PeterMP Posted May 31, 2011 Share Posted May 31, 2011 http://marsrover.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20110525a.html "NASA has ended operational planning activities for the Mars rover Spirit and transitioned the Mars Exploration Rover Project to a single-rover operation focused on Spirit's still-active twin, Opportunity. This marks the completion of one of the most successful missions of interplanetary exploration ever launched. Spirit last communicated on March 22, 2010, as Martian winter approached and the rover's solar-energy supply declined. The rover operated for more than six years after landing in January 2004 for what was planned as a three-month mission. NASA checked frequently in recent months for possible reawakening of Spirit as solar energy available to the rover increased during Martian spring. A series of additional re-contact attempts ended today, designed for various possible combinations of recoverable conditions. "Our job was to wear these rovers out exploring, to leave no unutilized capability on the surface of Mars, and for Spirit, we have done that," said Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spirit drove 4.8 miles (7.73 kilometers), more than 12 times the goal set for the mission. The drives crossed a plain to reach a distant range of hills that appeared as mere bumps on the horizon from the landing site; climbed slopes up to 30 degrees as Spirit became the first robot to summit a hill on another planet; and covered more than half a mile (nearly a kilometer) after Spirit's right-front wheel became immobile in 2006. The rover returned more than 124,000 images. It ground the surfaces off 15 rock targets and scoured 92 targets with a brush to prepare the targets for inspection with spectrometers and a microscopic imager." Pretty amazing out how much they were able to accomplish with them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conn Posted May 31, 2011 Share Posted May 31, 2011 Wow, talk about underestimating that robot's capabilities. Cool stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stew Posted May 31, 2011 Share Posted May 31, 2011 I have read dozens of stories on those two rovers. Very interesting. Ive read they have another rover, about the size of an economy car with 20 inch tires that will be much more advanced and many more capabilities then either of the other rovers. it will be interesting to see what information that rover will bring. Scheduled to launch in 2012 I believe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metalhead Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 I have read dozens of stories on those two rovers. Very interesting. Ive read they have another rover, about the size of an economy car with 20 inch tires that will be much more advanced and many more capabilities then either of the other rovers. it will be interesting to see what information that rover will bring. Scheduled to launch in 2012 I believe. Do you know the name of that new rover? That is great news if that's what they plan for the next rover. Aim big. I never understood why Spirit and Opportunity's life expectancy's were designed or anticipated to be so short. We were planning a trip to Mars and it had cost a lot of money, so why didn't they design 5+ year rovers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FanboyOf91 Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 That'll do, pig, that'll do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PCS Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 Next rover is named Curiosity. Could be launched later this year. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metalhead Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 Thanks for the link, PCS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twist Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 I wrote a paper about the anylitical technology on the rover in my last year of college. I was 24 years old when I wrote that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjah Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 I never understood why Spirit and Opportunity's life expectancy's were designed or anticipated to be so short. We were planning a trip to Mars and it had cost a lot of money, so why didn't they design 5+ year rovers? I suspect they were always intended to function for far longer than 90 days -- if and only if all systems worked perfectly on Mars in accordance with their design spec. The 90-day target and the launch of two rovers instead of one were hedges against the likelihood that one would fail to successfully land or operate for long, given that Mars is notoriously difficult to land on successfully. I imagine the program had internal probabilistic models for the expected lifetime of the rovers based on what they knew at the time about each rover subsystem, and those models suggested that a useful rover lifetime longer than maybe six months would only result if everything worked nearly perfectly. And I'd bet that NASA engineers and scientists, being smart people, knew that they could not possibly have foreseen all of the conditions the rovers were likely to run into on the surface of Mars. So they made the partially PR-driven decision to under-report their expectations to the public. And I'd bet (again, just speculation) that the design team working on every single rover subsystem had one goal in mind, given that the rovers were destined to eventually die no matter what: "Don't let our piece of the rover be the first to break." How many all-nighters were pulled in support of that goal? So, short answer: dunno. :pfft: It will be interesting to see how the Curiosity rover fares with Mars atmospheric entry and landing. Due to its size, it has to use a complex combination of methods to successfully reach the Mars surface. I hope they all work flawlessly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stew Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 I dont know how to embed, but here are three conceptual pics of what Curiosity will look like. Its basically going to look like Johnny 5 and a Yaris have a crack baby. One of those pics is a scale comparison of Spirit and Curiosity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
China Posted February 8, 2013 Share Posted February 8, 2013 Left Panoramic Camera Non-linearized Full frame EDR acquired on Sol 513 of Spirit's mission to Gusev Crater at approximately 14:41:25 Mars local solar time, camera commanded to use Filter 7 (432 nm). NASA/JPL/Cornell Wait, what's that?... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Evil Genius Posted February 8, 2013 Share Posted February 8, 2013 Paging Mr. Carter. Mr. John Carter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMS Posted February 8, 2013 Share Posted February 8, 2013 This is another chance to dust off one of my favorite tribute video's... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
China Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Lawsuit Alleges NASA Is Failing To Investigate Alien Life  You may recall, NASA recently announced that a strange rock had somehow "appeared" in front of its Mars Opportunity rover. The explanations for the mystery rock were straight-forward: maybe some kind of nearby impact sent a rock toward the rover, or, more likely, the rover knocked the rock out of the ground and no one noticed until later.   Not so, says self-described scientist Rhawn Joseph, an author of trade books on topics ranging from alien life to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. (Sample article: "Dreams and Hallucinations: Lifting the Veil to Multiple Perceptual Realities.") The rock was a living thing, and he's filed a lawsuit to compel NASA to examine the rock more closely. Joseph is involved with the Journal of Cosmology, online publisher of some very controversial papers. In fact, this isn't the first report of alien life to come out of the journal.  For the record: NASA has identified it as a rock. A very special rock, with rare properties, even. But definitely a rock. Okay? Good.  The lawsuit, filed yesterday in a California court, is aimed at NASA and its Administrator, Charles Bolden, requesting that the agency "perform a public, scientific, and statutory duty which is to closely photograph and thoroughly scientifically examine and investigate a putative biological organism." Joseph is disputing the rock theory, since, "when examined by Petitioner the same structure in miniature was clearly visible upon magnification and appears to have just germinated from spores." (Joseph is the Petitioner.) The "rock," according to the lawsuit, was there the whole time, it just grew until it became visible. "The refusal to take close up photos from various angles, the refusal to take microscopicimages of the specimen, the refusal to release high resolution photos, is inexplicable, recklessly negligent, and bizarre," according to the suit.  Click on the link for the full article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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