Nasa rover breaks down on Mars

As many of you may have already seen.... Nasa's Mars rover Spirit is in trouble.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3421071.stm

If they can't fix it... as it seems a possibility.... it's a great technological loss.... also for science...

This is a very sad day for all man kind I hope they can get it working again in plus I heard they got something from it! Lets hope for the best! This is yet another reason to send humans that don't brake down.

anybody got any news on beagle 2?

just wondering about it..........

beagle 2 == dead
spirit == improving
opportunity == perfect by all indications

Sprit is almost ready to roll
opportunity hit the jack pot!

Never lose hope, unles it's proven dead.

Search for lost Beagle 2 renewed
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3422113.stm

i don't know about you but i think there really is no doubt that beagle is dead and gone, it's more than a month since it was supposed to land, if it could be contacted by anything other than possibly a rover on the surface near to it it would have been.

Well as a programmer I learnd to debug..... all people with real debugging exeriance know you should never give up too soon... cause you know how manny stupid mistakes can cause something... what if beagle 2 just has to be contacted at the right angle, cause of the mars sand walls arround it ?

What if it's a very weak connection..., what if it can only accept incoming messages but not sending something out... just checking something, sending a commando to use a second transmitor etc etc... all should be tested and re-tested and this can take MONTHS to figure out.

There is a 80% chance it's really broken and in several parts... but don't forget the 20% chance a lot more could go wrong... just with the software or a small hardware problem... or even the location it landed.

What if spirit got silent just after landing ? they would have thaught... that it didn't landed but that it was maybe also in several parts on mars.. crashed.. so never guess, keep trying and keep hoping.

i'm not saying it's not impossible, all those possibilities you mentioned certainly are real, but i think the chances of it being alive are dwindling. i'd put the chances of it haven broken up at about 90%, the chances of it being intact but inoperational (aka communication antennae broken off) at about 5%, chances of it simply having landed in a spot impossible to communicate from (aka under a crater rim) at 2%, leaving a 3% chance of it being possible to reach even should the correct angle and location be signaled.

When the schedule allows, Mars Express will start looking for Beagle, or the remnaints of it. At least the parachute should be visible, and that should tell a lot.

Again Spirit is having problems - it's stuck similar to Opportunity years earlier.

It is required to lokk below Spirit to have a chance to get it unstuck healthy.

So should rovers for other planets be equipped with cams looking down under them? Should the be equipped by sensors and radars to probe the ground under them?

This equipment would have to be protected against damage by touching the ground.



What about that?



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

Hi,The Rover send by NASA has been broken down on the Mars, while it was performing the collection of the data. The first successful Mars rover was Sojourner. They have higher chances of failure, due to landing and other risks, and that they are limited to a small area around a landing site which itself is only approximately anticipated.

We have your satellite if you want it back send 20 billion in Martian money. No funny business or you will never see it again.

— Reportedly on a wall in a hall at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, California, after losing contact with the Mars Polar Lander.

I'd mount an inflatable bladder at the bottom somewhere, with a small pump to pump in Martian air. Similar to what they use in the desert to get vehicles unstuck (using exhaust gas to inflate, in that case).

Ummm. . . Humans do break down.