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.

Comments

Re:These are some tough robots

[gevmage]

That's an good question. When the PI for the project spoke at University of Illinois, someone asked that.

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.