Mars Phoenix Lander Finishes Successful Work on Red Planet
11.10.08 NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander ceased communications after working for more than five months. As guessed, seasonal decline in sunshine at the robot's arctic landing site is not providing enough sunlight for the solar arrays to get the power that is necessary to charge the batteries to operate the lander's instruments.
Mission engineers last got a signal from the lander on November 2nd. Phoenix, in additon to shorter daylight, has gotten a dustier sky. More clouds and lower temperatures as the northern Mars summer comes on autumn. The mission exceeded its planned operation life to conduct and return the science data.
The project team will be listening carefully for the next couple of weeks to see if the Phoenix revives and phones home. :-) However, engineers think now that that is unlikely because of the worsening weather on Mars. While the spacecraft's work has ended, the analysis of data from the instruments is at its earliest stages.
Monday, November 10, 2008
The Mission to Mars Begins Nov. 10, 2008
Today we all met and received our mission briefing. We began by reading the expectations of what we had to do and began planning how to get to Mars. We need a rocket, rover , and many other things to make it happen. The mission brief is below:
Jonesboro Robotics Club Mission 001 – From Earth To Mars And Back
Our first mission is to build a Robot capable of traveling from “Earth” to “Mars” and then return to “Earth”. This won’t be a “competition” in the sense you’re used to – There’s no best way or right way to do the job. You should all share your ideas and help each other achieve the final goal of getting your “Spacecraft” to Mars and bringing it home.
There are several things we hope you’ll take away from this:
A) Learn some of the aspects of spacecraft design and about the scientific missions (past & present) going on Mars now.
B) Learn to start building more functional Robots – Ones that are built for a specific purpose and don’t rely so much on flashy disco balls, fire wings and LEGO mini-figures.
C) While programming you’ll learn to record data from sensors (data-log) and make the Robot perform a series of actions to navigate from one place to another.
Each person or group will be given a RCX, 2 motors and a deck of Marsbound cards to help in your design, along with the attached Spacecraft Design Log Sheet. The final design of each Robot will also have a temperature and light sensor attached to provide real data which will be recorded by the RCX.
The Marsbound cards feature pictures and information about the various components that go into an interplanetary spacecraft. They give a weight, power usage number, and cost. You’ll need to design your spacecraft to fit into the mission “budget” of $250,000,000 (250 Million Dollars!). You’ll also need to be mindful of the weight of your craft, so that your rocket can lift it, and the power usage of the components you attach, making sure your ship can generate enough power. Each component you choose to add from the cards (except for the rocket, which is the RCX and motors) will need to be built from LEGO pieces and attached to your spacecraft, securely, and so they don’t block the functions of other components.
Finally – to stir things up just a little more – each group will draw one of the six Green cards, laid face down. Three of these will add money to your budget – the other three cause you headaches! Good luck to all!
Hopefully you will be successful. Keeping within the budget is hard. Getting your rover to Mars may be harder. Take your time and plan your design carefully and stay within your budget. A challenge to be sure. Also being sure you rover doesn't have so much stuff on it that the rocket can't lift off!!! Try to make your project with more substance and less flash!!! Someday people will make it to Mars and we will by flying around at Warp speed but in the mean time, Keep It Simple Silly!!! :) !
Jonesboro Robotics Club Mission 001 – From Earth To Mars And Back
Our first mission is to build a Robot capable of traveling from “Earth” to “Mars” and then return to “Earth”. This won’t be a “competition” in the sense you’re used to – There’s no best way or right way to do the job. You should all share your ideas and help each other achieve the final goal of getting your “Spacecraft” to Mars and bringing it home.
There are several things we hope you’ll take away from this:
A) Learn some of the aspects of spacecraft design and about the scientific missions (past & present) going on Mars now.
B) Learn to start building more functional Robots – Ones that are built for a specific purpose and don’t rely so much on flashy disco balls, fire wings and LEGO mini-figures.
