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I can't believe this thing lives out there. I had to spray a single mote of house dust out of my Neato vacuum's laser range finder the other day. It was causing

I can't believe this thing lives out there. I had to spray a single mote of house dust out of my Neato vacuum's laser range finder the other day. It was causing my vacuum an existential crisis. Yet this rover is out there in robot hell for years, and is just going and going. All I'm saying is the engineer who designed the dust gaskets on those motors should win a medal. A big shiny gold medal.

foxylad 11y ago
Yes... and then you've got Opportunity still doing valuable science 48 times longer than the three months it was designed for. Gold medals aren't enough - there should be a Nobel prize for engineering for the design team. The operations team is just as smart. They're using tricks like driving it up north-facing slopes in winter to keep the solar panels illuminated by the lower sun, allowing them to continue high-power work (grinding etc.) year-round. All in all, a great testament to human ingenuity.
- rtkwe 11y ago
  Three months wasn't it's designed lifetime it was just the original mission span and funding. Calling that the time it was 'designed for' is disingenuous. Curiosity has a harder deadline on it's life than Opportunity though, the RTG will eventually not produce enough power to keep the rover warm and moving and will degrade the same no matter how the rover is used.
  - foota 11y ago
    This made me wonder why Opportunity doesn't have the same problem (answer: it uses solar panels), after a couple of clicks on wikipedia I found this awesome visualization of Huygen landing on Titan! https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Huygens_descent.ogg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Huygens_descent.ogg
    - PhasmaFelis 11y ago
      That's an unsung triumph of data presentation. I've watched it a couple of times, and it's amazing how much information it presents clearly and at the same time. My favorite thing is how it uses multiple sound channels to allow a knowledgeable listener to monitor multiple telemetry streams at once by sound alone. I also love that space computers are finally beeping like sci-fi always said they should. :D
    - rtkwe 11y ago
      Oh, yeah, I probably should have mentioned that it was because of the solar panels. I've never seen that visualization. That's so much data but still really easy to figure it out and track, thanks!
- Outdoorsman 11y ago
  Agreed...this is at the very cusp of what we are currently capable of, and well beyond expectations for the mission, in terms of equipment and systems durability... Previous accomplishments of "flying" spacecraft close to a planet to take fly-by pictures pales in comparison...though it richly deserves recognition... State of the art...landing and maintaining control of a "man-made" vehicle on a planet in our solar system, well beyond it's anticipated mechanical limits... Bravo!...

foxylad 11y ago

Yes... and then you've got Opportunity still doing valuable science 48 times longer than the three months it was designed for. Gold medals aren't enough - there should be a Nobel prize for engineering for the design team. The operations team is just as smart. They're using tricks like driving it up north-facing slopes in winter to keep the solar panels illuminated by the lower sun, allowing them to continue high-power work (grinding etc.) year-round. All in all, a great testament to human ingenuity.

rtkwe 11y ago
Three months wasn't it's designed lifetime it was just the original mission span and funding. Calling that the time it was 'designed for' is disingenuous. Curiosity has a harder deadline on it's life than Opportunity though, the RTG will eventually not produce enough power to keep the rover warm and moving and will degrade the same no matter how the rover is used.
- foota 11y ago
  This made me wonder why Opportunity doesn't have the same problem (answer: it uses solar panels), after a couple of clicks on wikipedia I found this awesome visualization of Huygen landing on Titan! https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Huygens_descent.ogg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Huygens_descent.ogg
  - PhasmaFelis 11y ago
    That's an unsung triumph of data presentation. I've watched it a couple of times, and it's amazing how much information it presents clearly and at the same time. My favorite thing is how it uses multiple sound channels to allow a knowledgeable listener to monitor multiple telemetry streams at once by sound alone. I also love that space computers are finally beeping like sci-fi always said they should. :D
  - rtkwe 11y ago
    Oh, yeah, I probably should have mentioned that it was because of the solar panels. I've never seen that visualization. That's so much data but still really easy to figure it out and track, thanks!
Outdoorsman 11y ago
Agreed...this is at the very cusp of what we are currently capable of, and well beyond expectations for the mission, in terms of equipment and systems durability... Previous accomplishments of "flying" spacecraft close to a planet to take fly-by pictures pales in comparison...though it richly deserves recognition... State of the art...landing and maintaining control of a "man-made" vehicle on a planet in our solar system, well beyond it's anticipated mechanical limits... Bravo!...