NASA Mars Rovers, wow.

NathanE

NathanE

NathanE

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Just read a story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5322962.stm) and it seems those little rovers that have been out there for over two and a half years are still roaming around collecting science. That is absolutely amazing IMO.

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Apparently they were only designed/intended to last for around 6 months. I wonder how many more months/years they will keep going for? Apparently NASA has discovered that the solar panels on the rovers keep getting "cleaned" every now and then by dust devils on the surface - very handy!

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Apparently one of the rovers is on its way to an entirely new crater (above) not visited before and the scientists are hopeful it will return the best science yet.

Amazing.
 
yep, WOW I was just reading this..

but I wan't to see a manned mission to mars, but more importantly a permanent out post on mars. with plant life and self sustainable, some sort of bio dome.
 
Apparently they were quite confused before they realised that it was dust devils cleaning the solar panels. Due to most of the dust devils occuring during the cooling of the nighttime, this was also when radio contct was lost with the rovers. So the team would loose contact with the rover with their power level at say 70%. Then when contact was made again, the power level would be at 95%.

I gree that those little machines are doing a fantastic, and will hopefully continue to do so for a long time. The next rover mission should also be good, as this time its a much larger machine with many more instruments.
 
Both rover missions nearly ended in disaster within weeks of them landing due to repeated crashing of their on-board computers. Fortunately, that was quickly identified as down to storing too many files on their flash drives, and after that, we get to here. :cool:

Spirit has a limp (broken wheel) which is going to cause some maneuvering issues. Both rovers have suffered significant wear on their motors and sensors, but are in surprisingly good health considering their original design only called for a 3-month mission.

Actually some of those dust devils have come in handy. A couple of them found the rovers and blew most of the dust off their solar panels. I doubt they would have survived the Martian winter without that.
 
cleanbluesky said:
Actually, I think the Americans have done an excellent job. Absolutely put us to shame.
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We messed up our parachute design. It was problematic from the start and designed with little margin for error. We paid the price when it failed.
 
Berserker said:
We messed up our parachute design. It was problematic from the start and designed with little margin for error. We paid the price when it failed.
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Having said that though, we were trying to do it with a fraction of the budget that NASA used.
 
Berserker said:
We messed up our parachute design. It was problematic from the start and designed with little margin for error. We paid the price when it failed.
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I knew someone who worked on the parachute material actually (like a year or two before it was launched) :eek: Was a customer of mine. Completely forgot about that until you said.
 
Berserker said:
We messed up our parachute design. It was problematic from the start and designed with little margin for error. We paid the price when it failed.
Click to expand...

Didn't they miscalculate the atmospheric drag or something?
 
I don't know if anyone has read Angels And Demons, but eveything about CERN and the Particle Accelerator and all the amazing technology we have at the moment just blew me away.. And then i see a thread like this pop up and I am genuinely blown away by how much amazing technology there is out there today.
 
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