Mike Deliman

And Then There Was One

NASA CONCLUDES ATTEMPTS TO CONTACT ROVER 'SPIRIT'

Last night the news of Spirit's mission coming to a close hit my mailbox.

For me, her journey started about eleven years ago.  A call from JPL came to my office phone, it was Glenn.  "Mike, we're putting the team back together, we're going back to Mars."

Those words were like music to my ears.  Completing the Mars Pathfinder project the thought occurred... "this, then, is the pinnacle of my career, the point  where I can mark as the top of my achievements."  This call changed all of that. There were other projects along the way, Gravity-Probe B, and others, but Pathfinder had been fantastic!

Over 3 long years we worked as a team, cogs in a bigger machine making something incredible.  We all put in long hours, working all day on our mission, dreaming at night of what we were working on (it's a human thing).  They began to take on personalities of their own, MER-A being feisty as the "older twin", MER-B cooperating and living the charmed life of the youngest child.  Then the
competition where the children gave our babies their names- Spirit and  Opportunity.  These seemed to be very fitting of our offspring, Spirit surely was full of fitfulness, where as Opportunity was always moving forward.

The only point where Oppy was contentious was Launch Day.  Though she herself was ready, her rocket kept having one problem or another.  We assembled several times at Jetty Point to watch her ride her candle into the cosmos, alas my 2 weeks were up, I had to leave, and Oppy was still on the pad.

It was decided in order to make the launch window we would "borrow" Spitzer's Delta rocket.  That gave us the go-power to get to Mars on time.  And we did.

"We".  after living with the rovers in mind day and night for so long, the team began to identify with our robots, their efforts were ours, a shared thing. Like the pride you feel watching your child graduate, first from grade school, then high school.  It was like we were sending them off to College.  Imagine sending your 3-year-olds off to Cal Tech or MIT.

Seven months later came the graduation, in the "6 minutes of Terror" landing. They were now on Mars, where they would unfold their wings (solar panels) and begin their flight into their professional lives.

Crawling across the alien world they were on, Spirit again showed her fitfulness on SOL18, and later, as she suffered various maladies and growth-pains.  Oppy on the other hand, landed in a bowl full of science, and fulfilled the  Mission Goals all at once.  Layered rocks and "blueberries" were found within meters of her landing spot, proof that Mars had once had oceans, had once been very much earth-like in the early years.

It's been 7 years now, into their 3-month mission.  They've completed their mission 28-times-over.  Both rovers found proof of the earth-like Mars, in rocks, salts, and formations.  Opportunity kept finding new places to explore, new wonderful things to share with us.  Spirit did as well, but suffered  arthritis (lost a wheel) and alzheimers (forgetting things writting to long-term storage).

Opportunity is currently rolling her way towards another distant crater, sporting improved software that can find interesting rocks for us to inspect, and image-identifying code that finds dust-devils in her landscape pictures. These small bits of improved software increase her science return.

With today's annoucement, Opportunity rides alone now.  Spirit has parked on a bad spot, we couldn't give her the extra energy she needed to winter over.

 

Spirit sleeps now forever in her spot on the Red Planet.

Rendezvous with a Rock

MESSENGER Spacecraft is approaching it's rendezvous with Mercury.  After flying for over 2400 days, in a little over 24 hours (from writing this)  MESSENGER will maneuver into orbit, the first time a satellite has orbited Mercury.  We hope to learn a lot about the composition of the surface and effects of solar weathering of the surface.  And there's the prospect of photographing the sun-side of the planet for the fist time!

In a few months Dawn Spacecraft will orbit Asteroid Vesta - the first time we've orbited an asteroid.  We hope to learn more about the composition of asteroids.   (We've landed on one, but technically it's harder to orbit than to land.  We've also successfully landed on a comet with Deep Imact...)  Dawn has not been in flight as long as MESSENGER, but it's orbital attempt is none the less impressive (Vesta is much smaller than Mercury).

Over the last ten years we've redefined our undertstanding of how Mars evolved to it's present day, learned an incredible amount about the Sun, Moon, and Jovian planets, and even changed our definition of what "habitable" is - of where and how we should look for signs of life.  All of this helps change our understanding of how the solar system works, how planets work, and how we fit in the picture.

It fascinates and amazes me that we can design computers and robots capable of performing these incredible feats.  There's a software logo.. "where do you want to go today?" .  Where do you want to go tomorrow, or in five to ten years?  I wonder what amazing things we will learn from the Sunlit side of Mercury.

