Long-lived Mars Rovers to Keep on Roving

An anonymous reader writes with a link to a ComputerWorld article about the ongoing saga of the Martian rovers. They've overcome amazing obstacles and they show no signs of shutting down any time soon. "'After more than three and a half years, Spirit and Opportunity are showing some signs of aging, but they are in good health and capable of conducting great science,' John Callas, rover project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement. Since landing, the rovers have had to surmount a host of technical issues. Just a few weeks after landing, the Spirit rover had an out-of-memory problem that almost ended its mission before it began, but scientists were able to get the rover back into operation. In April 2004, both needed software updates to correct problems and improve their performance."

made in...?

[bwy]

OK.... are we SURE that these things weren't made in Japan?

Cause they're acting more like a Honda than a GM at this point.

Re:made in...?

[sponga]

No if it were made in Japan it would have gone Kamikaze over a cliff a long time ago

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Re:Anyone who gives NASA a bad rap...

[Dunbal]

I see you've never had your scrotum pinched between the wheels of... uhh, never mind... I didn't say that. Nope, neither have I...

Re:Just think..

[Tuoqui]

If its one thing I've learned from Star Trek is to multiply all your time related estimates by a factor of 4. (IE. Under Promise and Over Deliver)

Famous last words.

[Puff of Logic]

They've overcome amazing obstacles and they show no signs of shutting down any time soon.

Oh, nice work! That's a sentence that's all but guaranteed to result in a story next week about both rovers spontaneously combusting! Remember, Zonk, loose lips cause catastrophic technical failures!

sheesh.

I've got the answer

[oskard]

Aliens. Their superior Martian technology is the only reasonable explanation for the rover's continued success.

Hear Hear

[nozzo]

you are so right, these rovers are a testament to the rover team's diligence and sheer hard work. Think about it, they have sent two rovers to another planet which have had quite a few adventures and advanced mankind's understanding of Mars considerably. What have we done at work today? :-) You know what I mean though?

There can be only one reason for their success...

[Tibor the Hun]

This project must have had a hundred million managers and task teams!
Seriously!

Re:Anyone who gives NASA a bad rap...

[DerekLyons]

The thing is that the engineers predicted that they would fail years ago.

That's the fun part of being an engineer - you get booed when things fail short of their predicted lifetime. But when you screw up your predictions the other way and underestimate the lifetime... suddenly, you are a hero. No wonder engineers are inclined to be conservative.
 
 

I'm a bit curious if the rovers are actually doing anything all that useful at the moment... after all, they move at a painfully slow rate, and the landscape isn't all that varied in the areas they're in.

Welcome to the world of real science - where data collection takes years, and data analysis takes decades. It's also a world most activities are painfully slow and/or boring and things don't happen at any great rate, and that simply isn't very exciting.
 
This isn't Mythbusters where everything is dumbed down, sexed up, and edited to a pace suitable for the short attention span of the post-MTV generation.

Re:NASA succeeds or fails...

[EVil Lawyer]

And what else would we want from an AMERICAN space agency? Yeeeeee-haw! [shoots guns in air and rides off into sunset]