I have been following the exploits of the twin mars
nasa rovers spririt and opportunity since they launched on
June 10th and July 7 of 2003. Their
mission page is one of
the websites that I visit on an almost daily basis.
Now, according to the
mars exploration rover launch press kit the
mission cost at the time of launch was appromimately $800 million dollars with a break down of $625 for the two rovers, $100 million for the launch
itself and $75 million for mission operations and scientific data processing. This document also says they expected the rovers to operate
for at least 3 months. They definately got their money's worth. It's now 2009 and they are still driving around sending data.
Now what I've been reading for months now is that the rovers have been having power output issues due to all of the dust and dirt that has
built up on their solar panels over the course of 5 years on the job which sort of leads me to the point of this posting.
At a cost of roughly $300+ dollars...for the LOVE of...why didn't anyone think of installing a squeegee system?!?!
Nasa is already hard at work on the future of rovers. The
Mars Science Laboratory is a car
sized rover that is suppose to launch sometime in 2009 and be on Mars in summer of 2010. If you have not SEEN a picture of this bad
boy you have GOT to follow the link above. This sucker is a monster and a half! I dont know what they decided upon but rumor and their
documentation point at the fact they were thinking of using nuclear power on this bad boy.
As a last thought, I can only imagine what the last transmission from both spririt and opportunity will sound like...
"My Kingdom for a squeegee..."
Just saying...
- Scott
Posted March 01, 9:12pm
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