30 Kilometers for Opportunity

There's no stopping NASA's Opportunity rover on Mars.

This collage maps the the entire route of the Opportunity Mars Rover. (Click to enlarge) Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell Marco Di Lorenzo, Kenneth Kremer

On June 1, 2011, a short drive of 482 feet (146.8 meters) pushed the rover's odometer past 30 km (18.64 miles). It has taken nearly seven and a half years since the rover landed on Jan 24, 2004. Also keep in mind that this mission only had a 3 month 'warranty', and was expected to travel only a quarter mile.

The rover has managed to rove 50 times the initially planned distance, over 29 times beyond the original design lifetime! An amazing feat that no one involved in the rover missions ever expected.

The rover is still providing an abundance of science and photos of the Martian surface. Opportunity has been crater-hopping tour, and recently imaged the "Skylab" crater, seen below (a 3-D stereo image can be found here).

Opportunity snaps a photo of Skylab Crater. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Informally named after the United States' first space station, the crater is about 9 meters (30 feet) in diameter. The craters appearance suggests it is young for a Martian crater, estimated to have occurred by a meteorite impact in the last 100,00 years. Opportunity passed it on its long-term destination, Endeavour crater, which is about 22 kilometers (14 miles) in diameter. Opportunity is now only about 2 miles away.

Recently, NASA ceased attempting to communicate with Opportunity's twin, Spirit, which has been out of contact since March 2010. More information on the rovers can be found on NASA website.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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Communication With Spirit Rover Ends

NASA Model of the Spirit Rover on Mars.

 In the early hours of May 25, 2011, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover team sent the final command in attempt to reestablish contact with the Spirit rover. The rover hasn't sent a message since March 20, 2010. Since then, over 1,200 commands have been sent and a reply hasn't been heard from the stuck rover.

The rover is likely frozen and dust covered, unable to generate enough power from its solar cells to reawaken. It was hoped that the Martian summer would thaw it out, but it doesn't seem to be the case. It is a sad loss for NASA, the plucky rover has been a scientific workhorse on the Martian surface.

Spirit was originally designed to work for just three months, but ended up roving for over 6 years! That's 25 times what was expected, imagine living 1500 years! It has accomplished so much in its short time, including studying interesting rocks, climbing hills, examining soil, peaking into craters, and traveling 7.7 kilometers since landing.

Spirit's "twin", Opportunity, is still functioning on the opposite side of Mars, working just as hard for just as long as Spirit has. They will be joined by a new rover soon, in a few months, the golfcart-sized "Curiosity" Mars Science Laboratory will be launching. This rover will be able to cover a wider range of the Martian surface and has better instruments than any previous mission.

Spirit will be missed. However, we got more then our money's worth out of the little fellow. It's work will aid in the future study and exploration of Mars. Perhaps, one day, a human will find Spirit among the deserts of Mars, since we hope to be going there soon. We might find out exactly what happened to the rover to cause it to shut down. But until then, we have to be thankful for all the hard work of the rover and scientists involved in the mission.

Spirit on Mars as interpreted by xkcd.

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Posted in Mars,NASA,Rover,Spirit 39 comments

Curiosity For Mars

NASA's next Mars rover, Curiosity, is near completion. Part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Spacecraft, engineers have assembled and tested nearly all the rover's components at the Jet Propulsion Lab in California.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

In May and June the rover and other components of the spacecraft will be shipped to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will be prepared for launch. The launch will have to take place somewhere between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18, 2011, when the spacecraft can most effectively reach Mars. The launch vehicle to be used is an Atlas V rocket, on which the spacecraft will be bolted to the top.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

These images are essentially how the rover will look when it lands on Mars in August 2012. The mission will last for at least two earth years, but given the high mileage we have gotten out of the last two rovers (Spirit and Opportunity), this one has a lot of hope for more.

The landing-site is still to be selected among four finalist candidates, but the rover is equipped to study the intriguing places on Mars. At about 3 meters in length, the size of a Mini-Cooper (a small British-made car), the Curiosity rover is equipped with 10 scientific instruments to analyze Martian rock and soil. It will look for evidence of if Mars has ever offered environmental conditions favorable to microbial life in the past or present.

The decision on a landing-site is a matter of what area is most likely to be habitable. A sort of 'habitable zone' for Mars' surface. This would also help our own understanding on life's limits within our solar system. The problem with selecting a site also becomes an issue between researchers and engineers. The researchers, of course, want to research every nook and cranny and examine the most challenging places. The engineers can only build something that can do so much and go so far. There needs to be a broad open area to land a craft, and often that knocks out most of the interesting regions. Part of the reason some of the previous Mars photos looked like deserts was because the craft landed in a Martian desert.

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Posted in Curiosity,Mars,NASA,Rover 23 comments