Mars Exploration Rover Spirit Launches

Posted by timothy on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @01:41AM from the tax-money-flees-earth dept.

Joost Schuur writes "Two down and one to go. After several delays, due to bad weather, Mars Exploration Rover 'Spirit', the second of three Mars probes destined for the Red Planet this year has launched successfully. An identical probe, named Opportunity by 9 year old Sofi Collis, is set to launch June 25th. Earlier this month, the European Space Agency's Mars Express took off in Baikonur and is already well on its way. All three will rendezvous December/January 2003/4 and include landing modules, when late-comer, Japanese probe Nozomi will catch up after a 5 year trip and several course corrections that sent in in a slingshot maneuver around the Sun to build up enough velocity."

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Re:Arrival by TCQuad · 2003-06-11 03:38 · Score: 2, Interesting

Probably not. The majority of the trip is done just through sheer momentum, which requires no extra fuel. And a launch is such a large, complicated event that you couldn't really make do with less than two full teams (one per rocket), so you wouldn't have any savings in terms of fuel or personnel.
Do we have enough data transfer capability??? by dolphin558 · 2003-06-12 08:16 · Score: 0, Interesting

Spirit
Opportunity
Odyssey
Surveyor
Mars Express
Beagle-2
Nozomi(if it makes it)

Cassini
Deep Impact
other comet missions

From what I understand the Surveyor and Odyssey will be the communication links. Does that mean we will stop getting data from those orbiters while the rovers are in operation? Also, will our DSN capacity be expanded in time for the missions (nov03-may04)?