Mars: What happened to the Spirit Rover?

ah spirit do you receive over we have another wheel off line over spirit do not go gentle into that good night [Music] our story begins january 4th 2004. the spirit rover slams into the dusty surface of mars bouncing on its airbags 28 times before coming to rest it landed about 13 kilometers away from the targeted site the gusset crater the team at nasa informally named the landing site columbia memorial station in honor of the astronauts who were lost in the columbia disaster just a year before in 2003 after a successful landing spirit opens its eyes this is the first color image spirit captured which was at that time the highest definition image ever taken on another planet so far the mission was running smoothly but that was all about to change on january 21st spirit's 17th martian day mission control suddenly lost contact with the rover the next day spirit sent a short beep confirming that it had received a signal from earth but that the rover believed it was in some sort of fault mode at the time nasa engineers speculated that the rover was stuck in a reboot loop spirit was programmed to restart if it detected a fault but if that fault occurred during reboot it would continue to reboot indefinitely this meant that the rover was not going into sleep mode therefore wasting its energy and running the risk of overheating this error was taken very seriously and could have signaled the end of spirit's journey luckily on spirit's 19th day the team at nasa announced that the problem was actually with spirit's flash memory and the issue was software related the fix was as easy as deleting some files carried on the rover's flash drives and reformatting the system by day 32 spirit was back up and running the team's next goal was to use spirit's rock abrasion tool also known as the rat rocks on mars had never before been ground intentionally so the world was waiting for what the rover might discover 45 millimeters in diameter this grinding made way for spirit's microscopic imager and spectrometers which confirmed that the rock was made of volcanic basalt after this discovery spirit continued to roam the surface and headed towards another strange rock nicknamed humphrey on march 5th after a thorough investigation of the rock nasa announced that spirit had discovered the first signs of water on mars the humphrey rock contained minerals that were likely formed alongside the presence of water from here spirit made its way to a location known as bonneville crater and took this stunning panorama the team decided not to risk sending the rover inside the crater as there didn't seem to be anything of interest inside spirit made its way around the southern rim of the crater and headed to a target known as the columbia hills spirit passed another crater on the way and stopped to take this panorama spirit continued driving taking this panorama near lahontan crater the columbia hills can be seen in the distance upon reaching columbia hills spirits spent the remainder of 2004 using the rat to investigate many more rocks in this image looking back at spirit's tracks the team noticed that one of its wheels was dragging along the ground the wheel was still functional but not working as it should in 2005 the team instructed the rover to slowly make its way up to the apex of a ridge known as husband hill this view from a site called larry's lookout shows the peak of husband hill on the way up to the summit spirit spotted an interesting target known as pot of gold rock after a close investigation scientists confirmed the presence of hematite which signals the presence of water in the past the spirit rover was only designed to last for 90 days but the mission planners were able to extend the journey due to the rover's resilience martian dust was accumulating on the solar panels and power generation was down to 63 percent of its maximum but this was still enough to keep exploring then in march 2005 a strange event occurred a passing dust devil swept dust from the solar panels leaving spirit with a power generation value of 93 percent significantly increasing the mission's duration spirit even managed to capture this video sequence of a passing dust devil just three days before the one that cleared its solar panels slowly but surely spirit arrived at the top of husband hill and took this stunning image looking towards the south the next target for spirit was a location known as home plate the team ordered the rover to begin its descent from the peak of husband hill and make its way to home plate this panorama presents the view as spirit was making the descent on the way the rover stopped at an outcrop known as comanche careful investigation showed that this area was once home to a large amount of non-acidic water challenging the notion at the time that any water on mars was unfavorable for life here spirit crosses some dangerous territory on the way to home plate in february 2006 spirit reached home plate with the martian summer drawing to a close the team wanted to prepare spirit for the winter in which its solar panels would receive less sunlight in order to make the most of the winter sunlight the team concluded that it should drive along a ridge known as mccool hill which would angle the solar panels more favorably towards the sun however in march 2006 spirit's dysfunctional front wheels stopped working all together if the rover did not reach mccool hill it would likely signal the end of the mission the team at nasa decided that it would be better for spirit to drive backwards dragging the broken front wheel along in this image taken on the way to mccool hill spirits backwards driving churned up the martian surface however with winter closing in the engineers were not sure if spirit would make the journey on time they scrapped the plan to go to mccool hill and instead chose a closer ridge which would become known as spirit's winter haven spirit parked