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Mars Rover Spirit Reaches Winter Tilt

Posted by kdawson on from the playing-pinball-on-the-fourth-planet dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Mars rover Spirit has been inching carefully down the north slope of the feature 'Home Plate' to tilt its solar panels into the sun to survive the long Martian winter. On Friday, it reached a tilt of 29.9 degrees, probably the final tilt it will reach for the winter. Although it's used the tilt strategy to increase power over the Martian winter twice before, this year it's especially critical, since a global dust storm last summer has left the solar-powered rover covered with dust and starved for power. Geoffrey Landis, one of the MER scientists, commemorated Spirit's trek to the winter haven with a sonnet on his blog. (The second of the two rovers, Opportunity, is at a landing site that's not as far into the southern hemisphere, and hence has less need to find a tilted surface.) OSU has a website explaining some of the software used to visualize the terrain to optimize the tilt, and for the latest news, the ongoing log of the rover status is updated weekly."

9 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Stupid but obvious by Goalie_Ca · · Score: 3, Funny

    If dust is a problem why don't they attach a brush to it or something.

    --

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    Go canucks, habs, and sens!
    1. Re:Stupid but obvious by Eddi3 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yeah, because they can do that from 36-250 million miles away.

    2. Re:Stupid but obvious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      They could carry it with a swallow.

    3. Re:Stupid but obvious by Dance_Dance_Karnov · · Score: 3, Funny

      I've always wondered why they didn't build them with a brush or something to clean the panels off with. Seems like a pretty obvious thing that someone should have brought up in the design stages.

    4. Re:Stupid but obvious by RuBLed · · Score: 2, Funny

      Wait a minute! Supposing two swallows carried it together?

    5. Re:Stupid but obvious by Celeritas · · Score: 2, Funny

      Are those African or European Swallows?

    6. Re:Stupid but obvious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Towelie says, "Do you wanna get high?"

  2. Rover III by sakdoctor · · Score: 4, Funny

    Bag-less rover with duel cyclone technology.
    Sponsored by Dyson.

  3. nah, its no problem. by apodyopsis · · Score: 2, Funny

    nah, its no problem - a good martian winter downpour will wash the dust off. and, voila, the problem is eliminated.

    they'll need to get close to one of the canals if they want to wash of some of the sand clogging the treads as well.

    :)