Timeline for If Curiosity had lights, could it drive or work in the evening?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
41 events
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| Aug 9, 2020 at 1:39 | comment | added | uhoh | @LonelyFox Welcome to Space! I'm in awe of this mission and Stack Exchange is a great place to share information about it. :-) | |
| Aug 9, 2020 at 1:11 | comment | added | Lonely Fox | @uhoh 1) my brain did not register the “evening” part thank you for the clarification 2) I did not know the rover mostly used satellites for its data transfer. I thought it always used its high gain gain for that. Thank you for correcting that. | |
| Aug 9, 2020 at 1:09 | comment | added | uhoh | @LonelyFox Curiosity generally either waits for a favorable satellite pass to sent its stored data and images to Earth, or occasionally when there are scheduled opportunities, sends directly to Earth: Has the Curiosity rover ever communicated directly with Earth via its high-gain antenna? Signal strength & data rate? | |
| Aug 9, 2020 at 1:09 | comment | added | uhoh | @LonelyFox see for example How much can the Mars rover Curiosity do autonomously, after four years of operation? and possibly Are NASA (and ESA?) deep space spacecraft now generally able to store and forward messages between themselves? | |
| Aug 9, 2020 at 1:04 | comment | added | uhoh | @LonelyFox I'm not sure that's true for two reasons: 1) I asked "...could it drive or work in the evening?" rather than in the middle of the night for thermal reasons, it may be too cold to for some things to operate at 2 AM local time, but for a short time after sunset all parts may still be warm enough. It's core is warmed by circulating fluid from its RTG so the computer will be okay. 2) The rover generally drives and samples on its own without constant control. It stores data and images and sends them to Earth periodically, so there's no need to send or receive signals during these times | |
| Aug 8, 2020 at 23:45 | comment | added | Lonely Fox | One major problem I see is that the rover isnt able to send or receive signals from earth during the night period | |
| Nov 8, 2018 at 16:11 | vote | accept | uhoh | ||
| Jun 15, 2018 at 12:36 | comment | added | uhoh | @MagicOctopusUrn not even close. For a start see How much can the Mars rover Curiosity do autonomously, after four years of operation? but you'll have to do more reading to understand how it's operated. | |
| Jun 15, 2018 at 10:55 | comment | added | Magic Octopus Urn | Don't humans pilot it? Would another limitation be staffing? | |
| Jun 15, 2018 at 10:40 | answer | added | Hobbes | timeline score: 18 | |
| S Apr 15, 2018 at 4:59 | history | bounty ended | CommunityBot | ||
| S Apr 15, 2018 at 4:59 | history | notice removed | CommunityBot | ||
| Apr 10, 2018 at 19:18 | comment | added | called2voyage♦ | I don't have time for an answer right now, but this paper addresses some of the navigational issues: digital.library.ryerson.ca/islandora/object/RULA%3A4596/… | |
| Apr 10, 2018 at 19:07 | answer | added | PearsonArtPhoto♦ | timeline score: -1 | |
| Apr 8, 2018 at 2:55 | review | Suggested edits | |||
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| Apr 8, 2018 at 2:54 | answer | added | Muze | timeline score: 5 | |
| Apr 7, 2018 at 15:11 | comment | added | uhoh | @Pelinore as I already mentioned in the 2nd paragraph of the question, LED lights can be "on" for milliseconds at a time, and only "flash" when the cameras are required to record a image. It would not be the way people use flashlights or headlights. | |
| Apr 7, 2018 at 13:53 | comment | added | Pelinore | That would have entailed larger batteries among other things if your lights are going to last very long, there's payload considerations involved in this for the original launch costs, the decision not to include night lights may have been as simple as that. | |
| S Apr 7, 2018 at 3:08 | history | bounty started | uhoh | ||
| S Apr 7, 2018 at 3:08 | history | notice added | uhoh | Draw attention | |
| Jan 29, 2018 at 15:43 | history | edited | uhoh |
[Edit removed during grace period]; edited tags
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| Sep 19, 2016 at 21:06 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackSpaceExp/status/777977157880545280 | ||
| Sep 15, 2016 at 11:01 | comment | added | LocalFluff | @Hobbes Curiosity has taken images at sunset and sunrise, and I think night time too, of Phobos and Earth. Imaging the same terrain day and night could be helpful for future autonomous 25 hours a day rovers with much more than Curiosity's poor 1/6 of a horsepower electric effect. | |