VxWorks 5.3.1 for Rad6000 runs on both MESSENGER and Dawn

 

Remarkable

"Space... the final frontier" is how the pre-recorded message from NASA to the Crew of Discovery started this morning.

This afternoon while covering the final departure of Discovery from the ISS, the Newsman said "Remarkable - a remarkable bit of technology and a lasting mark on history" - or something to that effect. I thought "Remarkable" - that's a word Spock used to describe fantastic new technologies that had never been seen before. Things like Ion Drive in an autonomous space probe, or a life form that lives on something we'd considered impossible.

Some remarkable technologies demonstrated recently in the news include things like Northrop Gruman's X47B UCAS, and the comet flybys of Stardust NExT and DI Epoxi, and ongoing announcements of potentially hundreds of earth-like planets being found by Kepler Space Telescope.

One of the remarkable technologies just delivered to the ISS by Discovery is Robonaut R2. R2 is a telepresence operated robotic astronaut / assistant. It's the first robot designed to use the same tools as the astronauts, and to be able to assist them inside and outside on space missions.

Some other note worhty technology demonstrations/events coming up - later this month  MESSENGER will orbit Mercury.  In July  Dawn will go into orbit around asteroid Vesta.  Both of these orbital insertions represent "firsts" for mankind - the first time we've orbited and surveyed the sun-side of Mercury and the first time ever orbiting an asteroid.

All of these devices contain within them a bit of technology called VxWorks.  It's probably being used somewhere in the infrastructure that gets this posting to your monitor.  VxWorks has unparalled maturty and flexibility, going into everything from that internet modem in the closet to autonomous vehicles and robots.  I think that's also kind of remarkable...

Autonomy and Robotic Advancement

A few months ago on the Robotics Virtual Trade Show in
my presentation I spoke about the evolution of robotic systems.  One thing I predicted was as time goes on, robots will become more independent and autonomous, performing more of the work humans and mainframe-style systems have traditionally performed. 

Among the robots I talked about were robots similar to NASA's
Stardust Spacecraft  Stardust is currently on course for a Valentine's Day rendezvous with Comet Temple-1.  Stardust includes a package that performs autonomous navigation, d to help keep the craft on it's flight path with reduced intrusion from ground-based systems.  Since Stardust is so far out from earth, there is significant delay in round-trip communications.  Stardust is able to detect problems in trajectory and perform course correction maneuvers on its own.

Last week, Northrop Grumman had  first-flight for an evolution in Un-maned Aerial Vehicles.  The
X47B UCAS   is an autonomous unmanned flight system.  It is not a wireless-joystick system.  It flies itself, taking off, figuring a course to it's way points, landing.  Without human intervention.

This, in general, is the trend of the robotic future.  There will be more "robots" in all sectors, the robots will become more autonomous, and perform more of the work regarding their duties than in the past.

In general a robot is an artificial entity that performs work for humans.  I broaden this definition to include telepresence systems (telerobotic surgeons, astronauts, and systems like aercams on the ISS), and lifestyle assistants (products such as drobo, tivo, and roomba).  My thoughts are that these consumer systems are both cutting edge, and primitive.

They are cutting edge in that they do some pretty incredible things in comparison with competing products that were available at the times these were invented.  They also pushed conventional wisdom about engineering and marketing, and created some cool and popular products.  They are primitive when you consider what technologies are available and how they could be used to upgrade these devices, and how these technologies will evolve over the next 5 years.  If you think about DVR boxes, you can get new DVRs from many makers,  yet used TiVos sell for over $200!  It's because TiVo can use the programming you record to automagically select other programs to record for you.  It anticipates and adapts based on your habits.  This capability differentiates it from other DVRs.  It does more work for you than others do.

This trend of more intelligence and autonomy will eventually blend its way into everything from automotive products to tourism.  It could lead to smarter cars that can detect when the driver's attention is lapsing or alert that it is unsafe to pass due to oncoming traffic.  There may someday be a system of telepresence pods anywhere on earth or even in orbit, where you could schedule a short vacation and experience a different world just by putting on a special helmet and gloves.  With such systems you could control a telerobotic diver and explore a sunken wreck, then change connections and view the Earth and stars from orbit... Possibly even while driving home from work.

Such systems require many things to make real, among them is vision and technology.  With the proper technology your vision may be wrought into reality.  WindRiver is proud to be involved with programs like NASA/JPL's Stardust and Northrop Grumman's X47 UCAS.  Congratulations to X47B on successful first flight, and Stardust's upcoming Valentine's day rendezvous.

