Spirit Outlasts Viking 2 Lander

ScottMaxwell writes "Spirit, the Mars rover designed for a 90-day mission, has now outlasted the Viking 2 lander. Viking 2 survived until its 1281st sol (Martian day); Spirit is now on sol 1282 and counting. Assuming both rovers continue to weather the ongoing dust storms, Spirit's sister, Opportunity, will reach the same age in a few weeks. They aren't breathing down the neck of the all-time record just yet, though — the Viking 1 lander lasted 2245 sols on the surface of Mars; Spirit and Opportunity won't break that record for another 2.7 Earth years."

Comments

Re:NASA

[Rorzabal]

It's called "managing expectations". Someone at NASA decided, "Let's tell everyone we're only expecting it to last 90 days. If the thing craps out, no one will have expected it to last longer. If it lasts longer, we'll be praised by all the geeks on /."

Re:Nuclear powered

[QuantumG]

sort of like typing "shutdown -h now" on the command line of a remote server More like typing "ifdown eth0".

Slashdot Tags of any worth?

[LS]

If you needed more evidence to support the fact that Slashdot tags are worthless, unfunny, manipulated by editors, and clearly not reflective user input, just look at the fantastically retarded tags attached to this story:

theydomakethemliketheyusedto, gogogadgetlander

What exactly is the criteria for tags getting on the front page? Are you seriously saying that several Slashdot users all came up with these tags at the same time? That is clearly either evidence of editorial manipulation, or that cyanide pills need to be handed at the next nerd convention.

LS