NASA Launching Two Mars Rovers in June

shaniber writes "NASA is planning the launch of the Mars Exploration Rovers this month. The rovers are scheduled for two two separate launches, between June 5th and July 15th. These rovers will both work as robotic geologists, including a human-eye height panoramic camera and a miniature thermal emmision spectrometer amongst their scientific equipment. NASA plans on webcasting the launches, as well. A press kit, with many more details, is also available as a pdf."

Comments

Re:More rovers!?!

[Anarchofascist]

Part of the intention of having 2 rovers is that they can assist each other. This should make it more difficult to get a rover irreversibly stuck by a rock (as happened last time).

Wrongo x 2. The rovers will be landing on completely different parts of the planet, one in a flood plain and one in a crater. They will never see each other. The last rover was stuck on a rock for two days because the controllers had to be damn sure that they didn't overturn it.

The point of two rovers is redundancy; if one fails, you always have the other. You square your chances of total failure. If it's a one in five chance of failure per rover, it's only a one in twenty five change of both rovers failing.