Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission • Hacker News Board

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#141

Post by aspectmin » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 1:21 AM UTC

Steven Squyres, the Principal Scientist of the program came to Microsoft to give a talk. One of the best talks I’ve been to.

So many interesting tidbits like the parts about the rovers expected short lifetime due to the dust, and how (if I remember correctly) they fixed this by shaking the solar panels like wings.

He talked about the rover drivers, and how they all had to live in special light cycle controlled buildings to get them used to working on Martian days vs. Earth (the extra hour adds up over time).

He wrote a book, a worthy read. The printing I got had some amazing pictures in it:

https://www.amazon.com/Roving-Mars-Spirit-Opportunity-Explor...

RIP Opportunity. An amazing testament to our need to explore.

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#142

Post by pault » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 1:21 AM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #131

Ianworld wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember talking to a high up on the program at a FIRST robotics event who complained about them running so long. They weren't making any major new discoveries and sucking up resources and mindshare stopping him for kicking off and focusing on new projects. He said nobody would take the PR hit to decide to just end a mission like this so he was stuck.

> I remember talking to a high up on the program at a FIRST robotics event who complained about them running so long. Not surprising at all. Coached a FIRST team for several years. At this point they sell licensed robotics kits with canned instructions for kids to put together and those kids win because of time limitations. The teams that build from scratch and actually contribute discover or learn anything at all ar…

Retarded is a bit much, don't you think? We are talking about children here after all.

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#143

Post by brandonjm » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 1:21 AM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #59

Opportunity is going to be the standard for longevity that all future rovers are measured against until one surpasses it. If you said you expected a rover to last 5yr in 2004 you'd have been called crazy. Here we are in 2019 and after ~15yr of Opportunity driving around up there the idea of rover lasting 5yr or seems perfectly normal. Opportunity has raised the bar for all future missions.

Curiosity is doing well at about 6.5 years and had a 2 year mission but it probably won't stay fully operational that long. Its RTG could last that long but it will eventually stop producing enough power for the rover to move.

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#144

Post by pault » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 1:25 AM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #140

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus dude, can’t you enjoy a crowning achievement of human and American excellence? You think NASA is overly concerned about public perception to the tune 44x an original estimate?

I celebrate the achievement just fine, it’s the horrible estimate that is shoved in my face constantly I have issues with. It represents a dumbing down of science for the masses that is just getting worse year after year that I resent. The rover isn’t good enough as is, we are told to be impressed by a nearly 50-fold wrong estimate that is all anyone knows about the rover. I knew it would be one of the top comments o…

Is it not acceptable that they were conservative in their predictions about the effects of Martian dust? I imagine they didn't have a whole lot of data points to inform their estimate.

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#145

Post by Jetroid » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 1:27 AM UTC

perfmode wrote: post #79

How much money would you pay me if I were to travel to Mars, find it, and bring it home?

I'd argue that Opportunity is already home...

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#146

Post by Rebelgecko » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 1:28 AM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #109

Ianworld wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember talking to a high up on the program at a FIRST robotics event who complained about them running so long. They weren't making any major new discoveries and sucking up resources and mindshare stopping him for kicking off and focusing on new projects. He said nobody would take the PR hit to decide to just end a mission like this so he was stuck.

What's the limiting factor on just running with reduced staff support? (Honest question.)

A small handful of people can still easily cost millions of dollars per year. And DSN time to talk to the rovers is expensive, probably in the neighborhood of $2,000 per hour.

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#147

Post by perfmode » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 1:28 AM UTC

Jetroid wrote: post #145

perfmode wrote: post #79

How much money would you pay me if I were to travel to Mars, find it, and bring it home?

I'd argue that Opportunity is already home...

Fair. I'm embarrassed to have been so presumptuous.

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#148

Post by Rebelgecko » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 1:33 AM UTC

sitharus wrote: post #43

wiremine wrote: post #34

Was looking through Opportunity's Wikipedia page, and found this cool comparison of the embedded systems used in Mars rovers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_embedded_compute... That lead me to the RAD6000 page, which was new to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RAD6000 "Reported to have a unit cost somewhere between US$200,000 and US$300,000, RAD6000 computers were released for sale in the general co…

The costs of employing a team to do the radiation hardening design work, running a non-mainstream fab (I believe these chips were silicon-on-sapphire) and small production runs. There's a lot of overheads amortised on to a very small number of chips.

I believe they're fabbed in Virginia, which probably doesn't help costs either

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#149

Post by dba7dba » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 1:35 AM UTC

In an IT industry magazine website (Information Week? not sure) had an article about an IT engineer at JPL who was picked/trained to be one of the drivers of the rovers. He was just a normal IT guy, but got the chance to be a driver for the rover.

He recalled that the first night after he spent a day driving the rover on Mars, he couldn't sleep at home. He had just driven a vehicle on the Mars. Certainly one of the first in human history.

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#150

Post by hinkley » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 1:35 AM UTC

rocketperson7 wrote: post #136

hinkley wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commercial aircraft also track provenance very carefully. I wonder how much the two systems have informed each other over the years. You would never want a part involved in a stress test to be reused, and you certainly don't want test parts anywhere near a production craft. This isn't like IT where you can cannibalize parts from a QA box to put into a production server.

Having worked on mission critical commercial aircraft electronics, I can assure you every part is stress tested before it goes on a plane. Both after its first made and every time its in for service. Supposedly there has been research done showing that stress testing does not adversely affect reliability, at least at this quality level Also, the paper trail is quite literally paper. Its kinda amazing how slow the avi…

It's possible I'm mucking up the jargon, but isn't stress testing electronics what most of us might call "burn-in"? I definitely want the flight control computer burnt in before I sit on the airplane.

I was thinking more of physical components, like an aluminum bracket, and you don't want a part with metal fatigue being installed as new.