Spirit Marks One Martian Year

hrayr writes to tell us NASA is reporting that Spirit, their proclaimed "wonder child", sent to explore Mars has just wrapped up its first Martian year, equivalent to two Earth years. Originally designed to only last 90 days the small six wheeled machine has lasted far beyond the original scope to bring us immense amounts of data and some 70,000 images. There is still great hope that this data, and more to come will bring us one step closer to Mars habitation.

Comments

Re:Question:

[surfdaddy]

Well, once you get through the tough problem of actually landing on the planet, you face a host of unknowns:

- the temperature is extremely cold, and thermal stresses could crack electronic solder joints and/or ruin components

- the batteries find it tough going at low temperatures

- the silicon solar cells degrade over time, losing efficiency

- an unknown amount of dust collects on the cells, how much and how long can you drive it? One of the surprises is that there are "dust devils" on Mars; some of these have actualy blown over the rovers and cleaned much dust off the solar cells! See the link for an amazing time-lapse movie of such winds caught by the rover cameras!

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/me r_main.html

Bottom line: when you have thousands of parts in a harsh environment, you just don't know. They built them tough but light, and thought they had a good chance of exceeding 90 days. Thankfully, luck has been on JPL's side, and they're still going! What a success story.

At almost the same time the rovers landed, a European probe was also to land. It was never heard from again, and presumably crashed.