- @
- Followers:
No Tweets Found
CNN POLITICS ON FACEBOOK » | CNN POLITICS ON TWITTER »
Spirit may be fading on Mars, NASA says
NASA to Mars rover: Phone home or else.
The space agency said it will reach out to contact the Mars rover Spirit a final time Wednesday after a series of unanswered attempts.
NASA speculates that an extreme Martian winter may have frozen the rover’s communication apparatus or weakened its energy level, hindering its ability to communicate.
In a press release Tuesday, NASA said, in essence, what we have here is a failure to communicate.
"We no longer believe there is a realistic probability of hearing from Spirit," Dave Lavery, NASA’s program executive for solar system exploration, said in the release.
Created for a three-month mission, Spirit landed on Mars in January 2004 and exceeded its intended life span by several years, giving scientists an in-depth look at the surface conditions of the red planet.
But there have been obstacles - namely massive dust storms, paralyzing sandboxes and plain ol' feisty weather that has challenged the rover's functionality.
Over most of the past seven years though, despite various violent conditions, Spirit has always managed to re-establish connection.
Not this time.
The last transmission received by the rover was March 22, 2010, NASA said.
The rover program will now focus its energies on Spirit’s twin rover, Opportunity, which landed 21 days after Spirit. Also, NASA is prepping the November launch of Curiosity, a bigger, more-tricked out rover (six 20-inch wheels?) slated to arrive on Mars in mid-2012.
As for Spirit, NASA said any communication from the rover will basically be relegated to voice mail.
“The Deep Space Network may occasionally listen for any faint signals when the schedule permits," Lavery is quoted in the release.
On Twitter
On Twitter
@cnnbrk on Twitter
When I see rovers falling to and fro,
I like to think some boy's been kicking them.
Al Gore says that the extreme martian winter is the result of global warming.
There is no life on Mars.... wonder why? Climate may not be good for life? You make a dumb point.
OMG YOU'RE THE BEST LULZ.
Derp.
SgtSerge,
You win 9 internets for this.
Actually, Mars has been heating up in recent years. There is an unexplained buildup in methane in the martian air that is not the result of geological processes like volcanic eruptions. One theory is bacteria on Mars are producing the methane.
Good attempt at a joke about global warming. Too bad it is actually happening there. Ya know, Mars heating up in a lower solar activity cycle, possibly due to microbial life.
@ SCIENCE
Alien farts?! BRILLIANT!
Originally intended for 3 months. Has been working for over 7 years.
And they say the American worker doesn't get enough vacation 😉
+8 clever points for Bob.
Sometimes you buy a car and it turns out to last many years beyond what you ever expected. By any stretch, NASA got its moneys worth with both Mars Rovers. Beyond their wildest dreams. They still have one going. Utterly amazing!
But don't count Spirit out entirely. You never know when a freak dust storm will clear out its solar panels and re-establish power.
It appears global warming should be renamed solar system warming since the extreme weather is happening on Mars too. Oh, dear.
There is also no life on Mars.... hummmm.
I had asked Steve Squyres at the rover team to engage the rover ( before it got stuck) .....to create a work of art .......a very simple wiggle line representing an egg being fertilzed......life on mars...... mankind going from cave walls to the surface of another planet...... but I was told that the rovers were for science and that there was no room for art. This was dissapointing to me because I always thought the the best science was done by people who thought outside the box..... like artists.
I'm an artist and that's just a ridiculous comment. I'm glad they didn't entertain that idea.
Your idea is not practical. While I agree, art and science should both be considered equally important, this is not the time or the place to be creating art. The rover was built to discover and explore, not to be a $820 million paint brush.
Built in America.....not China. That's why it lasted 28 times longer than expected.
I would still like to see a simple wiggle line created on the surface of mars or the moon some time in the future. I believe that we need to expand science to include the arts. Some of the best leaps in science have been made by people who look at the world in different ways, by people who challenge the current thinking of science.
The rover team had been blessed with rovers that far exceeded their expected time and yet they still could not even entertain the idea that perhaps the creation of a very simple art design might inspire and touch peoples hearts back on earth, All they could see was rocks.
I hope future teams of scientists take a much broader, more creative approach and consider my idea.
Ok, you've said this twice, that doesn't mean it's any closer to making any sense at all. You do realize that there is extreme winds and dust storms on Mars, correct? Your dumb little wiggle line would probably last about as long as if you made a wiggle line on the beach here on earth. If your motive is possibly to leave something behind for others (other than us) in the future to possibly see, do you think they'd be interested in a few Rovers, or a stupid wiggle line? I think in this case, science can represent art. Be happy with the tire tracks they leave in the dirt, I'm sure they zig-zagged somewhere on that planet.
At this moment, on Mars, within Area 510000, some Martian engineer is dissecting the rover.
Landed January 2004, last communication was March 2010. That would be closer to 6 years, not over 7. Still, Impressive for the rover, not so much for the writer of the article.
It was reported that (D) Shela Jackson Lee just asked if NASA would be sending someone up to fix it!
A year on Mars is different than a year on Earth. HA, ROVERMAN RULES!!!!!!
Don't you realize that somebody on Mars is repairing them?
Sigh... If only Congress was as RELIABLE and HARD WORKING as Rover. 🙁
Sorry–I'd missed the post that got there first.
Rover rapture
I have photographic proof there is life on Mars to those interested. I also can verify that global warming caused this life to not be as noticable as well as it has a direct result on our gas prices.