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Mars Rover Reaches Victoria Crater
gevmage writes, "CNN reports that the 'Opportunity' rover on Mars has reached the Victoria crater. The rovers Spirit and Opportunity arrived on Mars three years ago with planned mission lifetime of 90 days. The rover Spirit is wounded, having only 5 of 6 wheels functioning, and so it's moving quite slowly. However, Opportunity is still going strong and has been trucking towards the massive crater Victoria for almost the past year. Scientists have been hoping that Opportunity would get there so they can have a look at geologically older areas — and it's finally made it!" See the NASA press release for links to photos of the Victoria crater.
Shouldn't that be a Terran Year.
He said that basically having yet another moving part just wouldn't end up being worth the expense of engineering it and adding the weight to the rover and the launch vehicle.
The next rover that will be launched in a few years will have a plutonium oxide power source, so that the power won't be a factor.
Actually, dust on the panels isn't the only issue. Eventually the mechanical parts wear out, get dirt in them, so they don't work. Spirit is running on 5 of 6 wheels now. The PI said that if it loses another one, then it probably won't ever be able to move again. That is, the solar panels are fine, the computers and instruments are fine, but if one more motor goes out, then it's limited to what it can do in a stationary position.
Craig Steffen
http://www.craigsteffen.net
That had less to do with the war itself, and a great deal to do with the Marshall plan (in Europe) for rebuilding the countries' economies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_plan The Japanese reconstruction, while different to Europe, also involved US economic management under the SCAP system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan's_post-war_econ omy
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
The USA is 5-for-6 in successfully landing it's landers (only failure was the Mars Polar Lander). Viking 1, 2, Pathfinder, Spirit and Opportunity all were successes (and wonderful successes at that).
USSR had zero landers successfully make it.
The ESA is 0-for-1 in landers.
For people that like the rovers and hadn't stumbled upon it before:
http://midnightmarsbrowser.blogspot.com/
"the Midnight Mars Browser software, which allows home users to download images and view slideshows and "virtual reality" panoramas from the Mars Exploration Rovers "Spirit" and "Opportunity"."
it is really awesome, try it out, you get the latest pics from Mars virtually real time (before they're up @ jpl's site.)
Pannable and zoomable panorama's, false colour and true colour movies etc etc.
Lower Quality solar panels? That's not the place to save money. They could have made the whole rovers out of Platimun, and it would still be a minute amount compared to the total cost of the mission. (about 7 million USD vs. 820 million USD)