William Atkins
Thursday, 26 March 2009 19:34
Science -
Space
Page 2 of 3
But, things aren’t all rosy for the
elderly robots of Mars.
Spirit is forced to drive backwards after one of its wheels jammed in 2006, and Opportunity has reduced movement in its robotic arm after an electrical wire broke.
(But, hey, if I lived twenty times longer than expected—1,500 years instead of 75 years (in human-years), I guess I’d have a few things that didn’t work so good.)
Opportunity is next tasked to explore
The Endeavor crater, which will be the largest crater it has yet to explore. It is about 20 kilometers 13.7 miles) in diameter and hundreds of meters deep. With only a travel distance of about 100 yards per day, Opportunity still has a way to go.
The New York Times says the borough of Manhatten would fit inside of it. Manhatten has baout 1.6 million people living within it. ["
Mars Rover Heads to a New Crater"]
Squyres states,
“We'll have to double the odometer reading on a five year old vehicle to get there. And it will take at least two years to reach it.... It'll be a long march across the plains, but it will be well worth it. The deeper the crater the older the history of Mars we can look at."
Page three concludes with additional websites and more comments from another MER team member.
