The Mars rover Opportunity has lost the ability to steer one of its wheels. While the vehicle can still move, the failure may make it harder to study rocks up close. The rover has six wheels aligned in two rows and each of the four corner wheels has its own steering mechanism. The problem is with the front right wheel, which can still roll but is now stuck at a 7
April 6th, 2005
Durable Mars Rovers Sent Into Third Overtime Period
NASA has approved up to 18 more months of operations for Spirit and Opportunity, the twin Mars rovers that have already surprised engineers and scientists by continuing active exploration for more than 14 months. “The rovers have proven their value with major discoveries about ancient watery environments on Mars that might have harbored life,” said Dr. Ghassem Asrar, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “We are extending their mission through September 2006 to take advantage of having such capable resources still healthy and in an excellent position to continue their adventures.”
April 3rd, 2005
Hindi, Bengali on sundial aboard Mars Exploration Rovers IndiaExpress.com
Indian languages Hindi and Bengali find a respectable mention alongside 24 others from across the world on a sundial aboard NASA’s Mars Surveyor that landed on the red planet in January 2004. The first sundial ever on a planet other than earth, the three-inch square structure in black and gold, has ‘mangal’, meaning mars, written on its face in both these languages.
March 30th, 2005
Make your own Mars rover
The Martian Soil blog points the way to Web sites that show you how to assemble a downsized paper version of the NASA Mars rovers, as well as a true-scale paper “MarsDial” like the one on each rover (PDF file). All you have to do is print out a copy of the pattern, then painstakingly cut out the pieces and glue them together.
March 24th, 2005
Tire tracks and dust devils on Mars cnet
A recent view across the Martian landscape from the rover Opportunity, which–along with its compatriot Spirit–are still exploring the red planet months after they were expected to shut down.
March 22nd, 2005
Moon-Watching Mars Rover Catches Deimos Crossing the Sun
That dynamic duo on Mars, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, are satellite watchers too. Turning their respective camera systems up into the martian sky, the robots have caught sight of the moons of Mars
March 16th, 2005
Mars Rover Suffers Instrument Glitch
NASA said Tuesday it has suspended use of one of the mineral-identifying tools on the Opportunity Mars rover due to a problem. The robots thermal emission spectrometer was acting up, and engineers are obtaining data from it while troubleshooting. The problem might be related to a malfunctioning optical switch that tells a mirror in the instrument when to begin moving. Or the mirror might not be properly moving at a constant velocity.
March 12th, 2005
Spirit Gets A Dust Devil Once-Over
Mars scientists and engineers are elated about a dust-busting blast that has struck the Spirit rover at its Gusev crater exploration site. Turns out that a martian whirlwind
March 2nd, 2005
Twin Mars rovers in instrument mix-up New Scientist
NASA’s Mars rovers Opportunity and Spirit are identical twins – so alike that they even fooled NASA. Researchers have discovered that they sent the robots to Mars with an instrument meant for Opportunity inside Spirit and vice versa. While the bungle does not undermine the main scientific conclusions drawn from the data collected by the rovers, it is an embarrassing slip-up for a space agency that once lost a Mars spacecraft because engineers mixed up metric and imperial units.