Spirit Rover Working Hard!
Published on 13 Mar 2007 at 6:02 pm.
1 Comment.
Filed under Astronomy, Exploration, Intelligent Systems, Mars, Robotics.
The Mars Exploration Rovers have been exploring Mars for more than three years now. That is quite remarkable given the fact that the mission was designed to last 90 Sols or 90 Martian days, which is about 90 Earth days. The two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, landed on opposite sides of the planet so that the team could work day and night. That way, when one rover is asleep at night, the other is up and running.
Today Astronomy Picture of the Day featured a great photo of Spirit working hard to get a rock sample from an outcrop of rock at Husband Hill (named after Rick Husband who died in the Columbia Shuttle STS-107 accident). Spirit is angled on a slope of 27 degrees reaching up to place its instruments on the rock outcrop. Spirit is currently investigating the west side of a circular plateau called “home plate“.
joe on 13 Mar 2007 at 6:53 pm: 1
hey kev;
When the req was made to have the MER rover last at least 90 Sols it required an engineering design that, assumed something bad happening that the rover could survive. In the absence of any significant problems the design would offer a longer potential mission life.
Add the unanticipated effect of dust devils cleaning the solar arrays of energy saping dust and you have the current mission.
The batteries are recharging and heating elements keep the rover from subper-freezing cold at night and over the long winters.