Mars Rover, Spirit, Turns 4

Brandee07 writes "Designed for a 90 day mission, the Spirit Mars Rover is starting its 4th year of exploration. Spirit's sister-module, Opportunity, will turn four on Jan 25. 'We never thought we'd still be driving these robots all over Mars,' said Mark Lemmon, a planetary scientist at Texas A&M University and member of the rover science team. 'We joked about driving Opportunity into Victoria Crater, but now we're there, and we're looking at doing even more science. Each day they still work is an amazing one.'"

Comments

Error

[MyLongNickName]

Title: Mars Rover, Spirit, Turns 4
Summary: ""Designed for a 90 day mission, the Spirit Mars Rover is starting its 4th year of exploration"

"Beginning 4th year" is not the same as turning 4.

You start your 2nd year of life when you turn 1.

Re:Error

[cnettel]

Sorry, but they landed in January 2004. The GP's point was that they know start their 5th year.

Re:Error

[drapeau06]

I have been living where I live for 3 and a half year [sic], the rovers sure wasn't [sic] up there when I moved in.

From TFA: Spirit's start as a Martian was 2004-01-04, Opportunity's 2004-01-25

It's 2008 now, so either you've actually been living in your house for more than 3.5 a (you may be pleased to know that I have no idea if that's true), or your recollection is wrong.

Re:Doing science

[xoff00]

Already done.

Beer Crater: http://www.google.com/mars/#lon=-63.984375&q=beer

Re:what if...

[Anonymous Coward]

It runs a modified version of VX Works, actually. Programmed by my friends at Wind River, I do believe.

Re:what if...

[Enleth]

AFAIK, they were rebooted at least once for a firmware upgrade, so that number wouldn't look so nice...

Re:Happy Birthday!

[Cally]

Spirit is in a bad way; unlike Opportunity, which has had several recent cleaning events and is still generating 650Whr/day, Spirit's solar panels have been steadily acculumulating dust ever since it left the crest of Husband Hill and descended into the dust-trap valley containing Home Plate. It's just been parked an over-wintering site right on the northern rim of Home Plate, which was picked because it allows up to a 25 degree northward tilt, turning the solar panels perpendicular to the sun and wringing every last watt from it's light. Spirit may survive the winter, but it's by no means certain. We do now know that the rovers can survive on less than half the official "rover death" power levels, because both made it through the global dust storm. Spirit's power levels should bottom out around 125Whr in (I think) about four months' time. It's going to be touch and go. With luck we may get another two earth years from her. Oppy, on the other hand, is still going strong. If some major mechanical failure turned it into a stationary weather-station vehicle, rather like Viking, it could conceivably last another five years - until the batteries finally lose capacity.

Re:So what have we learned?

[Cally]

Well, is there water on Mars or microbes, bacteria, aliens? What have we discovered? Have we learned anything from the rock samples or pictures? Can you give me something that justifies all of this money spent? Well, golly gee, if only there were some way to answer your questions! Perhaps some sort of searchable index of information on web pages...

Re:So what have we learned?

[Cally]

You're confusing data collection with theorizing. What we've "learned" is gigabytes of photographs, measurements, and so forth, which will, in the coming years, be used to sort through the various theories about the formation and evolution of Mars, and (more indirectly) about the possibility of life on it. As a matter of fact, several major discoveries and have been made by the rovers. Silica Valley, Tyrone, blueberries, festoon cross-bedding, 3D bedform cross-sections at Victoria Crater, the first ever surface-based observations of a global dust storm, of high atmospheric clouds, first meteorites on the surface of another planet, movies of dust devils, oh the list just goes on and on...

Re:So what have we learned?

[iamlucky13]

We've learned with near certainty that there were large amounts of liquid water on Mars in the past. This shows that Mars was almost certainly more like Earth in its past, may still maintain some suitability for human life, and brightens hopes of finding extra-solar, earth-like planets.

We've studied the geological history of Mars in detail that was utterly impossible via any other means short of landing actual people there. This hints at the similarities and differences between Mars and Earth and may help us better understand how our own planet evolved and operates.

We've studied the Martian atmosphere in reasonable detail and gathered more information on its climate. If we ever find it beneficial to try living there (or decide to do so regardless of benefit), this information will be vital.

We've developed and tested a new set of scientific tools, robotic components, autonomous navigation techniques, etc. Several of these were new to the mission.

We've produced thousands of stunning images of an alien surface. That alone is certainly worth as much as public art. Nothing inherently makes the Statue of Liberty, for example, more valuable than Mars Rovers...or, at the risk of sparking the public-vs-private money debate, those big screen TV's everyone has to have.

And we've helped inspire further generations of youth to study science and math.

NASA actually is quite forthcoming with information about their discoveries, but the general public often cares little for more than the most basic details, and thus the private news media usually only give passing mention to NASA press releases. If you're genuinely curious to learn more about the rovers' work, browse through old press releases on the website:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html