Oppurtinity blows me away, what a bargan

[Lemon law]

Seven years after landing on Mars in 2004, is still alive and working, and now has driven 13 miles to a rim of a crater, where it will explore older martian rocks than previously seen.

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-rover-reaches-rim-big-martian-crater-162132203.html

Maybe the biggest bargain in other planetary exploration, the little engine that could. Maybe RIP to its now dead companion, but it was no slouch either. Congrats to the design team of both, they super exceeded design specifications.

Maybe there is hope for the human race after all.

 

[wuliheron]

Nah, the pioneer and voyager missions still beat the pants off it. They overbuilt everything back then. Still, its nice to know sometimes the newer disposable stuff takes a licking and keeps on ticking.

 

[SilthDraeth]

I think it is quite fascinating.

 

[DesiPower]

Its a great achievement! awesome, but 13 miles in 3 years?? why???

Curiosity, powered by a radioisotope instead of sunlight, is expected to land on Mars in August 2012

Are we polluting the planet even before we can get there...

 

[jackofalltrades]

I can't understand why make something only able to work about a year or 2? that was the original life span why not design it to last like 10 years? able to recharge more efficiently? oh yeah then Nasa wouldn't make as many probes.

 

[DesiPower]

It's not that, they made it as best as they could, they just expected it to last only 2 years in those harsh conditions.

 

[kevinsbane]

I can't understand why make something only able to work about a year or 2? that was the original life span why not design it to last like 10 years? able to recharge more efficiently? oh yeah then Nasa wouldn't make as many probes.

Designing something to work that long in a hostile environment without direct access has some serious trade-offs in terms of complexity and cost. The biggest issue is not either maintenance or cost or complexity though; the biggest limitation faced by the NASA engineers is mass. The rocket can only carry so much. The mission specs are not determined by the engineers, but by mission planners: you have this much mass budget, and this much volume budget. You must fit instruments x y z into the chassis.

Given these constraints, the engineer has to balance increased reliability, (generally speaking, requires additional volume and/or mass) against a limited mass-budget. Since NASA's goal is not a long lifetime for its instruments, but rather "exploration", then it makes sense to divert some of its mass budget from lifetime -> additional scientific instrumentation. If NASA can fit super-sensitive-sensor-sampler on to their probes, and they have to sacrifice 1 year of lifetime (due to having less mass availabe for reliability), I have no doubt they'd do it (and have done it).

 

[wuliheron]

I can't understand why make something only able to work about a year or 2? that was the original life span why not design it to last like 10 years? able to recharge more efficiently? oh yeah then Nasa wouldn't make as many probes.

When the first satellites went up they built them to last a hundred years. No expense was spared, yet they were lucky if they lasted five years. Eventually the space shuttle discovered it was radical oxygen atoms in orbit eating the damned things alive. Its just not possible to built for problems you aren't even aware exist much less make accurate predictions about how long the thing will last.