The Rovers That Just Won't Quit

smooth wombat writes "Like the Energizer bunny, the two martian rovers just won't quit. Spirit, after climbing to the top of Husband Hill during the past year, spent two months examining rocks at the top of the hill and scientists confirmed that those rocks were similar to rocks found along the side of the hill indicating that Husband Hill is probably the result of an impact crater. It will take about two months for Spirit to make its way down the hill after which the next target will be a feature called Home Plate located about a half mile away. Opportunity is exploring the northern rim of Erebus Crater, the largest crater between already-explored Endurance Crater and its next destination, Victoria Crater. The rovers were only supposed to last three months but have been operating for almost two years. NASA has also released a 360 degree panorama of images taken by Spirit as it explored Gustav Crater."

Comments

Could be a problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe..

For two reasons:

1. It raises the expectations for the duration of unmanned missions. If future missions don't last as long people will obviously compare it to these.

2. Funding. If the perception is these craft last a long time then maybe people will say you don't need as many.

Hmmmm

[Moby Cock]

I wonder if there are any realistic estimates on how long it will take to properly digest the data that has been sent back by these robots. The original estimate was for the rovers to survive 90 days and they figured that the data received would occupy planteary scientists for years to come. The data they have now ought to occupy scientists for decades.

Why not more?

[EriktheGreen]

So, why aren't we applauding these things louder, and mass producing twenty or thirty more? They're a raging success, a proven concept, and surely cheaper than developing a completely new exploration system for other worlds. We should take the plans and use them to build an army of rovers for mars, then put an equal number on the moon... we could explore the moon from laboratories, universities, offices and homes on earth directly.

Oh, that's right... NASA's main purpose isn't exploration or science, it's to preserve its own existence. New projects mean new money, and old sucesses are only good for arguing for more funding for new toys.

Erik

Hats off

[GroeFaZ]

to the guys responsible for the whole mission, from cleaners to engineers to management. Surpassing a mission duration by at least 700% (*knock on wood*) is a nice change from all the missions Mars has claimed so far.

Re:One thing no one is really talking about...

[am 2k]

In my mind, that means they could have probably built it half as robust and still been outstanding pieces of machinery(and alot less expensive).

The problem is, when you build them less robust, they might not survive the landing, so you would get a zero livespan...

Re:One thing no one is really talking about...

[Rasta Prefect]

These things are horribly over-engineered. Not that it is a bad thing they are proving so resilliant, but we're now at 8x the "designed" life span. In my mind, that means they could have probably built it half as robust and still been outstanding pieces of machinery(and alot less expensive).

Thats a problem with your mind, not with NASA's strategy. In short, the actual construction costs of the rovers are a very small portion of the cost of a mission of this nature. Skimping on the construction isn't going to save significantly on design costs, nor is it going to reduce the cost of flinging it halfway across the solar system and monitoring it on the way.

What you call "Over-engineering" likely only increased to cost of the project by a couple of percent at most, and greatly improved the chances of success, avoiding the necessity of paying all of the overhead costs _again_ to lauch another one because this one plowed into the ground.

Penny wise, pound foolish as my Grandma would say. :)

Re:One thing no one is really talking about...

[AKAImBatman]

These things are horribly over-engineered. Not that it is a bad thing they are proving so resilliant, but we're now at 8x the "designed" life span. In my mind, that means they could have probably built it half as robust and still been outstanding pieces of machinery(and alot less expensive).

If I may interject, WHO says they're overengineered? In fact, to the best of my knowledge they are anything *but* overengineered. When the Spirit rover had technical difficulties shortly after landing, one of the things that came out was the lack of backup systems and the inability of the craft to keep its solar panels clean. Things that many of us wished the rovers had were RTGs, Solar Panel Wipers, Longer Lasting Batteries, Redundant Computers, Larger Storage Capacity, Anything but Vx[Doesn't]Works, etc. NASA hadn't put many of these goodies onboard because the rovers were built in a relative hurry, with all expectations of short lifespans.

Unexpectedly, it turned out that pretty much all the components on the rovers far exceeded their expected lifetimes. As far as the engineers are concerned, the solar panels should be caked, the batteries shouldn't hold a charge, the wheels should be gunked up, and the computers should have no remaining capacity. Yet the rovers live on. Very puzzling for the engineers, but very nice for the scientists. :-)