Thursday, May 27, 2004
THE BIG SLEEP
The two Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have been doing some of the most exciting planetary science of all time. It's dropped out of the mainstream news, but I check in on them every couple of days at the mission's web site.
There have been challenges. As expected, the charge available from the rovers' solar panels is steadily decreasing, as day by day they collect a coating of Martian dust. Opportunity has a faulty thermostat on a heater on its arm, which has been draining power. Here's a story about a risky new program that's been loaded on the rover to conserve power: Putting it into a "deep sleep" overnight that shuts off all of its heaters. Even if one or more instruments are lost due to this, I'm betting that at least one of the rovers is still ticking along months from now.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:38 AM
