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Mars Rover Ready for Risky Descent into Crater

Posted by Zonk on from the go-opportunity-do-your-best dept.

Riding with Robots writes "After months of scoping out the terrain, the robotic geologist Opportunity is ready to drive down into Victoria Crater on the Meridiani Plains of Mars. Mission managers acknowledge the hardy rover may never come back out, but say they think the potential for discovery is worth it. 'The rover has operated more than 12 times longer than its originally intended 90 days. The scientific allure is the chance to examine and investigate the compositions and textures of exposed materials in the crater's depths for clues about ancient, wet environments. As the rover travels farther down the slope, it will be able to examine increasingly older rocks in the exposed walls of the crater. '"

5 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. For all of NASA's problems by ducomputergeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The MERS mission has been an incrediable sucessess that one doesn't hear much about, unless you read slashdot. A 90 day mission that has lasted 3 years and shows no signs of stopping as funding has been approved to at least september and so long as they are showing results, I doubt that is going to change. Most of the costs is in launching and building the damn things. From that stand point, looks like they've gotten their money worth out of them.

    --
    "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
    1. Re:For all of NASA's problems by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, if you wanted to build a rover that'd last for a long time in a desert-like environment then I don't think you'd have problems finding a contractor to do that. It's not like regular cars die from travelling through desert areas, and top it off with high quality seals and whatever it should last until it breaks down internally (or the wheels are broken, IIRC one of the Mars rovers is limping.

      It's when you say "build us that rover, but after three months it'll have to run on no power" that things get ugly. The solar panels were supposed to get clogged up with dust, and someone really did think it'd go on for many years instead of months they were damn silent about it. It's like thinking you're building a laptop with a battery, only to find out you've got line power. That would throw your estimated operating time off by several orders of magnitude too.

      While the idea they said three months to get the funding is entertaining, there's really nothing to suggest that was actually the case. They're scientists doing an experiment, thought they had a limiting factor which was wrong. Now we know that if we go to Mars, we can build solar panels that won't clog and will be a pretty much permanent power source which changes everything. Maybe someone hoped, dreamed or wished for it but I doubt many if any knew and said "hey, let's go wih three months anyway".

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re:For all of NASA's problems by jafiwam · · Score: 4, Insightful

      On that note, wasn't the difference in the battery life that they did not expect the panels to get cleaned off by the winds like they are getting cleaned?

      Perhaps a trip into a crater is not the best way to stay in the cleansing winds....

  2. Re:It will make it! by Original+Replica · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One way to get new toys is to break the old ones. If you had driven those greenscreen monitiors down a crater, they would have been replaced with some new shiny CGA monitors. I don't htink NASA is setting out to break "the little rover that could" but they are getting more and more adventerous with it, doing things that may have previously been ruled out for safety concerns. "The last thing it ever does" is better than saying "Hey everybody, Watch this!"

    --
    We are all just people.
  3. A moment of reflection... by D-Cypell · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You know, sometimes it is easy to get wrapped up in the details of these rover missions, but I am always pretty humbled when I think of this remote controlled do-dad, once pieced together by earth-bound scientists, sitting on some planet 50 (or so) million miles away and still responding to our every command. Just to think that thing is out there, on mars, right now.

    Reading story after story about the various space exploration projects and we can get a little desensitized to the pure 'awesomeness' of the kinds of things our space exploration agencies are doing. So a moment to just consider this achievement is warrented I think.

    How great would it be to have a go at driving that thing? :)