Astro-images of the day: Mars Rovers' missions extended

[mckitterick]

On October 15, NASA announced that they would once again extend the mission of the "Long-Lived Mars Rovers." Spiritrover and Opportunitygirl have gone above and beyond the call of duty; their original missions were planned to last 90 days... that was back in 2004. Now NASA plans to keep the little rovers busy through at least 2009.

Here's Opportunitygirl now, inside Victoria Crater on Mars (yes, Mars! Mars, people! How cool is that?):

Click the image to see the story.

And here's a map of Spiritrover's travels across the surface of Mars:

Click the image to see the story. Click here to see a giant version of the journey panorama.

I love our little rovers. It was so cool to listen to Donna Shirley present about the Rover program at the special 2004 Campbell Conference - she used to manage the NASA Mars Exploration Program. Incidentally, the Center is now working on (finally!) getting our original Conference recordings from the last several years back from the KU Theater & Film people, and we intend to release new DVDs with the proceedings of the 2004 Conference as well as new DVDs extending the interview series that James Gunn started in the early 1970s.

Best,
Chris

Comments

[stevenagy.livejournal.com]

The rovers are cool, but they should only be the first step. I think that second image, more than anything, illustrates how much a manned mission is a necessary component for exploration.

While the rover's long life and accomplishments are remarkable, I can't help but think how much more distance a human being could have covered and how much more we could have seen. The rover approach seems like a micro view.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Oh, most certainly humans could and will do more. I see the rovers as great promoters of space exploration, creating an environment in which people want to learn more about, say, Mars, supporting further exploration - including humans on other worlds.

[stevenagy.livejournal.com]

Exactly!

[fortyozspartan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, for those interested and too lazy to click the links the odometers for the lil guys are:

Spirit-4.5 miles
Opportunity-7.4 miles

Should help give some scale on the 2nd photo which I was curious about.