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Final Attempts To Contact Mars Spirit Rover Fail

Posted by Unknown on from the it-had-a-good-run dept.

dotancohen writes "After nearly a year of trying to reestablish communications with the Mars Spirit rover, NASA has decided to suspend efforts. Communications channels used to contact the vehicle (redesignated from "rover" to "spot" when it got stuck in a sand trap) will be used to develop a communications base with the next Mars rover: the ambitious Mars Science Laboratory."

2 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Spirit did well by JoshuaZ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Spirit succeeded well beyond the initial planned for mission that was only supposed to last 90 days. This is a real triumph of engineering. The headline shouldn't be about failure but about how this lasted 20 times as long as it was intended. Oh, and of course there's the obligatory xkcd http://xkcd.com/695/ . And if you don't tear up a little bit on reading that then you don't have a heart.

  2. V-S Day: Late-breaking news from the Council by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Funny
    The Council of Elders formally accepts the Articles of Surrender as ratified by the representatives of the blue planet. and hereby proclaims a day of planetary celebration: VS Day.

    K'Breel, Speaker for the Council of Elders, spake thus:

    "Long have we fought, long have we labored, but at least we have triumphed. It was half a year ago that the mechanized invader was finally defeated - half a year that the blue planet's oxygen-poisoned denizens dithered and denied, but at least, they have seen the truth for what it is. Rejoice, podmates! Wiggle your gelsacs in celebration! We proclaim today VS Day - Victory over Spirit!"

    When a rather plump intelligence analyst suggested that today's victory was merely the result of normal seasonal changes, and that there still remained the issue of the second - still operational - invader, and furthermore, that code names gleaned from transmissions from the blue planet indicated the imminent launch of an even more powerful foe with a power source not subject to seasonal weather changes, K'Breel ordered that the analyst's gelsacs be frozen solid, irradiated, and thrown into the Planetary Trench. "Curiosity," said K'Breel, "felled the fat."