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Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Rovers Update: A-OK
It seems things worked out over the weekend for the rovers. Yay! Though from the sound of this article I'd say they aren't out of the woods yet, but at least they're seeing the light of day! Literally.
Mars rovers are staying alive despite storms - "As weather improves so does NASA's outlook on their survival"
Excerpts of this article:
Steve Squyres of Cornell University, the lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Rovers project, said that both Spirit and Opportunity are in "excellent shape" based on a radio transmission received this morning.
The amount of sunlight penetrating the dust-choked Martian atmosphere has increased slightly in recent days, and the batteries of both rovers are fully charged, said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Explorations Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Even though the rovers were not designed to weather dust storms of this magnitude, Meyers said mission scientists and engineers are optimistic the rovers will survive the dust storms, which have been raging for nearly a month now. All scientific observations and driving ... remain suspended, for now, to conserve power.
Mission scientists will "wait and make sure that the storm doesn't kick back up," Meyers said. "They're going to wait it out a few more days to make sure."
"Right now, we're just keeping both vehicles safe, and we've been very successful with that so far," Squyres said. "We'll just wait and see what Mars does."
Labels: Space
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