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Forum: Satellites - Robotic Probes
Topic: NASA's Spirit stationary Mars mission (2010-11)

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Message to Edit: HTML is ON UBB Code is ON Smilies Legend	Originally posted by Robert Pearlman on 03-24-2010 10:19 PM Mars Exploration Rover status update <BLOCKQUOTE>[b]sols 2200-2203, March 12-15, 2010: [i]Spirit Electronics Getting Colder[/i][/b] <div align="justify">In her winter position, still embedded in the area called "Troy" on the west side of Home Plate, Spirit has transitioned to executing a single, seven-sol plan each week, as long as power permits. The seven-sol plan contains a single X-band uplink and a single Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) downlink. The activity on each sol consists simply of a brief wakeup, an atmospheric opacity (tau) measurement, and then a shutdown for the rest of the day and night. The last downlink from the rover was on Sol 2203 (March 15, 2010). From that downlink, Spirit was still under master sequence control and all systems were green. Energy production was down to 139 watt-hours per sol. Battery state of charge did not decrease significantly, suggesting that Spirit was able to stay roughly power neutral over the last few sols. Solar array energy production levels will continue to drop and rover heating requirements will continue to increase, leading to widening energy deficits. The solid-state power amplifier (SSPA), as a proxy for the rover electronics module (REM), reached a record low temperature of minus 41 degrees Celsius (minus 41.8 degrees Fahrenheit). Spirit is getting colder than ever before. The plan for this week is to sequence another seven-sol plan to be uplinked this Friday with a single UHF downlink over the weekend. Spirit could enter low-power fault at anytime and become quiet for an extended period of time to charge her batteries. As of Sol 2203 (March 15, 2010), the rover solar array energy production was to 139 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (tau) of 0.379 measured on Sol 2202 (March 14, 2010), and a dust factor of 0.507. Total odometry is unchanged at 7,730.50 meters (4.80 miles).</div></BLOCKQUOTE>
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