NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/space/18467

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From: [e-mail] (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Dante Advisory #3
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Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 02:30:00 GMT
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Charles Redmond
Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Md.                        Dec. 30, 1992
(Phone:  [phone])

DANTE ADVISORY #3

ROBOT POISED AND READY FOR DESCENT INTO VOLCANO

        The 8-legged rappelling robot Dante was being placed into
position at the rim of the Antarctic volcano Mt. Erebus late
on December 30 in preparation for its descent down the steep
slopes on Thursday, Dec. 31.  Dave Lavery, the Erebus
project manager, said from the Antarctic that the team
expected the robot to be actively descending the 70 degree
slopes of the inner rim of the volcano by early morning on
Thursday.

        NASA will provide a live video feed of the Dante robot
activities, including the first live transmission from the
robot's onboard television camera system, beginning at 8:15
am EST and continuing through 9:00 am.

        The live video will continue later Thursday with
live feeds showing the robot's point of view as it navigates
slowly down the steep slope of the volcano.  Thursday video
feed times have been set for 12:35 through 1:25 pm EST,
2:10 pm through 3:40 pm, 3:42 pm through 3:57 pm,
4:20 pm through 5:25 pm, 5:50 pm through 6:10 pm, and
7:25 pm through 8:25 pm.  All of this video will be available on
the NASA Select satellite as it is received by the communications
support team at the Goddard Space Flight Center.

        During the 8:15 am through 9:00 am EST video period, Dave
Lavery and possibly other members of the combined NASA-
National Science Foundation-university team at the volcano
will provide a live audio commentary of the activity.  The
video feeds are being transmitted from a remote NASA
Tracking and Data Relay Satellite portable station set up on
the ice at the team's base hut, several thousand feet below
the volcano rim.  The audio portion will be transmitted
through a communications link through the INMARSAT
satellite.

        NASA will also provide a commentary from participating
robotic and geophysical science team members during the
Antarctic video feeds beginning at 12:35 pm EST.  The audio
commentary will originate from robotic specialists from
Carnegie-Mellon University, who built the $2 million robot
system for NASA, and from NASA Goddard scientists involved
in the geochemical and geophysical science investigations
which the robot will perform once it reaches the floor of
the crater.

        A similar video support schedule at approximately the same
Eastern Standard times is being developed for Friday and
Saturday.  If all goes according to current plans, Dante is
to spend Friday exploring the lava lake in the crater floor
of Mt. Erebus to provide geophysical and atmospheric
chemistry data about the volcano's outgassing and the
composition of the lava lake.  The team expects to have
Dante begin its climb back up to the rim on Saturday, but
that could be delayed by science observations until Sunday.

PROJECT IS DEVELOPING FUTURE EXPLORATION CAPABILITIES

        NASA and the National Science Foundation are undertaking
this demonstration project to develop technology and
telecommunications capabilities which NASA could use in
future explorations of the Moon or Mars and which the NSF
might apply to its ongoing research activities in the
Antarctic.  Part of the test involves transferring control
of the robot from the Mt. Erebus team to team members
located at a payload control center at Goddard.  This
portion of the project will test the "telepresence"
capabilities of such robots for future NASA exploration
missions and could occur during Friday or Saturday's lava
lake exploration phase.

        Carnegie-Mellon University and the New Mexico Institute of
Mining and Technology are partners with NASA and the NSF as
robotics and volcano experimenters for this project.

        The following paragraphs have been abstracted from the
message stream which Dave Lavery has been providing to the
Carnegie-Mellon staff and other associates of the project who are
located in a temporary payload operations control room at
the Goddard Space Flight Center.  These messages have been
sent via the TDRS satellite from computers in the Erebus project
tent on the slope of Mt. Erebus and received by the POCC computers
at Goddard.  It is from this POCC that Jim Osborn, CMU Erebus
project manager and four other CMU
robotics experts will perform the remote control test to
simulate "telepresence" activities.  These messages are
abstracted from the past two days and cover the period from
December 29 through 30 (Eastern) and 31(Antarctic Time):

****The following message posted by Erebus project manager
Dave Lavery on Dec. 29 (local Antarctic time, which is EST
plus 17 hours) describes the crater of Mt. Erebus:

"At the rim, the outer crater is about 750 feet across.
Approaching from the ascent path, the slope is about 45
degrees which nearly levels off to a twenty-foot side shelf
at the edge of the crater itself.  The crater slopes away at
a 60-degree angle very quickly, with a very short transition
area, for about 100 feet.

"From there on down to the lava lake is a combination of 60-
to 90-degree slopes strewn with boulders and ice towers
ranging from one to four feet in size.  About 700 feet down
inside the crater is a very large fumarole that has recently
appeared which is pounding out gases like an old steam
engine which is right in line with the descent route and may
become a primary target for gas sampling.

"The crater itself was fairly clear of gases most of the
time that I was at the rim, and I had direct visibility down
into the inner crater. The gases and steam from the crater
are coming from the lava lake itself and from the fumarole
fields, most of which are on the far side of the crater wall
from our worksite.

