Spirit and Opportunity Are Back Online

PinkyGigglebrain sends us news that the Mars rovers have survived the dust storms that have swept the surface of Mars for the last 6 weeks. How well they survived remains to be seen. Due to a combination of dust still suspended in the atmosphere and dust on the rovers' solar panels, they are only producing about half the power they normally would. The article is a little sparse on the exact health of the rovers but it's good to know they are still with us.

Comments

Re:Ideas for next time?

[Kjella]

If they had a good method, they would have implemented it last time. If it wasn't practical or important enough for a three month mission where it was the clearly limiting factor, why would it be when they can run four years plus without them?

Re:March On Little Soldiers

[jon287]

I like your sentiment, but the real heroes work at NASA. These men and women almost certainly had a rough entry into adulthood at the hands of the ignorant doofuses who populate our schools only to be greeted, upon arrival, by a space program in decline, budgets cut to fund foreign wars, and a general "who cares about space, been there done that..oooh Paris got arrested!!" attitude from the public.

What did these people do? They took their limited budget and did their thing on another PLANET, and took us along for the ride!

I smile every time I hear mention of the rovers on tv or see the images. Its like a giant "up yours" to all of the worthless, dog-fighting "football stars" and useless "celebrities" of the world from geeks everywhere.

Roll on NASA engineers. Roll on rovers. You are my heroes.