NASA's Mars rover, Opportunity, has been driving over Mars since 2004. In that time, it has now driven over 40 kilometres, making it the longest distance travelled off-Earth. The previous record was held by the Russian Lunokhod 2 rover, which drove 39 kilometres on the moon in 1973.
"Opportunity has driven farther than any other wheeled vehicle on another world," said Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager John Callas, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "This is so remarkable considering Opportunity was intended to drive about one kilometer and was never designed for distance. But what is really important is not how many miles the rover has racked up, but how much exploration and discovery we have accomplished over that distance."
A drive of 157 feet (48 meters) on July 27 put Opportunity's total odometry at 25.01 miles (40.25 kilometers). This month's driving brought the rover southward along the western rim of Endeavour Crater. The rover had driven more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) before arriving at Endeavour Crater in 2011, where it has examined outcrops on the crater's rim containing clay and sulfate-bearing minerals. The sites are yielding evidence of ancient environments with less acidic water than those examined at Opportunity's landing site.
If the rover can continue to operate the distance of a marathon — 26.2 miles (about 42.2 kilometers) — it will approach the next major investigation site mission scientists have dubbed "Marathon Valley." Observations from spacecraft orbiting Mars suggest several clay minerals are exposed close together at this valley site, surrounded by steep slopes where the relationships among different layers may be evident.
What projects have you worked on that have greatly exceeded their design specifications? Alternatively, what products have you purchased that have far exceeded your expectations?
(Score: 3, Informative) by mcgrew on Tuesday July 29 2014, @04:42PM
Poor communication there, the longest distance traveled on the surface of another planet. Voyager holds the real record, it's farther away than any other man-made object.
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(Score: 3, Funny) by Horse With Stripes on Tuesday July 29 2014, @04:48PM
Let Voyager defend itself ... if it can get this news and submit a rebuttal before the end of the year ;-)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday July 29 2014, @04:53PM
"What projects have you worked on that have greatly exceeded their design specifications?"
"Oh that data importer? Who cares about doing it the right way, just slap together a bunch of Perl regex to clean up the data, and call it good, we're only going to use it for a couple months anyway" "yeah OK boss" (... 15 years later ...)
And this other example sounds generic, because it is, but I've got this simple data entry CRUD app for scientific / engineering data that started life with about 5 simple fields and now has more blanks than an IRS full 1040 forum (unfortunately not exaggerating) and includes javascript regex client side validation of scientific notation (how many Fing ways can you enter that sh!t anyway, and if someone tries to use an accented or umlaut "e" and files a bug I swear I'm taking my red stapler and ....) What a load of ...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Adamsjas on Tuesday July 29 2014, @05:24PM
An absolutely amazing engineering feat. It was supposed to last 90 days.
The biggest oversight in the design seems to have been not including a 99 cent whisk broom to sweep the solar panels.
I have this small solar powered Casio scientific calculator that I paid $19 for about a year before these rovers were launched. I used it just about every working day of my career. Other than that and my forms design ruler from my mainframe days, I have virtually nothing in my office that lasted that long.
(Score: 2) by mrider on Tuesday July 29 2014, @05:58PM
No kidding. When given a chance to actually do cool stuff, NASA can produce astounding results. Sadly, all too frequently their hands are tied by their political overlords.
Doctor: "Do you hear voices?"
Me: "Only when my bluetooth is charged."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday July 29 2014, @06:40PM
That's probably closer to at least a $25,000 whisk broom: About $20,000 to get it into space, and $5,000 to make damn sure it a resilient-enough whisk broom that it can withstand the trip to Mars.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by geb on Tuesday July 29 2014, @09:07PM
It might cost a lot more than that if you want to rely on the broom working as intended. Mars dust isn't like Earth dust, because there's no moisture in the air to bind grains together. They just keep blowing about, eroding, and being ground finer and finer. Testing a brush would mean replicating those conditions, which would cost a fair sum too.
Last I heard, the favoured method for cleaning solar panels reliably was to squirt pressurised gas at them.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Tuesday July 29 2014, @09:46PM
That's not an oversight since the broom hasn't been needed so far. Sure, it'd be a little more capable now, but there's not that much value to extending the life of this mission.
What I consider the true oversight, though not one of design, is only making two of these vehicles.
(Score: 1) by Adamsjas on Wednesday July 30 2014, @06:19PM
It has indeed been needed. Many months were wasted because low sun angle (which was planned for) combined with excessive dust build up (which was not planned for) reduced the amount of work the rover could do, and at times there was serious worry that the batteries wouldn't even make it through the martian winter doing nothing more than an occasional radio check in.
Getting lucky with a random wind storm to clear the solar array could not have been in the plan.
Here is a link to the most recent report of this, but its not the first time this has happened.
http://www.universetoday.com/110800/opportunity-rover-gets-power-boost-from-wind-event-on-mars/ [universetoday.com]
(Score: 2) by khallow on Thursday July 31 2014, @12:49AM
"Many months" of many more months. And the dust build up was not only planned for, but less severe than expected due to the wind you mentioned (such as from dust devils) sweeping dust off of the solar panels periodically. Recall that the two missions were planned to last 90 days. Your broom would not have helped that part of the mission. And there are a number of tradeoffs you are ignoring, such as adding mass and complexity to the mission, another draw on limited power reserves, and another thing which can break or damage other parts of the vehicle - possibly even end the mission with a spectacular enough failure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29 2014, @10:13PM
Is that really what you took away from this article? I heard: Political wrangling and financial greed have left America 40 years behind the then Soviet bloc, in the space race; What's the worst case of decision making ineptitude that you have seen in your workplace?
(Score: 1) by morpheus on Tuesday July 29 2014, @11:51PM
I do not think this is a fair assessment. Lunokhod program was impressive for its time and political wrangling has sure left the US behind where it could have been otherwise but definitely not behind the Soviet space program of the 70s. For once, Mars is not the Moon, and the US has several functioning vehicles on Mars as well as an orbiter around it. This in itself is quite remarkable.
On a separate note, my engineering friends would take a very different view on this feat. It is a feat of human and scientific achievement, although an engineering feat it is not. One of them is fond of saying: `Anybody can make things work, only a good engineer can make things work as specified cheaply'. From their point of view (and I have to hear it every time we go to conferences together), anything that `exceeds expectations' is simply overengineered. Not to take anything away from the work of the people at JPL. Great job!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 30 2014, @12:29AM
Mars has never been the Moon; even in the Futurama universe, its only a moon of Earth, but not the Moon.
(Score: 1) by EETech1 on Wednesday July 30 2014, @03:25AM
Once we had a new engine to show-and-blow for the big wigs. I didn't want to make a new dashboard, so I made a little widget to allow the data bus(s) on the new engine to drive the old resistive style analog gauges instead of replacing them with the newer style stepper motor gauges it was supposed to use.
Once everyone realized it was possible, and saw that I already had a PCB made, it was put into production as-is. 10+ years, and over 500,000 units later, it's still going strong!
(Score: 1) by Valkor on Wednesday July 30 2014, @04:46AM
That is absolutely terrifying. Good job!