On November 21st of this year, NASA's twin rovers on the surface of Mars, well, The 21st will be a Milestone for the Spirit Rover. On that day, it will have been there for a full Martian year. A martian year is approximately 687 Days here on earth. This is well beyond the planned lifetime of 90 days for the rovers. Opportunity will reach its first "Martian Birthday" on December 11th
>687 Days
>This is well beyond the planned lifetime of 90 days for the rovers.
I know they have lots of margins in their estimates, but this is getting ridiculous. In a nice way though, of course. ; )
I hope the people who brought us these very successful missions are rewarded/put to work on something else good.
I think they used Energizer... These damn things keep going and going and going and going and going...
But seriously. This is wonderful news. Also, it is good to hear that the bad glitch in Opportunity, which kept it from going anywhere a few days ago, is gone now, and it is operating fine again.
>Also, it is good to hear that the bad glitch in Opportunity, which kept it from going anywhere a few days ago, is gone now, and it is operating fine again.
Not that anything short of the rovers vaporizing the planet could really make the missions anything else than a success. ; )
But lasting this much longer is pretty cool, we've learned alot from them... and at least it wasn't like the MPL. Which we programmed the whole landing to be automated... In METERS. but when we ran the program, the data entered was in FEET. or was it the other way around... Either way, that fucker just impacted the surface, and nearly a quarter billion dollars became a skidmark on the surface of mars.
Anyone remember the rover that England sent around the same time?
Beagle 2. Lost contact about 20 minutes before it should have landed.