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Rover Glitch
Space.com is reporting a new health problem with one of the Mars rovers:
NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity has successfully moved its robotic arm for the first time in almost two weeks, prompting a series of discussions on the future use of the automaton’s appendage, the mission’s manager said Thursday.
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The motor stalled on Nov. 25, fixing the arm in its stowed configuration – tucked close to Opportunity’s undercarriage for drives – and preventing study of a nearby rock outcrop at the rover’s Meridiani Planum landing site.
Their fix? Shove more current through the motor. Not subtle, but effective. Hard to say what that'll do to the longevity, but considering they're completing their first Martian year's worth of study, I'd say they've definitely gotten good mileage from the thing.
were they sandbagging the effective life of those little bastards? I seem to remember it being somewhere in the neighborhood of 30-90 days and it's coming up on a year? Actually impressive.
Posted by: ronaprhys on December 12, 2005 06:23 PMHeh, no, that's a Martian year, not an Earth one. They've been toodling around that planet for just about 2 Earth years now.
NASA's always sandbagged the service life of their vehicles. The only times they haven't over-engineered things, the subsequent failures were politically... unpleasant.
Posted by: scott on December 12, 2005 07:43 PM