Mars Rovers on New Missions

Posted by michael on Friday June 4, 2004 @10:04PM from the keeps-going-and-going dept.

mycro writes "According to CNN, the Mars rovers are on a brand new mission. Because the Mars Spirit and Opportunity rovers are in such great condition and 'keep going and going', NASA will be using them for a longer period of time to study water, rocks, and formations on Mars." An anonymous reader writes "Today NASA has given its Opportunity rover a green light to enter the steep Endurance crater. Looking at deeper martian bedrock layers is considered now a rich enough science payoff to weigh favorably against the real chance that the rover cannot get back out of the crater."

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Re:Why would they stop working? by rice_burners_suck · 2004-06-05 06:30 · Score: 0, Redundant

They run out of power. The units are recharged by solar panels which stop working as well over time as they slowly get covered by dust and dirt that can't be cleaned off.
So here we have a half billion dollar rover and they couldn't put a five dollar windshield wiper on the solar panel to wipe the dust off?