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NASA's crippled, blinded Mars rovers in need of repair

Posted Nov 17, 2007 at 05:25AM by David T. Listed in: NASA, Space Exploration, Space Missions Tags: NASA, Opportunity Mars Rover
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The NASA Opportunity Mars rover - Image 1 


Engineers of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have been trying to work out a fix regarding NASA's Opportunity and Spirit Mars rovers, which has been rendered crippled and blind when two of its most important instruments failed.

The main problems with NASA's Opportunity rover lie in the busted encoder of its rock abrasion tool (RAT) and in its miniature spectrometer, which has been blinded by dust. Opportunity's twin, Spirit, hasn't been faring much better with similar problems and an injured front wheel to boot.

The various problems plaguing NASA's Mars rovers, however, come as no surprise: the poor workhorse machines, which were originally designed to last only ninety days, have actually been driving around Mars since January 2004. In spite of everything, NASA remains optimistic about the future of the Opportunity and Spirit rovers and plans to keep their robotic geologists going for more years.

[Via NewScientistSpace] Permalink  |   Email this  |   Linking Blogs   |   Digg It!

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