Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Gets Energy Boost and Works Through Depths of Winter

[jakeXT]

March came in like a lion and went out like a lamb at Meridiani Planum, Mars: Opportunity felt the cold wind on her solar panels, then "settled" in a little more, working through the depths of its fifth Martian winter, as the team honored one of its own up there, and the Mars Exploration Rover mission logged month number 99 of exploration.

Gentle winter gusts noticed in the last days of February allowed March to literally blow in, clearing off some of the accumulated dust from the rover's solar arrays. The gusty sols gave Opportunity a measurable "bump" in power, boosting the rover's levels to nearly one-third full capacity, allowing the team to breath easy for the next couple of months, at least as far as power levels go.

Opportunity is still parked at the north end of Cape York, along the rim of Endeavour Crater, ensconced in an area the team named Greeley Haven, tilted at about 15 degrees to soak in as much of the Sun as possible. While the projections estimated that the rover's power levels would drop down to less than one-quarter full capacity, the winds of Mars changed that and the robot field geologist was able to work nearly a full schedule throughout the month.

"We're doing a lot better than we thought because of that cleaning event," said Bill Nelson, chief of the rover engineering team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the birthplace of and mission control for Spirit and Opportunity. "It turned into a series of very small cleaning events, a little every day for several days."


...

http://www.planetary.org/news/2012/0331_Mars_Exploration_Rover_Update.html

[northoftheborder]

1. That those rovers are still working and discovering is mind boggling!!!

I read a book about the development of those machines by the director of the program, a woman, can't remember her name; fascinating story.

[lastlib]

2. Spirit is apparently kaput; but Opportunity still works--

long ago left the Energizer Bunny in the dust. A truly amazing machine!!

[customerserviceguy]

3. I was watching American Experience last night

There was a show all about the Grand Coulee Dam, and at the end of it, I had to reflect: What great engineering projects came from the last quarter of the 20th Century? Other than the Internet, I really couldn't come up with much. I wonder if Opportunity might possibly be considered one of them? It really hasn't changed life on this planet much, but it is amazing.

[bananas]

4. The ISS and the Space Shuttle fleet. nt

[customerserviceguy]

5. I was thinking about the shuttles

But the work of planning and building them was pretty much done during the third quarter of the 20th Century. Yes, they flew in the last quarter, but other than deploying and repairing satellites that could have been launched by single-use rockets (replaced, in the case of the faulty satellites) what other life-changing things did the shuttle bring about?

I have to ask the same thing about the ISS, too. The benefits of space such as weather and navigation satellites had already been done in the 1960's, and while I will be the first to admit that what we've sent up into orbit is better than the Vanguards and Sputniks of the dawn of the space age, they're not really the game-changers that were foreseen. Anyone who saw "2001: A Space Odyssey" in the theatres expected that we'd have space tourism by now, and I do remember talk of power plants in space that would beam nearly unlimited amounts of cheap solar energy to the planet.

Are we too afraid of our own technology to be able to use it in the bold, brash ways of the past? The AE program I watched did focus on the negative effects the dam had on Native American populations and the salmon, is it our deep desire to protect everyone and everything that keeps us from implementing giant engineering projects?