Mars Lives.

[BridgeTroll]

It is not so much the cold... as it is lack of sufficient sun at the correct angle to keep the batteries charged and the rover warm.  Remember these two rovers have survived multiple winters.  The problem is with Spirit being stuck it cannot move to a favorable position to soak up the required solar energy to survive.

[buckethead]

http://pweb.jps.net/~tgangale/mars/faq.htm#seasons

Some answers to mars FAQs.

[mtraininjax]

Sort of hard for Spirit to move, but I am amazed in my lifetime with the images so far from Mars. These are great first steps.

[Dog Walker]

The engineers and technicians who designed and built those things have every right to walk around with swelled heads.  I can't think of anything else that has lasted so far beyond its' design date except some old Mercedes diesels.

[Bewler]

It is not so much the cold... as it is lack of sufficient sun at the correct angle to keep the batteries charged and the rover warm. 

Should have sent it to Venus.

[JeffreyS]

Venus is too cloudy.

[jandar]

Venus is also way too hot and way too much pressure.
Average temp of 860F and pressure of 80+ sea level pressures measure at the surface.

Good luck keeping electronics cool for more than a few hours at those temps and pressures.

[Bewler]

Well then I guess send it to Mercury? Or no send it to drive around on the actual Sun's surface. Plently of solar energy there. Except for when its night time on the Sun of course.

[Jason]

::clear eyes guy voice:::

"Bewler......Bewler......Bewler....."

[sandyshoes]

... I can't think of anything else that has lasted so far beyond its' design date except some old Mercedes diesels.

...and Liza Minelli

[Bostech]

Actually there is.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-454170/The-71-year-old-vacuum-cleaner-thats-going-strong.html

[subro]

Mars lander just might rise from the dead
Scientists to start trying to revive long-frozen Phoenix probe
By Leonard David
Space Insider columnist
Space.com
updated 2:22 p.m. ET, Wed., Dec . 16, 2009
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander lived up to its name â€" rising from the ashes of an earlier failed Mars landing attempt to go on to a successful mission. But now the probe has a chance to rise from the dead itself.

Phoenix touched down in Mars' northern plains in May 2008 and lasted for five months, exceeding its originally planned three-month mission. The robot quite literally dug up a number of scientific findings â€" including, perhaps, liquid water.

Eventually Phoenix succumbed to the bitterly cold winter on Mars. But now scientists are warming up to the prospect of re-establishing contact with Phoenix.

"We start listening in January for signals from our lander," said Peter Smith, Phoenix principal investigator at the Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "Our engineering team is quite curious to see how resilient the electronic systems are to the extreme cold of northern winter."

The odds don't look too promising.

Phoenix was not designed to withstand such a callous climate. The spacecraft was tested at minus 55 degrees Celsius (67 degrees below zero Fahrenheit), but a winter on Mars averages about minus 126 degrees C (minus 195 degrees F).

"While the recovery of Phoenix is improbable given the severe conditions that it has endured throughout the winter, the science that can still be accomplished makes the mission worth continuing," Smith advised.

Lazarus mode
The spacecraft's builder, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, did incorporate what's called the "Lazarus mode" â€" a means that might allow Phoenix to re-energize itself. What isn't known is how the lander's solar panels weathered the Martian winter.

As of Nov. 2, 2008, when the last contact was made with the probe, all instruments on Phoenix were functional, Smith said. An open oven and several microscope slides were ready for use, Smith said. "Our chemistry cells were already full, making additional sampling problematic," he added.

If contact is re-established with Phoenix, Smith said that the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer, or TEGA, can measure the isotopic ratios of the atmospheric gases. Also, the lander's weather station is fully functional, and all cameras were in excellent condition.

"We were just ready to begin a campaign to measure the thermal and electrical properties of the soil using the thermal and electrical-conductivity probe (TECP) instrument on the robotic arm," Smith said.

Planetary perk-up
So if Phoenix does a planetary perk-up, what can the lander attempt to do?

"Clearly, future use of Phoenix instruments depends on the health of the system," Smith responded. "If it fully recovers then we would start with an imaging campaign and measure soil properties with TECP, then progress to digging beneath the surface to see if the ice table has changed depth."

Additionally, scientists using a resuscitated Phoenix would try to use the remaining sample chambers to continue analyzing the soil composition and microscopic structures.

"Throughout these activities, a complete investigation of the weather conditions ... along with wind measurements is envisioned," Smith concluded.

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than four decades. He is past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines and has written for SPACE.com since 1999.


© 2009 Space.com. All rights reserved. More from Space.com.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34449661/ns/technology_and_science-space/

[BridgeTroll]

Opportunity hits the tweve mile mark!

