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Spirit Outlasts Viking 2 Lander

Posted by Zonk on from the in-for-the-long-haul dept.

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."

6 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Delete *.* by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    lost contact with Earth when a bad command [unmannedspaceflight.com] was sent which instructed Viking to point its antenna in a different direction (sort of like typing "shutdown -h now" on the command line of a remote server, there's no recovery short of a house-call).

    That seems to happen too often in space flight. Everyone remembers the metric conversion, but there is also the "cook battery" command on a recent Mars orbiter death (fortunately, it lasted almost 10 years before the error), and then the Titan probe receiver didn't get the 2nd-channel "on" command, reducing the imaging coverage. Seems like they need better simulators to catch that kind of stuff. (Although in 1977 that's probably asking too much.)

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
    1. Re:Delete *.* by smittyoneeach · · Score: 2, Interesting

      if the remote software were able to reject commands deemed likely to cause mission failure.
      The kind of AI it would need to effect this would be horrendous, and probably suck more juice than they really want the hardware sucking.
      Now, if they gave each command to a terrestrial version of the hardware, and saw how the command played out, the engineers running the mission might have a chance to say "oops, let's not bother to send that one..."
      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  2. Re:Nuclear powered by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Sure, your analogy is closer to describing the situation but the original served its purpose. While we're on the subject of oneupsmanship, there's really no analogy that perfectly describes it, since its like pointing your antenna the wrong way. Perhaps its like turning the rotor dial on your yagi beam past where it can return (broken stops?). Either way, you'd think they could send another robot over to push the rover or antenna back into receiving orientation.

  3. Yawn: Another broken record by camperdave · · Score: 3, Interesting

    in 1962 Canada launched Alouette 1 into orbit. It had a one year design lifespan. After running for ten years, the satellite was deliberately shut down. It is still in orbit and can be re-activated by sending the correct wakeup signal.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  4. Re:Nuclear powered by cdrudge · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Not as embarrassing as the whole English/Metric units of measure though.

  5. JPL Rebadging Controversy by dnoble · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Kudos to everyone who has worked so hard to keep the rovers roving.

    I just want to draw attention to the submitter's link:

            http://www.hspd12jpl.org/

    There's a situation brewing where JPL employees (who are employed by Caltech, not the federal government) will be fired if they do not submit to unprecedented invasions of their privacy. Some other relevant links:

            http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2007/08/hspd12_c oncerns.html
            http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2007/05/nasa_jpl _hspd12.html
            http://www.editthis.info/jpl_rebadging/Main_Page