What's In Your Robot?

Robots come in all shapes and all sizes, doing everything from assembling cars to vacuuming your floor.   Some are a blur of complex motions while others don't appear to do much of anything at all. There are robots that don't look or act very different from Humans.

In the last 50 years robots have leaped from being fantasy ("Run Will Robinson") to becoming everyday household appliances.  They have been deployed throughout the world - on and under land, in the sea, in the air - and in space.  They have extended the reach of humankind into unlikely territories and enabled fantastic achievements.

The earliest digital computer controlled robots were research projects, assembly line workers, and scientific probes. Today's robots span a wild variety of applications, shapes and sizes. 

Weather industrial in nature, like KuKa's Occubot, or a telerobotic miracle of science (Zeus, Robonaut R2), robots need and advance technology.  If you're working on robotics, you'll probably find this interesting, stop by and watch my presentation:

Robotics Summit Virtual Conference: Enabling Technologies and Design & Development Solutions
December 8, 2010
10:00am-5:00pm EST

To register directly:
http://event.on24.com/r.htm?e=202518&s=1&k=B798CC86F2F4B3141D99DEEBD9EE4FBA&partnerref=WindRiver

 

Habitability: The Argument Of Life

Or, Star Trek to NASA: you've found my Horta!

What is life?  We used to think we had a good answer for that.  Recently we thought there were a handful of chemicals that were necessary for life, among them, Phosphorus.   Phosphorus is found throughout any living body - bones, cell walls, energy transport, proteins, even DNA.  In fact it is so necessary for life and so common inside a cell that it is possible to compute how much phosphorus must be contained in a given cell in order for it to function.

What our scientists have found is a microbe along the shores of Mono Lake that is able to substitute arsenic for phosphorous.  The measurement of phosphorus in the microbes after they've "grown up" is by far too little for them to have done so.  There clearly still is phosphorous involved, but there is also clearly arsenic in large amounts.  This happened because the microbes were transferred into an environment that was otherwise normal except the phosphorous in the environment was replaced with arsenic.

This isn't quite Spock's friend, the Horta, which "Bones" noted had replaced all of it's carbon with silicon, but the same process is at work. In Star-Trek the sensors couldn't "see" the Horta as anything other than moving rocks.  Replacing the basic chemicals of life re-defines what we have to consider as "life", and changes what we have to look for.  It also means we have to look at a wider range of environments as being possibly "habitable". What else would using arsenic to replace phosphorous enable in a microbe?  It has a different energy of reaction...

As Dr Wolfe-Simon has said, "this opens the doors" to a whole new set of paradigms.  We thought we knew what to look for.  Now, we need to look for a whole lot more.

NASA article

Fox News article

BUT Can the Commercial Sector do Space?

With the recent demise of the ARES program, we are left without an institutional solution for accessing  space. Not just returning to the Moon, etc, but maintaining our presence in orbit (ISS) without relying on someone else's technology for transportation.  The cancellation of that program leaves a staggering hole in our plans for exploring space over the next 20 years.  These were our "heavy lifters" - the machines designed to carry serious payloads aloft - the enablement of such grand plans as returning to the Moon and establishing a laboratory there, and carrying Man to Mars and beyond.  The reasons cited were over-runs in costs and budgeted time.  The idea was that the commercial sector would step in and show the Government "how to do space".

BUT that brings up the question:  CAN the Commercial Sector Do Space?  Not "can they design the technology?"  - the answer to that is obviously "yes".  Since the Apollo Era, rockets have been manufactured by the likes of Boeing, Lockheed, and many others for the Federal Government.  And let's not forget Space Ship One and Burt Rutan's successful missions taking the Ansari-X prize with a privately funded venture.  Technologically, yes, commercial entities CAN design successful space launches and fantastic new technologies.  But.. what about financially?  These heavy-lift rockets cost billions of dollars and a decade to design, test, validate and fly.  Who could possibly endure that long of a delay and expense from proposal of a project to "launch"?

With recent news from the FAA regarding flight licensing, it looks like we will soon see!

 

Roving in Alameda: Rocky at the Hornet

Consider this a retweet of sorts... Rocky Rover, a JPL-NASA roving robot, will be on display at the USS Hornet Museum in Alameda, starting tomorrow.