here with an 11 degree incline towards the sun for the next eight months it continued to perform observations of the environment but no attempts to drive were made due to the low levels of power from the winter sun in 2007 spirit awoke from its winter slumber and continued with the mission armed with some new software that helped spirit drive more autonomously and better decide when to send a picture back to earth the team at nasa was optimistic spirit's front wheel was still dysfunctional but it actually unveiled something hiding beneath the surface in march 2007 as the rover was driving along with the front wheel still dragging on the ground behind it a bright substance was revealed just beneath the martian surface this substance turned out to be silica which raises hopes that ancient microbial life once flourished on mars for much of 2007 spirit stayed within the area of home plate it took this panorama from the western edge of home plate which received little to no attention from the public that is until an independent website spotted something lurking in the background suddenly the internet became ablaze with theories of a bigfoot sighting on mars this is a very strange rock formation but its similarity to humanoid is likely to be the result of a theory called pareidolia towards the end of june 2007 huge dust storms began sweeping the martian surface by july 20th spirit was facing the very real prospect of system failure due to a lack of energy these images show the rover before and after a martian dust storm in a somber statement to the public nasa explained we're rooting for our rovers to survive these storms but they were never designed for conditions this intense the issue was that spirit relied on an internal heating system to protect itself from the freezing martian temperatures the dust storms were blocking the amount of power spirit could generate from its solar panels and without sufficient power its internal heating system may fail luckily the storms cleared a little in august and spirit was able to charge its batteries to a safer level taking caution the team decided to keep spirit and hibernation mode for the rest of the storm on november 10th the storm intensified again and this time reduced the battery to a critical level nasa officials were hopeful that spirit would survive the storm and shut down most of its systems to conserve power including its heating system spirits spent the next three months in this critical state with the team at nasa trying to find a balance between conserving energy and keeping spirit warm in february 2009 spirit experienced a stroke of luck with a beneficial wind blowing off some of the dust which had accumulated on the solar panels by april 2009 and after even more cleaning events spirit's power generation increased to a level suitable to resume driving unfortunately just as the team had started moving spirit one of its wheels became lodged in soft sand the team at nasa made desperate attempts to free spirit they produced a mock-up rover on earth simulating spirit's predicament the mock-up was slightly lighter to account for the gravity difference they ran several tests in order to find the best way to excavate the wheel unfortunately they were not successful spirit was now trapped at such an angle which actually worsened the efficiency of its solar panels if the rover could not be moved from its current position then the battery would be completely expended by may 2010 to make matters worse another one of spirit's wheels failed now with just four out of six wheels operational one of which was trapped in the sand their efforts seemed futile after many long months of trying to move spirit nasa decided it was best to redefine the mission as a stationary platform spirit's new objective was now to study tiny wobbles in the planet's rotation which would help scientists determine the contents of the martian core however on march 30th 2010 spirit skipped a planned communication event the last communication with the rover was march 22nd nasa believed that the rover had experienced critical levels of battery depletion and had gone into an automatic hibernation mode disabling all systems even communication to conserve energy there was a possibility that if spirit could survive the winter in this state it may restart communications in the summer solstice of march 2011. the team set over 1300 commands to spirit but it remained silent in march 2011 the mission was officially concluded spirit remains silent to this day a moment frozen in time alone on the vast martian plains nasa now believes that the rover was unable to generate sufficient power for its heating system the freezing temperatures had irreversibly damaged the rover's internal components it is also possible that the rover experienced a clock fault losing track of time and staying in hibernation mode until sufficient sunlight could awaken it spirit survived for over six years in the extreme martian environment and traveled a total of 4.8 miles or 7.7 kilometers despite the sadness of spirit's demise the rover was actually launched around the same time as its twin opportunity to honor the memory of spirit nasa decided to name a place that opportunity was exploring on the other side of the planet this image was captured by opportunity at spirit point opportunity outlived spirit by a further seven years and ultimately came to an even more abrupt end click here to see the full story of spirit's twin the opportunity rover thanks for watching elder fox share this video to honor the memory of spirit remember to subscribe to keep up to date with the latest discoveries

Channel: ElderFox Documentaries

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Keywords: elderfox, elder fox, elderfox documentaries, Mars spirit rover, mars spirit landing, spirit rover last message

Id: 7V54LRRJaGk

Length: 16min 5sec (965 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 23 2020