"The consistency of the outer cone material is fairly poor.
It is made up of a combination of desiccated lava bombs and
rock crystals which are all very loosely bound together by
crushed lava and ice.  Most of the exposed surfaces are then
covered with a thin layer of sulfur deposited from the
crater (which gives everything this weird green fuzzy
appearance!)."

****The following message posted by Erebus project manager
Dave Lavery on Dec. 30 (local Antarctic time, which is EST
plus 17 hours) describes the finishing activities of placing
the robot Dante and its carrier Geryon in place at the
crater rim:

"Geryon, with Dante aboard, had been pulled to within 600
meters of the Erebus
crater rim when work was stopped this morning at 1:00 am
local time.  We anticipate that it will require four more
winch pulls by Geryon to attain the crater rim.  Each winch
pull involves driving two or three anchors into the ice with
sledgehammers (each anchor is a five-foot length of  2-1/2
inch diameter steel pipe), running out up to 200 meters of
winch cable from the winch on Geryon to the anchors, slowly
winching in to the anchor point, then repeating the process.

"The only problem we have really had so far is that we are
running short of sledgehammers.  The handles become
relatively brittle in the cold, and they keep breaking.

"We have received a question about the composition of the
group currently at the Lower Erebus Hut (located about 1500
feet below and 1-1/2 miles from the crater rim).

"Currently at the camp are: Red Whittaker (Carnegie-Mellon
University, director of the CMU Field Robotics Center and
chief project scientist); Eric Hoffman (CMU/K2T, designer of
the Dante mechanism); Dan Christian (CMU, software
specialist); Dave Wettergreen (CMU, software specialist);
Dave Lavery (NASA, Telerobotics Program Manager,
communications and videography); Phil Kyle (New Mexico
Institute of Mining and Technology, principal research
scientist and Mt. Erebus expert);  Sara Krall (Antarctic
Support Associates, camp director and cook); Ken Sims
(Antarctic Support Associates, mountaineer); and Steve
Thompson (NASA/GSFC, TDRSS communications specialist).

"Also helping out  are Nelia Dunbar (NMIMT, volcanology
researcher) and Bill Macintosh (NMIMT, volcanology
researcher).  Bill and Nelia are here working under a
separate grant doing their own research, but have been
assisting the project quite a bit when manpower and Erebus
expertise are needed.;

****The following message posted by Erebus project manager
Dave Lavery on Dec. 31 (local Antarctic time, which is EST
plus 17 hours) describes their accomplishment of the outer
rim ascent and preparations for the robot descent:

"As of 1800 hours, Geryon and Dante have completed the
ascent of the outer cone of Mt. Erebus.  Once Geryon was
aligned with the "launch point" for Dante's descent into the
volcano crater, it was anchored in place.  Fittings and
equipment for the final outfitting of the robot were then
moved up to the launch point and stored for the evening.

"The final activity for the day was running the fiber optic
cable from Geryon's position down the mountain to the Lower
Erebus Hut to the operator control station.  This involved
spooling out the fiber optic cable approximately 2
kilometers to the hut, and then verifying the communications
over the fiber.  As of 2300, the video and audio signals
from Dante on the rim were being received at the control
stations, and the communications to the robot appears to be
fully operational.

"The plans for Dante's closeout tomorrow morning include
assembling and installing the sensor mast (including the
trinocular video system, the laser scanner and the
teleoperated camera), completing the installation of the
science package, validating the fiber optic communications,
and final sealing of all enclosures.  After that, Dante will
stand up off Geryon, Geryon will be removed, and Dante will
squat down on the ground in preparation for "launching."
When ready, Dante will be manually positioned at the
transition point into the crater and slid over the lip of
the crater rim.  The onboard and remote control systems will
then take over and the robot will stand and begin the
descent into the crater.

"This afternoon's ascent included my second trip up to the
rim of the crater. The crater interior was much calmer today
than during my last trip a few days ago.  The cyclonic winds
emanating from the crater were more sedate, with what seemed
like about half of the velocity of the previous visit.

"The plume from the lava lake itself was much milder, with
clear visibility down to the inner crater.  Occasional puffs
of steam reached as high as the outer crater rim, but rarely
went above that.  Without the intense plume activity of the
other day, and the milder winds, we were able to spend about
three hours at the rim without too much trouble.  The rim of
the crater is covered with a combination of crystallized
lava and lava bombs.  The lava bombs are ejected
periodically by the lava lake during eruptions, and vary in
size from a few inches to several feet across.  They are
primarily composed of lava glass, and weather away fairly
quickly.  Within a year or two, they are almost completely
disintegrated.  When they are completely decomposed by
weathering, they leave behind lava crystals which were
embedded in the bomb.  The crystals are anywhere up to three
inches or so in length, and are all over the place.  They
are pretty neat, but actually make for fairly precarious
footing as they tend to slide over each other when stepped
upon."

****End of this set of messages****
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
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