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Mars Rovers still going strong


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Image credit: NASA
Image credit: NASA
The warranty expired long ago on NASA's twin robots motoring around Mars. These two golf cart-sized vehicles were only expected to last three months.In two years, they have traveled a total of seven miles.

Not impressed? Try keeping your car running in a climate where the average temperature is 67 below zero and where dust devils can reach 100 mph."These rovers are living on borrowed time.

news icon View: Full Article | Source: Wired
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thats pretty cool, the next ones should be nucleared powered in my oppinion , they can be used longer and also can probably use more gadgets not worrying on battery power. it can be used probably 24/7 so making it more efficient and also learning more about the red planet

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Though space is full of radiation , unknowing people still cringe at the word Nuclear Power. I agree larger robots need to be sent to MARS before a manned mission is sent. Maybe by cutting military and defense spending this can be done.

President Bush has promoted an ambitious Space Exploration plan that runs through the year 2030. But I have seen these great ideas before that are cancelled with the change of administration every eight years or so. A down side to our democratic system I guess.

The next 30 years will be interesting.

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user posted imageuser posted imageThe warranty expired long ago on NASA's twin robots motoring around Mars. These two golf cart-sized vehicles were only expected to last three months.In two years, they have traveled a total of seven miles. Not impressed? Try keeping your car running in a climate where the average temperature is 67 below zero and where dust devils can reach 100 mph."These rovers are living on borrowed time. We're so past warranty on them," says Steven Squyres of Cornell University, the Mars mission's principal researcher. "You try to push them hard every day because we're living day-to-day."The rover Spirit landed on Mars on Jan. 3, 2004, and Opportunity followed on Jan. 24. Since then, they've set all sorts of records and succeeded in the mission's main assignment: finding geologic evidence that water once flowed on Mars.Part of the reason for their long survival is pure luck. Their lives were extended several times by dust devils that blew away dust that covered their solar panels, restoring their ability to generate electricity.Like most Earth-bound vehicles, these identical robots have their own personalitiesThe overachieving Opportunity dazzled scientists from the start. It eclipsed its twin by making the mission's first profound discovery -- evidence of water at or near the surface eons ago that could have implications for life.The rock-climbing Spirit went down in the history books by becoming the first robot to scale an extraterrestrial hill. Last summer, it completed a daredevil climb to the summit of Husband Hill -- as tall as the Statue of Liberty -- despite fears that it might not survive the weather.The rovers haven't been all get-up and go -- technical hiccups have at times limited their activity, even from the start. At one point, Spirit had a balky front wheel, but engineers overcame the problem by driving it in reverse. Last spring, Opportunity got stuck hub-deep in sand while trying to crest a foot-high dune, and was freed after weeks of effort by the Earth-bound engineers.The six-wheeled travelers, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, also are showing signs of aging. In November, a motor on Opportunity's robotic arm stalled and the arm failed to extend while it was surveying a rock outcrop. The engineers fixed that problem after two weeks.This mission is the first time any probe has extensively rolled across Mars, whose rocky landscape is a dangerous place for man-made objects to settle and roam.

There have been four previous Mars landings that succeeded. Of those, NASA's stationary Viking 1 lander operated the longest, from 1976 to 1982. NASA's Sojourner was the first rover, but it stayed close to its Pathfinder lander.Spirit and Opportunity parachuted to opposite ends of Mars. Spirit landed in Gusev Crater, a 90-mile-wide depression south of the Martian equator. Opportunity followed three weeks later, touching down on Meridiani Planum on the other side of the planet.In two years, Spirit has traveled over three miles and beamed back 70,000 images including self-portraits and panoramas of the rust-colored planet's surface. Opportunity has driven over four miles and transmitted more than 58,000 images.Three times NASA has extended the rovers' mission, spending an extra $84 million on top of the $820 million original price tag.While both rovers have discovered clues of ancient water, they also have found evidence of a violent past that might have prevented some life forms from emerging.

user posted image View: Full Article | Source: Wired

"Try keeping your car running in a climate where the average temperature is 67 below zero and where dust devils can reach 100 mph."

NASA should be testing their equipment in Nunavut! The people there have a lot of experience getting vehicles started in sub zero temps, and wind storms LOL Lived there for 2 years. :cry:

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:P I had to look that one up. Your right , Nunavut would be a learning experience for engineers.

Make one wonder why most Space Research Facilities are in the warm climates. Maybe Scientists just hate COLD !

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The six-wheeled travelers, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, also are showing signs of aging. In November, a motor on Opportunity's robotic arm stalled and the arm failed to extend while it was surveying a rock outcrop. The engineers fixed that problem after two weeks.

How exactly did they fix the problem? It sounds like a hardware problem, not a software problem. So it would seem that they would have to fix the problem manually. Obviously that wasn't the case. Can anyone enlighten me on this?

MC

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Their lives were extended several times by dust devils that blew away dust that covered their solar panels, restoring their ability to generate electricity.

he..he...forgot to install wipers?

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This is trully a great accomplishment by Nasa. The Rovers were only meant to last three months and here they are 2 years later still going strong. If only this got the recognition it deserves in the media. All we got was a tiny 9 sentence article on the rovers today. The first in many many months.

Edited by AztecInca
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All of the information we are gathering from these 'bots is cool. For once, I'm impressed with NASA.

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it truerly amazing what nasa can do but next time why not in stall battarys in then aswell so they can move at night aswell and charge in the day.

when it says the arm broke how did they ix it with no humans to fix it did the marshians help or was it electrica.

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