Spirit and Opportunity

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It will be 6 years on January 4th when the first rover landed on Mars followed by the second on the 25th of January. Spirt and Opportunity were originally slated for a 90 day operation each. I cannot believe and I am certain that all the engineers that worked on the original design probably cannot believe that these land rovers are still in operation after all these years. How does a remote vehicle designed for a maximum 90 day operation running on a temporary battery and solar panels still operate after all these years? Spirit has travelled 7.7 Kilometers and Opportunity has travelled 18.9 Kilometers. This does not seem like a long distance in almost 6 years but I can just imagine how much science has been completed within this short distance travelled. It was less than 2 months after the first landing that one of the rovers discovered that water was present on Mars at one point. After almost 6 years there has not been any evidence found of previously living organisms as far as I know though. Even so, it is still exciting to know that these man made remote vehicles are still roaming around on this remote planet that is millions of kilometers away. Apparently the shortest distance we have seen mars to earth was in 2003 which was about 55 million kilometers away. The actual distance varies depending on the date and the furthest distance has been calculated as being around 401 kilometers away. I can still remember some of the first images I saw when the rovers made their first movements off the lander platform. I was so excited that we finally had a roving vehicle on Mars to take soil and air samples. The main purpose was to find out if water ever existed on Mars and it seems like NASA has at least actually accomplished this. With the United States cutting back on Mars related projects at this time, it will be some time before we see any new large scale operations but it will not be the end. I have not understood exactly why we truly need to be spending billions of dollars to send unmanned crafts to Mars but the reasons must be more than just couriousity. I hope on January 4th, 2010, which will be the 6th anniversary of the first rover landing that NASA will do some major public announcements and showcase some if its recent discoveries to the world. I am truly looking forward to hearing more about the latest discoveries beyond what has been mentioned on the NASA website. If you have never been to the Mars rover website, you have to checkout some of the recent updates. https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/

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