NASA: NASA Spirit Rover Completes Mission on Mars

[PeterMP]

http://marsrover.nasa.gov/newsroom/p...20110525a.html

"NASA has ended operational planning activities for the Mars rover Spirit and transitioned the Mars Exploration Rover Project to a single-rover operation focused on Spirit's still-active twin, Opportunity.

This marks the completion of one of the most successful missions of interplanetary exploration ever launched.

Spirit last communicated on March 22, 2010, as Martian winter approached and the rover's solar-energy supply declined. The rover operated for more than six years after landing in January 2004 for what was planned as a three-month mission. NASA checked frequently in recent months for possible reawakening of Spirit as solar energy available to the rover increased during Martian spring. A series of additional re-contact attempts ended today, designed for various possible combinations of recoverable conditions.

"Our job was to wear these rovers out exploring, to leave no unutilized capability on the surface of Mars, and for Spirit, we have done that," said Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Spirit drove 4.8 miles (7.73 kilometers), more than 12 times the goal set for the mission. The drives crossed a plain to reach a distant range of hills that appeared as mere bumps on the horizon from the landing site; climbed slopes up to 30 degrees as Spirit became the first robot to summit a hill on another planet; and covered more than half a mile (nearly a kilometer) after Spirit's right-front wheel became immobile in 2006. The rover returned more than 124,000 images. It ground the surfaces off 15 rock targets and scoured 92 targets with a brush to prepare the targets for inspection with spectrometers and a microscopic imager."

Pretty amazing out how much they were able to accomplish with them.

[ConnSKINS26]

Wow, talk about underestimating that robot's capabilities. Cool stuff.

[Stew]

I have read dozens of stories on those two rovers. Very interesting. Ive read they have another rover, about the size of an economy car with 20 inch tires that will be much more advanced and many more capabilities then either of the other rovers. it will be interesting to see what information that rover will bring. Scheduled to launch in 2012 I believe.

[Metalhead]

I have read dozens of stories on those two rovers. Very interesting. Ive read they have another rover, about the size of an economy car with 20 inch tires that will be much more advanced and many more capabilities then either of the other rovers. it will be interesting to see what information that rover will bring. Scheduled to launch in 2012 I believe.

Do you know the name of that new rover? That is great news if that's what they plan for the next rover. Aim big.

I never understood why Spirit and Opportunity's life expectancy's were designed or anticipated to be so short. We were planning a trip to Mars and it had cost a lot of money, so why didn't they design 5+ year rovers?

[FanboyOf91]

That'll do, pig, that'll do.

[Park City Skins]

Next rover is named Curiosity. Could be launched later this year. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html

[Metalhead]

Thanks for the link, PCS.

[twist]

I wrote a paper about the anylitical technology on the rover in my last year of college.

I was 24 years old when I wrote that.

[mjah]

I never understood why Spirit and Opportunity's life expectancy's were designed or anticipated to be so short. We were planning a trip to Mars and it had cost a lot of money, so why didn't they design 5+ year rovers?

I suspect they were always intended to function for far longer than 90 days -- if and only if all systems worked perfectly on Mars in accordance with their design spec. The 90-day target and the launch of two rovers instead of one were hedges against the likelihood that one would fail to successfully land or operate for long, given that Mars is notoriously difficult to land on successfully.

I imagine the program had internal probabilistic models for the expected lifetime of the rovers based on what they knew at the time about each rover subsystem, and those models suggested that a useful rover lifetime longer than maybe six months would only result if everything worked nearly perfectly. And I'd bet that NASA engineers and scientists, being smart people, knew that they could not possibly have foreseen all of the conditions the rovers were likely to run into on the surface of Mars. So they made the partially PR-driven decision to under-report their expectations to the public.

And I'd bet (again, just speculation) that the design team working on every single rover subsystem had one goal in mind, given that the rovers were destined to eventually die no matter what: "Don't let our piece of the rover be the first to break." How many all-nighters were pulled in support of that goal?

So, short answer: dunno.

It will be interesting to see how the Curiosity rover fares with Mars atmospheric entry and landing. Due to its size, it has to use a complex combination of methods to successfully reach the Mars surface. I hope they all work flawlessly.

[Stew]

I dont know how to embed, but here are three conceptual pics of what Curiosity will look like. Its basically going to look like Johnny 5 and a Yaris have a crack baby.

One of those pics is a scale comparison of Spirit and Curiosity.

[China]

Left Panoramic Camera Non-linearized Full frame EDR acquired on Sol 513 of Spirit's mission to Gusev Crater at approximately 14:41:25 Mars local solar time, camera commanded to use Filter 7 (432 nm). NASA/JPL/Cornell

Wait, what's that?...

[The Evil Genius]

Paging Mr. Carter. Mr. John Carter.

[JMS]

This is another chance to dust off one of my favorite tribute video's...