Opportunity has clicked over the 12-mile mark of driving on Mars. That's 19.31 kilometers, and more than 32 times farther than the success goal for the mission when the rover landed six years ago.

This milestone was reached on Opportunity's last drive on Jan. 28, 2010, as the rover reached the ejecta blanket of material surrounding the youngest crater to be explored by Opportunity on Mars, "Concepcion" crater.

"This is a truly remarkable achievement to drive so far for so long on another planet," said Bill Nelson, engineering team chief for the Mars Exploration Rovers at JPL. "In fact, in 2009 we covered more ground than any prior year since landing in 2004, about 5.3 Kilometers [3.3 miles]," he said.

To reach this milestone, Opportunity's drive motors made more than 38 million revolutions.

"This year and next will be a 19-kilometer [11.8-mile] marathon run from Victoria crater to Endeavour crater," said Nelson. "We will more than double all previous driving. We've made great progress so far and we have no plans to slow down."

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/spotlight/20100201a.html

[BridgeTroll]

Spirit has been downgraded to a stationary science platform.

WASHINGTON -- After six years of unprecedented exploration of the Red Planet, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit no longer will be a fully mobile robot. NASA has designated the once-roving scientific explorer a stationary science platform after efforts during the past several months to free it from a sand trap have been unsuccessful.

The venerable robot's primary task in the next few weeks will be to position itself to combat the severe Martian winter. If Spirit survives, it will continue conducting significant new science from its final location. The rover's mission could continue for several months to years.

"Spirit is not dead; it has just entered another phase of its long life," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We told the world last year that attempts to set the beloved robot free may not be successful. It looks like Spirit's current location on Mars will be its final resting place."

Ten months ago, as Spirit was driving south beside the western edge of a low plateau called Home Plate, its wheels broke through a crusty surface and churned into soft sand hidden underneath.

After Spirit became embedded, the rover team crafted plans for trying to get the six-wheeled vehicle free using its five functioning wheels - the sixth wheel quit working in 2006, limiting Spirit's mobility. The planning included experiments with a test rover in a sandbox at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., plus analysis, modeling and reviews. In November, another wheel quit working, making a difficult situation even worse.

Recent drives have yielded the best results since Spirit became embedded. However, the coming winter mandates a change in strategy. It is mid-autumn at the solar-powered robot's home on Mars. Winter will begin in May. Solar energy is declining and expected to become insufficient to power further driving by mid-February. The rover team plans to use those remaining potential drives for improving the rover's tilt. Spirit currently tilts slightly toward the south. The winter sun stays in the northern sky, so decreasing the southward tilt would boost the amount of sunshine on the rover's solar panels.

"We need to lift the rear of the rover, or the left side of the rover, or both," said Ashley Stroupe, a rover driver at JPL. "Lifting the rear wheels out of their ruts by driving backward and slightly uphill will help. If necessary, we can try to lower the front right of the rover by attempting to drop the right-front wheel into a rut or dig it into a hole."

At its current angle, Spirit probably would not have enough power to keep communicating with Earth through the Martian winter. Even a few degrees of improvement in tilt might make enough difference to enable communication every few days.

"Getting through the winter will all come down to temperature and how cold the rover electronics will get," said John Callas, project manager at JPL for Spirit and its twin rover, Opportunity. "Every bit of energy produced by Spirit's solar arrays will go into keeping the rover's critical electronics warm, either by having the electronics on or by turning on essential heaters."

Even in a stationary state, Spirit continues scientific research.

"There's a class of science we can do only with a stationary vehicle that we had put off during the years of driving," said Steve Squyres, a researcher at Cornell University and principal investigator for Spirit and Opportunity. "Degraded mobility does not mean the mission ends abruptly. Instead, it lets us transition to stationary science."

One stationary experiment Spirit has begun studies tiny wobbles in the rotation of Mars to gain insight about the planet's core. This requires months of radio-tracking the motion of a point on the surface of Mars to calculate long-term motion with an accuracy of a few inches.

"If the final scientific feather in Spirit's cap is determining whether the core of Mars is liquid or solid, that would be wonderful -- it's so different from the other knowledge we've gained from Spirit," said Squyres.

Tools on Spirit's robotic arm can study variations in the composition of nearby soil, which has been affected by water. Stationary science also includes watching how wind moves soil particles and monitoring the Martian atmosphere.

Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars in January 2004. They have been exploring for six years, far surpassing their original 90-day mission. Opportunity currently is driving toward a large crater called Endeavor and continues to make scientific discoveries. It has driven approximately 12 miles and returned more than 133,000 images.

[buckethead]

For those who did not know, Google Earth has complete coverage of Mars and the Moon too!

It's freakin incredible!