Mars Rover "Spirit" In Danger

Riding with Robots writes "Just days after announcing that the Mars Phoenix Lander has met its icy demise, NASA reports that a dust storm has left the rover Spirit on the edge of power failure. During one recent Martian day, the robotic geologist's solar array produced only 89 watt hours of energy, the lowest output by either rover in their nearly five years on Mars. Mission managers are taking steps to protect the hardy, battle-worn spacecraft, but the agency describes Spirit's status as 'vulnerable.'"

Comments

It's been a good run

[danaris]

It would be very sad to see Spirit run out of power, but honestly, both the rovers have performed so far beyond their original expectations, it's astounding. I seem to recall they were originally meant for something like a two-month mission...four years ago.

So if we do lose Spirit soon, for my part, I think we can be satisfied with what it's already accomplished.

Dan Aris

Re:It's been a good run

[Idiomatick]

Adds an ending for the movie?

Re:Hrm

[Steauengeglase]

-er calling, not call and it is more like saying my car is a boat because it traveled across the ocean on a freighter.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they should have included a 'solar cell wipper assembly' (Patent Pending) to wipe the dust off???

Mission Accomplished

[Java Commando]

Indeed, Spirit can legitimately unfurl a "Mission Accomplished" banner, now.

And have no regrets about it.

Re:Winter?

[plague3106]

If the solar panels get enoug sunlight, does anyone know if it's possible the rovers will "reboot?"

Pedantic griping on the units

[compact_support]

During a day, solar panels don't produce any watts of energy. Watts are a compound unit, specifically joules per second. Joules are a measurement of energy, and what would be produced in a a time period. Watts represent the instantaneous rate of power generation.

Or a nuclear power source

[MarcQuadra]

Or they could have thrown the power budget out the window and used a nuclear-decay power source, like a lot of satellites do.

Now that -power availability- seems to be the biggest issue with these landers, maybe we can build one with a power source that provides years of solid performance instead of solar panels.

The devices wouldn't even be radioactive by the Mars gets crowded anyway.