Bye-Bye Roving Spirit of Mars!

[3113]

It was supposed to roam the surface of Mars for only three months and cover a distance of just a few hundred yards. Instead, NASA's Spirit rover traveled nearly five miles over five years, finding geological evidence that the Red Planet had once been warm and wet enough to have harbored life. Even after it got hopelessly stuck in the powdery soil of Gusev crater, the rover continued to make discoveries and beamed them to scientists millions of miles away.

But engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge sent their final commands to Spirit early Wednesday morning, more than a year after the rover made its last transmission to Earth.

Full story here. http://bestsmileys.com/crying/8.gif

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2011-05/61889070.jpg

 

[voluptuary_manque]

If a machine can acquire a soul, Spirit did. RIP, lil' buddy.

 

[stephen55]

It's always a lift to the human spirit when a gadget performs above and beyond the call. In the case of Spirit, the rover performed so much above and beyond it's expectations that it took on a life of it's own.


http://dancoano.com/mars-photos/Mars_Rover.jpg

If NASA ever sends a manned mission to Mars, I hope they don't bring Spirit back to Earth and put it in some museum. Home for Spirit is Mars.

 

[Handley_Page]

Think of Voyager 2; still (just) working 40 years later.