The Spirit and Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover Missions
Ray Arvidson Washington University in Saint Louis Saint Christopher Lecture 17th International ISTVS Conference
9/19/11
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Ray Arvidson, ISTVS St. Christopher Lecture
1. The Spirit and Opportunity
Mars Exploration Rover
Missions
Ray Arvidson
Washington University in Saint Louis
Saint Christopher Lecture
17th International ISTVS Conference
9/19/11
1
2. Planetary Terramechanics
• Interaction of spacecraft systems with planetary
surfaces, e.g., during
– Hard landing (penetrometer)
– Soft landing (rockets, air bags, “sky crane”)
– Hopping (proposed Comet Hopper)
– Digging and sampling (Mars Phoenix Lander, MER-
Spirit and Opportunity)
– Drilling and sampling (Mars Science Laboratory
(Curiosity), Mars 2018 Sample Caching Rover)
– Roving (MER, MSL, Mars 2018 Sample Caching Rover)
2
3. Spirit and Opportunity Rovers
•Six wheel drive
with rigid wheels
•Outer four wheels
able to turn
•Rocker-bogie
suspension system
•Navigation and
hazard avoidance
systems
3
4. Machine-Terrain Interaction Design, Modeling, Testing, and Best Operational Practices
Must be Used to Avoid……..
Did not happen with either Spirit or Opportunity!
5. Spirit Rover
•Right front wheel
drive actuator
failed on sol 779
so subsequent drives
caused rotations
about that wheel
•Embedded in sands of
Troy after breaking
through soil crust
•Extrication stopped
Sol 2169 to prepare
for winter
•Last communication
March 2010 and
mission over May 2011
5
8. HiRISE View Spirit’s traverses entry to
Inner Basin to 3rd winter site
Home Plate
Mitcheltree Ridge
80 m wide
Tyrone
Low Ridge
Crossfield Slide
McCool Hill
Von Braun
Goddard
8
23. “Punch Line”
•Relatively insoluble
minerals concentrated
toward top of Troy
soil section with ferric sulfate
“lenses”
•Generate sulfates during
Inner Basin volcanic period
•Wind erosion and transport
mix sulfates and basaltic
materials, e.g., infilling Scamander
Crater
•On-going wetting (frosts,
snowpack) moves soluble
species down-section, without
complete re-equilibration
23
25. Opportunity Rover
•Right front
wheel left rotated
~8 deg inward
when azimuthal
actuator failed
•Shoulder IDD
actuator failed so
driving uses
“fishing stow” and
have limited
deployment
work space
•Mini-TES no longer
responding
25
46. 2.0 x100
1.8 Timmins ratio to Zn
GusevSoil Br
1.6 Adirondack
1.4 Marquette
Gibraltar
1.2
1.0 x10
logartihmic ratio
0.8 P S
change
Cl
0.6 K
0.4
Ti x2
Ca
0.2 Mn
Ni
0.0 x1
Fe
-0.2 Si
Na Al x0.5
-0.4 Mg
-0.6
-0.8 Cr
-1.0 x0.1
Oxide