| Sep 15, 2016 at 8:25 | comment | added | uhoh | @Andrew I was under the impression that these days Curiosity executes a significant amount of autonomous motion not necessarily requiring comms. Am I wrong? Ok maybe answer here instead! | |
| Sep 15, 2016 at 8:06 | comment | added | Andrew is gone | One point to consider - comms. Because Mars orbits futher out, then (generally speaking) Earth is in the sky during the day, but not at night, or at least not for very long. Depending on quite how comms are handled, this could limit the usefulness of non-daylight operations. | |
| Sep 15, 2016 at 5:40 | comment | added | Innovine | If you are going to drive at night it'll be very necessary. Whatever. | |
| Sep 15, 2016 at 5:22 | comment | added | uhoh | @Innovine again, "You'd only use it when necessary perhaps to resolve an ambiguous terrain feature, or to illuminate a work area." You need to add in the mass of the copper wire necessary to power each light, and the additional logic and solid state relays necessary to turn each one on and off. | |
| Sep 15, 2016 at 5:13 | comment | added | Innovine | It's a lot more energy effective to install additional bulbs though, and if you're waving the arm around all the time it's additional wear on the motors. Led lights don't weigh or cost much, so placingethem in different locations is reasonable, cheap and unlikely to impact rover operations in any way. Credit to you for the idea of shadow analysis though | |
| Sep 15, 2016 at 5:08 | comment | added | uhoh | @Innovine Arm allows you to both place and point a light in a far wider range of configurations (both vertically and horizontally) than a set of static chassis-mounted lights. You'd only use it when necessary, perhaps to resolve an ambiguous terrain feature, or to illuminate a work area. "...some combination of LED headlights, wheel-lights, and/or a spotlight on the movable robotic arm" | |
| Sep 15, 2016 at 5:00 | comment | added | Innovine | Easier to have multiple lights, cycle through them, and perform analysis on the shadows. | |
| Sep 15, 2016 at 1:32 | comment | added | uhoh | @Hobbes A "headlight" on the movable robotic arm would at least allow comparison of upcoming terrain illuminated from slightly different angles. That is at least a little bit like sunlit images taken at different times of the day for shadow analysis but certainly not the same. | |
| Sep 15, 2016 at 1:18 | history | edited | uhoh | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 15, 2016 at 0:57 | history | edited | uhoh | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 15, 2016 at 0:56 | comment | added | uhoh | @MichaelKjörling I've adjusted the wording to focus specifically on the Curiosity rover with only the addition of strategically placed LED lights. A question about the best technology for a rover designed to operate without sunlight would be a logical next question, and if nobody else asks it first and it hasn't been asked already, I might ask it. | |
| Sep 15, 2016 at 0:44 | history | edited | uhoh | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Clarified the question based on comment from @MichaelKjörling
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| Sep 15, 2016 at 0:35 | history | edited | uhoh | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Clarified the question based on comment from @MichaelKjörling
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| Sep 14, 2016 at 21:07 | comment | added | user | So, is this question about whether Curiosity could do this, or about whether the concept would be viable in a future Mars rover design? | |
| Sep 14, 2016 at 8:39 | comment | added | uhoh | @Hobbes that's a really good point. I may have been only thinking a few, maybe at most 10 meters ahead, where enough day-lit imagery was still available to mostly understand the upcoming terrain, and the night illumination was mostly for avoidance of things already known to be out there. Long distance night navigation suddenly sounds really difficult with Curiosity's existing imaging systems. | |
| Sep 14, 2016 at 7:58 | comment | added | Hobbes | They'd need to reprogram the vision system so it can translate between daytime and nighttime views: the same terrain would look quite different. | |
| Sep 14, 2016 at 4:52 | history | edited | uhoh | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 14, 2016 at 4:46 | history | asked | uhoh | CC BY-SA 3.0 |