Dave's other cars keep going

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by JohnBoucher

... How is NASA dealing with having a program that lasted so long beyond estimates? There are budget, personnel and logistical issues to deal with. How do you deal with, what is now, an open ended program?

I have no idea how the budget/planning process works at NASA. Where I work, an up-front investment that lasted 10 times as long as planned and allowed us to continue making a product for which there was continuing demand -- well, we'd call that a good problem to have.

[JohnBoucher]

Originally Posted by Richard

I have no idea how the budget/planning process works at NASA. Where I work, an up-front investment that lasted 10 times as long as planned and allowed us to continue making a product for which there was continuing demand -- well, we'd call that a good problem to have.

My company also. Budgets are profit based. If the product still sells, then it sustains itself.

The "Profit" on this project is tremendous. What they get out of it is priceless, but this is a government budget we are talking about. It's not like they can print money

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Originally Posted by dlavery

At this point, we don't even try to guess any more. The device has lasted way beyond the original warranty period. Realistically, given the mechanical wear rates that we have seen it could continue on for a very, very long time. Conversely, a critical part could fail tomorrow that would mean the end of the mission. The rover is so far beyond the original expected design that we just don't have any real data upon which to base any lifetime estimates. So we are just taking it one day at a time.

-dave

So did NASA initially design the rover to take an enormous beating from Mars's natural atmosphere (for lack of not knowing a better word) but that hasn't happened? And are you collecting different kinds of data now that you didn't initially intend on collecting when the mission was originally launched?

[Schnabel]

Just wondering, will Mars ever get too far away that the rover won't be able to send anything back to Earth?

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Richard

It is a great privilege for all of us in FIRST to hear and read the Mars exploration story told by someone who has a direct role in its planning and execution. It is inspiration, pure and uncut, straight from the source.

How very true.

Thanks, Dave.

Don

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Schnabel

Just wondering, will Mars ever get too far away that the rover won't be able to send anything back to Earth?

No. In fact, Mars is almost at its greatest possible distance from Earth right now, about 390 million kilometers as of today. We don't have any significant new problems communicating with the rover vs. what we were able to do when they landed. But we will briefly lose all communications with the rovers when Earth and Mars are in conjunction (on opposite sides of the Sun) during the period from October 18 to October 26. During this time, the rovers will be hibernating and just waiting for Earth to reappear on the other side of the Sun (when viewed from Mars) so they can re-establish communications and continue their exploration efforts. Note that this is the second time that the rovers will go through a communications blackout due to a solar conjunction. We went through this before back in September 2004. The rovers calmly waited through the blackout period with no problems, and readily re-established communications when the conjunction ended.

-dave

(for a cool Earth-Mars orbital simulation, see the UCAR Mars orbit web site)

.

[Schnabel]

Originally Posted by dlavery

(for a cool Earth-Mars orbital simulation, see the UCAR Mars orbit web site)

I checked that animation out and that is really cool! I wasn't paying attention to the year and all ready it was 2018 before I stoped!

[ChuckDickerson]

The current story on CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/0...ity/index.html) indicates that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will be in position in to take "High Resolution" imagery of Victoria Crater soon. Will the resolution be high enough to actually see Opportunity parked on the rim of the crater? That would be a really cool photo to see!