Mars Rover Opportunity Sets Longevity Record

s31523 writes "The Mars rover Opportunity has beaten the original record of six years and 116 days operating on the surface of Mars, originally set by the Viking 1 Lander. While the Spirit rover has been on the surface longer than the Opportunity by three weeks, it has been out of communication since March 22. If Spirit comes back online, it will attain the new Martian surface longevity record. This feat, right on the heels of another longevity feat (Voyager 2 and twin on the verge of entering interstellar space and still kicking) is healing some of NASA's past black eyes. It is quite remarkable given original spec of 90 days for the mission. With the passing of the solstice, warmer temperatures and more sun will likely mean the rover will continue on."

Comments

Re:Mission spec too low?

[Pharmboy]

How low are the specs for these missions are set if it's been operating for 25x longer than it was designed to?

The problem is that the original specs were for U.S. standard time, and we now use metric time.

Re:Mission spec too low?

[Jeng]

No one knew if there would be enough wind to wipe the dust off of the solar panels. That was the limiting factor, it was figured it could go for 90 days before its solar panels would be too dusted to power the rover.

The specs were fine, we just under estimated the wind.

At least that is what I have been told.

Reduces black eyes, but readies 'em for a beating

[Dynedain]

This feat ... is healing some of NASA's past black eyes. It is quite remarkable given original spec of 90 days for the mission.

Until some congressional asshat takes a look and argues "NASA builds things to last 25 times longer than specified. Ergo they are spending too much and their budget is 25 times higher than it should be."

Very remarkable indeed

[digitalsushi]

It's remarkable in that M.O. Scotty tells Geordi in that novel turned episode, Relics:

from imdb:

Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Look, Mr. Scott, I'd love to explain everything to you. But the captain wants this spectrographic analysis done by 1300 hours.
Scotty: [thinks about it some time] You mind a little advice? Starfleet captains are like children. They want everything right now and they want it their way. But the secret is to give them only what they need, not what they want.
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Yeah. Well, I told the captain I'd have this analysis done in an hour.
Scotty: How long would it really take?
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: [annoyed] An hour!
Scotty: [looks unbelieving] Oh. You didn't tell him how long it would REALLY take, did you?
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Of course I did.
Scotty: Oh, laddie. You've got a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker.

NASA Young Guy: This thing should last for 6 years easy!
NASA Old Guy: Er my young peer means it should definitely last for 90 days. Anything past 90 days is amazing.

Every frickin' time.

[CraftyJack]

Stop it. It's OK to have a story about the MER mission without a link to xkcd#695.

Re:Every frickin' time.

[blair1q]

Human beings are not connected by a hive mind. Every one of them has to be told something individually. Even in a broadcast situation, you have to put out enough photons and phonons in enough directions to get the message to all the ears. And anyone who isn't in the room when you do it will cause you or someone else (or a webserver) to repeat the message to them personally.

There. All better. Now go play.

Re:Go technology go!

[Jarik C-Bol]

Ah, just as i suspected, the age old 'they failed, it was over engineered, it should have only lasted 95 days, blah blah blah' shtick.
For the umpteenth time, *it was deliberate* they knew they could not get approval for the budget for a rover designed to last years and years, because of the long standing 'what if it breaks early? then the money is wasted right?' attitude.
NASA knew what it would cost to build a decent rover, so they pitched it at 90 days, that way if it flakes out, it does not look like a huge failure.
They build an excellent rover on (what is thought to be) a 90 day rover budget, send it up, and 95 days later, they can say 'look! this 90 day rover we made is doing great! it well outlasted our expectations! its way cheeper for us to keep driving it around than to build a new one and send it, can we get a little more funding?' I'm confident NASA knew full well what it was doing when it built and sent these rovers. (They probably even had at least rough outlines of things to do with them in the event of an extended project life.)