it’s morning on Mars the Sun is 140
million miles away but strong enough to
send current flowing through the solar
panels of the rover called opportunity
waking it up for another day of work at
the same moment the Sun is setting on
the other side of the planet and the
rover spirit is shutting down for
another long cold night the two
explorers have been on Mars for almost
five years spirit landed three weeks
ahead of opportunity in Gusev crater a
hundred mile diameter basin the
scientists believe once held a Martian
lake but on the ground spirit finds no
evidence of water history every Rock
appears to be volcanic lava I wouldn’t
have wanted to admit it at the time but
the spirit landing site initially was a
crushing disappointment if the evidence
they’re looking for has been buried they
might find it exposed in the walls of
Bonneville crater some four hundred
yards from the landing site
but when spirit finally pulls up to the
rim two months after landing there’s
nothing inside but more lava we hoped
for something a little more spectacular
than this I’m gonna be surprised if we
decided to drive down into the crater we
might but I don’t know spirit was just
seeing nothing but lava as far as the
eye could see and the spirit team got a
little disheartened after a while even
so many on spirits team embraced the
role of the underdog people just got
emotionally attached to their Rover you
know I tell him will you switch to
opportunity and he’s to say no no I’m
not gonna because they had gotten their
heart set on spirit succeeding
opportunity was certainly the lucky
Rover but for me I worked on spirit and
spirit is my favorite Rover because
spirit had to work for everything she
ever got in her life the best chance for
spirit to salvage its mission now is a
mile and a half away in the Columbia
Hills a two-month journey four times
farther than the rover was ever expected
to drive Squyres thinks it’s the best
option
but the engineers are dubious I remember
he said that this is where we’re going
maybe gonna drive up in those hills
this is gonna be lot more than 90 days
good luck
we probably gonna die on the way there
he said no we’re gonna go that’s okay
you’re driving you’ve got the keys
good luck after an 8-week mile and a
half track through a desert of broken
lava spirit finally reaches the Columbia
Hills
evidence of water maybe on the upper
slopes the summit is just 300 feet above
the crater floor but it’s a monumental
challenge for this Rover
she’s already driven three times as far
as she’s supposed to be able to drive
and live twice as long as she was
supposed to live
if you imagine you’ve driven your car
300 thousand miles without taking it to
a gas station and now you’ve got to
climb Mount Everest with it but most
ominous is the approach of the first
Martian winter which no one expects the
rover’s to survive its seasons were
changing spirit is in the southern
hemisphere of Mars and what that means
is in the winter the Sun is going to go
lower in the northern sky and it’s going
to get lower and lower and lower and as
it gets lower the amount of power that
we’re gonna get from solar arrays is
going to get less and less and less
unless we can do something they could
solve the problem and possibly survive
the winter by tilting the solar panels
toward the Sun to get more power
well we didn’t build a tilt mechanism
into the rover the only way to tilt them
towards the Sun is to tilt the whole
Rover towards the Sun but the beauty of
it was now we had a hill if they can
find a route that keeps the solar panels
tilted toward the Sun spirit might be
able to survive the winter and climb the
mountain at the same time
million miles away but strong enough to
send current flowing through the solar
panels of the rover called opportunity
waking it up for another day of work at
the same moment the Sun is setting on
the other side of the planet and the
rover spirit is shutting down for
another long cold night the two
explorers have been on Mars for almost
five years spirit landed three weeks
ahead of opportunity in Gusev crater a
hundred mile diameter basin the
scientists believe once held a Martian
lake but on the ground spirit finds no
evidence of water history every Rock
appears to be volcanic lava I wouldn’t
have wanted to admit it at the time but
the spirit landing site initially was a
crushing disappointment if the evidence
they’re looking for has been buried they
might find it exposed in the walls of
Bonneville crater some four hundred
yards from the landing site
but when spirit finally pulls up to the
rim two months after landing there’s
nothing inside but more lava we hoped
for something a little more spectacular
than this I’m gonna be surprised if we
decided to drive down into the crater we
might but I don’t know spirit was just
seeing nothing but lava as far as the
eye could see and the spirit team got a
little disheartened after a while even
so many on spirits team embraced the
role of the underdog people just got
emotionally attached to their Rover you
know I tell him will you switch to
opportunity and he’s to say no no I’m
not gonna because they had gotten their
heart set on spirit succeeding
opportunity was certainly the lucky
Rover but for me I worked on spirit and
spirit is my favorite Rover because
spirit had to work for everything she
ever got in her life the best chance for
spirit to salvage its mission now is a
mile and a half away in the Columbia
Hills a two-month journey four times
farther than the rover was ever expected
to drive Squyres thinks it’s the best
option
but the engineers are dubious I remember
he said that this is where we’re going
maybe gonna drive up in those hills
this is gonna be lot more than 90 days
good luck
we probably gonna die on the way there
he said no we’re gonna go that’s okay
you’re driving you’ve got the keys
good luck after an 8-week mile and a
half track through a desert of broken
lava spirit finally reaches the Columbia
Hills
evidence of water maybe on the upper
slopes the summit is just 300 feet above
the crater floor but it’s a monumental
challenge for this Rover
she’s already driven three times as far
as she’s supposed to be able to drive
and live twice as long as she was
supposed to live
if you imagine you’ve driven your car
300 thousand miles without taking it to
a gas station and now you’ve got to
climb Mount Everest with it but most
ominous is the approach of the first
Martian winter which no one expects the
rover’s to survive its seasons were
changing spirit is in the southern
hemisphere of Mars and what that means
is in the winter the Sun is going to go
lower in the northern sky and it’s going
to get lower and lower and lower and as
it gets lower the amount of power that
we’re gonna get from solar arrays is
going to get less and less and less
unless we can do something they could
solve the problem and possibly survive
the winter by tilting the solar panels
toward the Sun to get more power
well we didn’t build a tilt mechanism
into the rover the only way to tilt them
towards the Sun is to tilt the whole
Rover towards the Sun but the beauty of
it was now we had a hill if they can
find a route that keeps the solar panels
tilted toward the Sun spirit might be
able to survive the winter and climb the
mountain at the same time
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