After months of trying, NASA is calling it quits on freeing the Spirit rover from the Martian sand that it’s been stuck in since May of 2009.  Unfortunately, after six years of tireless service, the end might be very near for the rover, which faces a severe Martian winter in its current position. NASA engineers will spend the next few weeks preparing Spirit to face the winter weather, and hope that it will be able to continue on as a stationary scientific platform.

“Spirit is not dead; it has just entered another phase of its long life,” said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We told the world last year that attempts to set the beloved robot free may not be successful. It looks like Spirit’s current location on Mars will be its final resting place.”

The Martian winter will begin in May. Until then, NASA will try and use remaining power to change the inclination of Spirit in order to help it capture more sunlight. NASA says that unless Spirit can be positioned in a better position, it is unlikely that it will survive.

Meanwhile, Opportunity, Spirit’s sister, continues to amble onwards towards a crater called Endeavor. NASA has some good videos summarizing Spirit’s six years.

The famous underwater ROV (remotely operated vehicle), Jason, which was integral in discovering the wreck of the Titanic and other famous ships, recently captured a spectacular underwater volcano eruption in high definition. This extremely rare event is even more impressive considering it’s 4000 feet (1200 meters) below the ocean’s surface, in an area of the Pacific ocean near Fiji. This is the deepest erupting underwater volcano ever discovered and the extreme water pressure allowed Jason to record video mere feet from the eruption. The lava spewing from the West Mata volcano is also thought to be an extremely rare, and very hot, form of lava previously only found on extinct volcanoes.

You can see videos of the eruption after the jump.

Jason is operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the work was funded by NOAA and NSF.

(more…)

Cornell University has won the 12th annual AUVSI Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition. And, according to Cornell’s tweet, second place goes to University of Victoria and 3rd to University of Rhode Island. Interestingly, these three teams weren’t even in the top 5 of last year’s compeitors (pdf), so they seem to have put in a lot of work. You can read all of the team’s technical papers here. Cornell’s, U.Vic. and URI’s papers will make interesting reading for all the 2010 competitors with an ax to grind.

Congratulations to Nova, Aerius, and Ram-Boat ’09 and all the engineers behind them on a job well done.

After the jump are two recap videos from the 1st and 2nd days competition.

If you like this story, will you please Digg it? Thanks!

(more…)

 

Mars Rover Stuck

After over five years of tireless service, the Mars rover Spirit is one again in trouble.  Our long-lived martian friend now appears to be stuck in the sand. Spirit, which has been dragging an immobile wheel for nearly three years, has been circling a, “low plateau called ‘Home Plate’ for two months”, where it stumbled into some very soft martian sand. After proceeding about 1 meter, it now appears that the wheels are almost half-way deep into the sand (which you can see in the picture), and NASA engineers have suspended movement until they can further analyze the situation.

“We are proceeding methodically and cautiously. It may be weeks before we try moving Spirit again. Meanwhile, we are using Spirit’s scientific instruments to learn more about the physical properties of the soil that is giving us trouble.”

Even if Spirit never recovers, it will have been operation for more than 5 years past its original mission – a pretty hefty return-on-investment. But, here’s hoping for some more martian exploration time from dear Spirit.

Festo, a German engineering company which brought us the stunning AirJelly, has now unveiled their latest project – life-like robo-penginus. Even better, there ‘s a swimming and a flying version. The penguins, which were designed to showcase a new mechanical linkage/control design for robotic arms, are amazingly life-like. Aside from the creepy glowing eyes, the underwater variety could well be mistaken for the real thing. The swimming penguins can move their heads and tails, just like real penguins, and navigate using a 3D sonar developed by EvoLogics. The flying variety use ultrasonic receivers to map out their flying space, with the help of stragegically placed ultrasonic transmitter. Both penguins use fiberglass rods through the length length of their body to provide structure, and when the rods are pushed/pulled, to move their heads and tails.

You can see another video of the Penguins after the jump. (more…)