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Mars Rovers Alive Until 2005?
maggeth writes "The BBC is reporting that negotiations are under way to extending funding for the Mars rovers beyond this September. Originally designed to work for 90 Martian days, they now predict they may last well beyond the 250 Martian days they had announced previously." hoferbr writes "A new analysis by Phil Berardelli at the United Press International quotes Steve Squyres, chief scientist for the Mars rover mission, in which he says that the Mars rovers '... could go into 2005'. Spirit and Opportunity will complete six months on the Martian surface on July."
A Martian day is not much longer than an Earth day - 24 hours, 37 minutes as opposed to 23h, 56m.
The Raven
If anything it'll give us some good data on what Martian conditions do to hardware in the long term.
I know that right now one of Spirits wheel motors was starting to act up a bit.
As Martian "Winter" approaches, it'll be interesting to see what really cold weather does to the rovers (other than breaking them).
However, with that all said, I think we should be vigorously working on putting a colony on the Moon.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Okay, did some searching and found that at a press conference he said that the reason a mechanism was not made to clean the panels was that any ones that they could think of were not worth the extra weight that would have to be added for that mechanism.
I forget the title of the Arthur C. Clarke story, set on the moon, but it presaged another part of the problem, here.
But basically, if you whisk off the solar cell panels with a broom, you have to worry about static electricity buildup. It's just possible that by wiping the solar panel, you'll build up a static charge and attract even more dust.
Of course this possiblity suggests another possability - some sort of static device to repel the dust, so you need no moving parts, beyond deployment.
Or you just estimate the dust accumulation rate, the solar panel degradation due to that, and the design lifetime of the mission. Then make the panels sufficiently oversize to accomodate, and live with it. Don't forget that one rover already has a bum wheel, so other things are showing wear and tear besides the panels.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The parent refers to the length of an Earth day when the planet's rotation is measured against the "fixed" stars (sidereal time). More precisely, this "sidereal day" is 23 hours 56 minutes 4.091 seconds. Measured against the sun, however, the length of an Earth day is 24 hours. When you use the fixed stars as a frame of reference, the motion of the entire solar system puts a little extra "English" on the spin of the Earth.
Actually they are looking at the technology used on nascar outside cameras. The problem is that current polymers do not stand up to the increased UV light on mars and the thin film blocks more light energy than a 2 month's worth of dust on the panels will.
If we can find a thin polymer that can transmit more of the light energy and not age/yellow so fast in higher UV environments we might be able to simply "roll the solar panels clean" by roling up the thin film for the width of the panel. have enough film on the roll to be rolled up 3 times and you just extended the life of the solar panels by 3!
this is the same technology that cleans the lens on the nascar cameras and is used on motocross helmet's and goggles.. (except the helmet version is a tear-away.)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Having spent $X billion so far,...
The total cost of the Mars rovers (combined) was $820 million, including operations for the first 90 days. The extended mission - another 150 days - was budgeted at $15 million.
They were bad estimages, they were safe estimates. They designed the rovers to be tough enough that they would work for 3 months even under the worst situations (Like a bad landing, or bad dust storms and the like) So when none of these potentially bad things happen, the life expectancy of the rovers increases. Its like cancelling a cable substription and having them not disable your account for a month afterwards. You planned on having it terminated at the end of the month, but as a bonus you got free cable for a month.
This has been debated a few times here at slashdot. I learned everything I needed to know from the following NASA report:
PDF file here