineering. (Java was chosen because the original lead computer scientist wanted to get Java on his resume before he left NASA.)

This, by the way, is suppose to never happen again, but NASA has already bastardized the "checks" put on them from following the CAIB. All hail the future dead astronauts!

01-28:

Quote:

BTW... latest word I heard on what was Spirit's problem. Right now, the #1 believed cause of their problem is: Out of Disk Space.

Ok, it's actually just out of flash memory space. As Spirit gets to clean up it's memory, it seems to be doing better.

Imagine that. 256 Meg of Flash (which is double their RAM (128 Meg)), just wasn't enough for taking all of those 100,000 jpeg pictures! Well, that an those 12 hour X-Ray science observations, and all the other stuff...

The explanation why/how they filled it all up without noticing? They forgot to count in all the space still taken up by the pictures that they ordered taken and haven't yet downloaded from the rover PRIOR to driving it over Adrionback rock.

Quote:

What I love is an interview with one of the Rover designers saying "We added 256 Meg of Flash Memory to the Rovers, because on Sojourner, they almost used up all of its 128 Meg Ram, and we wanted to make sure we would have so much storage, we'd never be able to use it all up in a year at constant science observing and taking one picture every second!"

Quote:

So far... The released list of likely causes/excuses: cheap wiring or cheap switch. Or piss poor coding. Or Java is a piece of **** and cannot even handle bools consistantly.

(Sounds like: Bad design and lack of adequate testing to me, so far.)

NASA...would you PLEASE get your CRAP together?!

Zylka · January 28, 2004, 22:55

STUPID

asleepathewheel · January 28, 2004, 23:21

can you post what website that was off of?

Dr Strangelove · January 28, 2004, 23:40

I take it that they sent two Rovers at the same time precisely because they were afraid that what might happen actually did happen which in fact actually did happen?

The Mad Monk · January 29, 2004, 10:12

Counterglow.

Brundlefly · January 29, 2004, 10:28

Quote:

Originally posted by The Mad Monk

NASA...would you PLEASE get your CRAP together?!

Kinda puts those quotes from your signature in perspective, don't you think?

Ned · January 29, 2004, 11:41

I can hardly imagine they programmed in JAVA.

Really?

Ecthy · January 29, 2004, 11:51

they've mixed up metric and imperial before, after all

The Mad Monk · January 29, 2004, 19:21

Quote:

Originally posted by bfg9000

Kinda puts those quotes from your signature in perspective, don't you think?

Not really. The problems spring from the constant underfunding, whch encourages people to cut corners, or else.

The Mad Monk · January 29, 2004, 19:26

Quote:

Originally posted by Ned
I can hardly imagine they programmed in JAVA.

Really?

Quote:

Internet language runs remote-controlled Mars rover

PASADENA, California (Reuters) -- The same piece of software that lets people all around the world play video games on their cell phones is now letting scientists drive the ultimate remote-controlled car across the surface of Mars.

Java, the software developed by Sun Microsystems Inc. in the mid-1990s as a universal platform for Internet applications, gave NASA a low-cost and easy-to-use option for running Spirit, the robotic rover that rolled onto the planet's surface on Thursday in search of signs of water and life.

For the next three months, NASA scientists and engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena will plot Spirit's wanderings with the Java-based Science Activity Planner that operates like a digital Gran Turismo.

"It takes all the raw data in the mission data base and builds a 3-D terrain you can spin around and zoom in," Gene Chalfant, JPL technical staffer, said.

With the same point-and-click skills one would need for, say, online shopping, the NASA team will plan Spirit's daily activities, page through voluminous data and communicate.

"It's a sandbox, in a way, to try different ideas," Chalfant said. "You pick the rock you want to investigate and command the rover to move there and the rover figures out the best way."

The team made virtually no changes to an online version of the program, dubbed Maestro, that lets space nuts page through panoramic color images, check out the rover's wheel-mounted hazard cameras or plan a rover mission just like real scientists.

The site (http:/mars.telascience.org) has been so popular since its January 2 launch that Sun had to provide extra bandwidth to keep NASA's servers up and running, Chalfant said.

The simulated rover drives on a 3-D model of the Martian terrain as precise as the one used by the NASA mission.

"[Scientists] do exactly the same thing you can do," Chalfant said.

Java's journey from mundane to extraterrestrial began nearly a decade ago when JPL scientists began noodling with the programming language to create a command and control system for the 1995 Mars Sojourner, said James Gosling, known as "the father of Java."

The JPL team showed Sun what they had done, and Gosling, a vice president and fellow at the Santa Clara, California-based software and systems developer, was hooked.

"I'm a geek anyway, so it sucks me in," Gosling told Reuters. He spent so much time at the Pasadena space laboratory that he became an advisory board member.

"They are doing things that people think are science fiction," he said. "It's a place to go to have your mind blown. It's hard to find a government agency ... where people are living their dreams."

Although Java's data-handling capabilities initially attracted NASA, the code's ability to transcend the many platforms used by mission scientists and engineers sold the space agency, Gosling said.

"They can have scientists all over the world looking at the data but collaboratively deciding on the way the mission should proceed," Gosling said. "They are all speaking different languages when they talk to the rover but everybody in the control room is using Java."

Separately, Alameda, California-based Wind River Systems Inc., created the embedded software in Spirit and its twin, Opportunity, that manage a wide range of functions, including data collection and communications.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/0...ars.java.reut/

Wraith · January 29, 2004, 19:45

--"I can hardly imagine they programmed in JAVA."

Well, it may have been Java, but... see the tagline.

Wraith
"If you try hard enough you can make any language FORTRAN."
-- NASA