C) While programming you’ll learn to record data from sensors (data-log) and make the Robot perform a series of actions to navigate from one place to another.
Each person or group will be given a RCX, 2 motors and a deck of Marsbound cards to help in your design, along with the attached Spacecraft Design Log Sheet. The final design of each Robot will also have a temperature and light sensor attached to provide real data which will be recorded by the RCX.
The Marsbound cards feature pictures and information about the various components that go into an interplanetary spacecraft. They give a weight, power usage number, and cost. You’ll need to design your spacecraft to fit into the mission “budget” of $250,000,000 (250 Million Dollars!). You’ll also need to be mindful of the weight of your craft, so that your rocket can lift it, and the power usage of the components you attach, making sure your ship can generate enough power. Each component you choose to add from the cards (except for the rocket, which is the RCX and motors) will need to be built from LEGO pieces and attached to your spacecraft, securely, and so they don’t block the functions of other components.
Finally – to stir things up just a little more – each group will draw one of the six Green cards, laid face down. Three of these will add money to your budget – the other three cause you headaches! Good luck to all!
Hopefully you will be successful. Keeping within the budget is hard. Getting your rover to Mars may be harder. Take your time and plan your design carefully and stay within your budget. A challenge to be sure. Also being sure you rover doesn't have so much stuff on it that the rocket can't lift off!!! Try to make your project with more substance and less flash!!! Someday people will make it to Mars and we will by flying around at Warp speed but in the mean time, Keep It Simple Silly!!! :) !
NASA Image of the day
Check out this cool image of the Spirit rover NAS posted today....
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1215.html
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1215.html
Image of draft RoboLab program for getting to Mars
The image above is a draft or start of my program that will ultimately get my Robot to Mars and bring it back while recording data.
Welcome New Contributors!
Welcome to Mr. C. and Taylor, this week, as contributing authors to our humble Blog. Want to join up? Heard a good space related story lately? Let us know in the meeting and we'll talk about it.
Announcement Of A Major Extrasolar Planet Discovery Coming Thursday
NASA News Service announced on the 7th they will hold a press conference on Thursday the 13th, at 2:30PM EST to "report on a significant discovery about planets orbiting other stars". The discovery was apparently made by the Hubble Space Telescopes Advance Camera for Surveys instrument. More information can be found here: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/nov/HQ_M08227_Hubble.html
Hmm...? Just a coincidence that Hubble has been down, then up then down again and now back up? I'm wondering if this might be big news! Stay tuned!
Hmm...? Just a coincidence that Hubble has been down, then up then down again and now back up? I'm wondering if this might be big news! Stay tuned!
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Onward to Mars We Hope!
On Monday, November 3rd we looked at what it takes to get a Robot to Mars. Rockets and guiding them, no technical problems, and being sure that you have a landing where your Robot doesn't get destroyed when it lands. Then once your on Mars a whole bunch of other problems begin. Waiting for 20 minutes to get your radio signal from the Earth to Mars, unknown objects, and challenges and many other obstacles.
This week begins the first stage of getting to Mars. Designing our "Rocket" Robots to get to Mars with a payload and to follow the course from 4th and 5th grade to 2nd and 3rd via the long way around!!! It may be harder than you think or it may be easier. You need to make many decisions and try them out. Also the programming needs to get done. This will be difficult but you need to plan out your steps as to what you thing your robot should do then use Robolab to create the program. Hopefully you are up to the challenge! Mars or Bust! When you go Bust in space it is expensive so take your time!!!!
This week begins the first stage of getting to Mars. Designing our "Rocket" Robots to get to Mars with a payload and to follow the course from 4th and 5th grade to 2nd and 3rd via the long way around!!! It may be harder than you think or it may be easier. You need to make many decisions and try them out. Also the programming needs to get done. This will be difficult but you need to plan out your steps as to what you thing your robot should do then use Robolab to create the program. Hopefully you are up to the challenge! Mars or Bust! When you go Bust in space it is expensive so take your time!!!!
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