Our Mars Rover exhibit will be debuting this Saturday, 9/18, at 1pm. We will have guest speakers from NASA Ames, The Mars Society, and our Apollo curator. Thank you for your help.

More information can be found at the Hornet Web site.

The Rocky Rovers are used by JPL for research into rover mobility and capabilities, and to help plan activities for the Mars Exploration Rovers.   The rovers are also used to test possible enhancements for future space missions.

Houston.... the Falcon has Flown!

Last week something remarkable happened. I'm not talking about the UFO sighted over Brisbane (...or am I?)  Last week Spacex successfully orbited the first successful commercial attempt to launch such a device. Wind River is proud to be a part of this historic endeavor.

It's hard to convey how exciting this is.  This represents a HUGE step for mankind, a transition of the technology necessary for space exploration now being handled by commercial entities.  Something like this may be our fledgling answer for "what to do about Manned exploration now that ARES is cut".

With permission, I'll reprint an entry from a space software engineer's blog entry as he watched the launch... (note: the "e#" marks are edit points as the engineer updated the blog in real-time.)

-----

http://www.spacex.com/webcast.php
has just come off a 15:00 hold....
[e1] it's been on hold for several hours.
[e2] 11:00 and counting...
This is a new commercial launch vehicle.
[e3]
Terminal count launch started.

T- 10:00
[e4] count continuing
changing camera angles, etc.
It's a cloudy day at the cape.

T- 9:00
[e5]
Standing by for firing....
T- 8:00
chatter about status

T- 7:00
[e6]
checking valves, etc, for propellant
more chatter. Still venting LOX.
T- 6:00
[e7]
Fully charged... on internal power.
transmitter working

T- 5:00
[e8]
Interrupters rotating arm. (?)
Count continuing.
T-4:00
[e9]
LOX venting has increased
there is venting at the bottom as well now
T-3:00
[E10]
T-2:30 LD GO FOR LAUNCH
[E11]
T-2:00
RCO verify range go - RANGE GO!
[E12]
(more people are on the stream, it's having problems now)
(T-0000)
IT'S UP!
[E13]
Missed the last minute of count - but I did get to see the actual launch. The Falcon 9 is on it's way up.
[E14] They seem to be having more feed problems (or I do). There - split screen now. They've passed MaxQ. The plume behind the rocket is feathered-out as expected in very thin atmosphere. (T+3:05)
[E15]
Nominal function at t+4:15 . Second stage is in flight. The main rocket motor is glowing hot.
Everything is running Nominally (except the error on the web site).
The rocket nozzle is glowing white hot in some places - this is expected. Everything is performing nominally.
[E16]
Telem acquired by New Hampshire. There are apparently grass fires near the hangars. The camera on the rocket appears to be functioning well, the rocket is in a slow roll. So far it's looking all good.
Missed 2nd stage separation and ignition.
Right now there's a feed error...
[E17]
The launch has been a success. More info, photos, and video will be posted to spacex as it becomes available.

------

Note: there are video highlights available at the SpaceX web site, as well as more information about Falcon, Dragon, and Spacex.  CONGRATULATIONS SPACEX!!

Radioactive Telepresence

How timely!  A couple of months ago the discussion started - "will unmanned vehicles make a transition into civilian use".  I've been taking the stance that since we're talking vehicles - not just aircraft but all forms of non-stationary robot, that it is inevitable.  Even with aircraft I believe it is inevitable, though it may take a little longer for unmanned / automated aircraft to be certified for use in civilian airspace.

It would make sense that robots would be deployed for things that are either impossible for humans to do, or for things that are hazardous and dangerous.  On the impossible-for-humans side, quick return deep-dive missions in the ocean, and several-day long monitoring missions come to mind, as well as some interesting possibilities for telepresence tourism.  The hazardous side is easy to imagine - everything from maintenance of city infrastructures to handing toxic or radioactive substances would be fair game to use robots for, as well as underground mining.

Among some of the things I've thought about are robots with a divide-and-conquer design.  Some robots would be specialized worker robots, others might act as relay points to extend the reach of the overall system, and some functionality might overlap.

Just a couple of days ago, Bill posted about INTRA Groupe's Hazardous Materials handling robots.
This is an excellent example of a small herd of robots designed to perform complementary tasks. There's even a unit specially designed to act as a data relay, to extend the reach of the telepresence system.  Though these robots are currently remote-operated, as the need arises and becomes evident I would expect each system to be given some degree of autonomous control, in order to augment the abilities of their human controllers to achieve their ultimate goal.