Mars: Spirit and Opportunity may meet

I found some nice article from nasa's website today. They are apparently planning to make these cute rovers to meet each other in Mars.

Link to NASA

Another thing of note would be that these rovers were originally planned to last for three months because of dust accumulating on their solar arrays, but have lasted five years allready. Some natural phenomena keeps cleaning those solar arrays. Or little green men like to keep things clean and tidy.

Well I think this is NASA's way to gather more science(to lie to us about...). If these two meet, they will start dating, then comes little rovers*Viola*, more science...

Honestly it is about time...don't you think these two being compared to eachother after 5 years they should get to know each other a bit better, they are the "only" intelligence on the planet(wink wink)...

Originally posted by rawsom
Some natural phenomena keeps cleaning those solar arrays. Or little green men like to keep things clean and tidy.

The natural phenomena you refer to are called dust devils, and yes they blow a bit of the dust off the rovers solar panels.

Dust devils and winds continue to clean the rovers today and are one of the primary reasons the rovers have been able to last so much longer than planned.

Source

Martian Dust Devil:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f56a7bfed3fd.jpg[/atsimg]

IRM

This is a great thing, considering the fact that the rovers were hundreds of miles apart initially and lasting more than their expected life time.

These are the outstanding achievements of human technological capability and NASA's capablitity to carry missions. And I would like to use this opportunity to ask the persons who blame that NASA is wasting money should read these achievements.

What's the point? What I mean is, why bring these two rovers into close proximity? As far as I know theres no sharing of information or reason other than maybe to snap a photo of the other. Seems logical to me that they could cover more ground separated. On the other hand maybe one has insturments that the other doesn't and they need eachother for support or confirmation and further testing.

reply to post by The Undertaker


I believe this is just a media stunt. However I can imagine seeing shape of the rovers with cameras helps them somehow. I do support this kind of success even if this is merely a media stunt. After all, they have surpassed all expectations so they can basically afford this stunt. Hopefully rovers will go on for two more years that is required to achieve a meeting.

Originally posted by The Undertaker
What's the point? What I mean is, why bring these two rovers into close proximity?

Simple.

To make a high resolution photos of each other.

Books about Mars certainly need those, it is a lonely and boring place out there

reply to post by rawsom


No where in that article did I see them talking about the two rovers meeting. Beside, I don't think it would be possible to do that. They are on opposite sides of Mars and there top speed is 5 centimeters (2 inches) per second on a hard flat surface. Good luck getting them to meet in our life time

Originally posted by jra
reply to post by rawsom

 

No where in that article did I see them talking about the two rovers meeting. Beside, I don't think it would be possible to do that. They are on opposite sides of Mars and there top speed is 5 centimeters (2 inches) per second on a hard flat surface. Good luck getting them to meet in our life time

I'm sorry about this. I read that article again. You are right of course. I don't know how I managed to get this so wrong in the first place. Maybe I was just too tired to think c learly. This won't happen again.

Hahaha, just goes to show how many people read the article before replying to a thread here on ATS.

Ah well.

Yay. The two rovers will catch up to each other. We will get a 256 grey scale image of each one from the other, in L0 and R0 3D mode, so that way a full widescreen black and white view can be assembled. (keeps the blue sky from showing itself)

Yay. Then what....on to look at more rocks and holes in the ground.

Yay.


I can see the fireworks and huge party about to take place over this.

Break out the champaign, the party hats, the noise makers!!!

Sorry but other than the rovers themselves being able to survive this long, which in of itself is credible to the JPL engineers, not NASA, and their excellent engineering skill, that these rovers have been chuggin along for a long time, I really do not see the reason for getting all excited and jumpy about this.

After all...there is nothing out there...nothing to see....move along....right?


Salutes to the JPL engineers. I tip my glass to them, from one fellow engineer to another.


Cheers!!!!