Two New Mars Rovers Will Be Launched In June

Anonymous Coward writes "ABC News is running a story which talks about the next two rovers to explore Mars which will be launched in June of this year. NASA is borrowing some things from the Pathfinder mission to help insure a success as well as doing extensive testing which was apparently not done for the Mars Polar Lander. From the article: 'The two new rovers, which are about the size of a golf cart, will have more power and greater mobility than the Pathfinder's Sojourner rover. Both should be able to trek up to 44 yards across the surface every Martian day (24 Earth hours and 37 Earth minutes).'"

Comments

Argh

[Bob Vila's Hammer]

After reading the article, I again became frustrated after finding that the length of these rover's operational lives seems to be limited only by the amount of dust collecting on its solar cells. These new rovers were supposedly built upon designs and characteristics of the old Sojourner model operated in 1997. Why wouldn't they improve upon this restricted system and incorporate something to prevent the dust from covering its energy supply?