'Opportunity' Celebrates 10 Year Anniversary Roving Mars 51
An anonymous reader writes "Ten years ago today, six and half months after launch, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's six-wheeled, solar-powered Opportunity rover landed on the surface of Mars, tumbling into a previously unknown feature now referred to as the 'Eagle Crater'. Opportunity and its twin Rover Spirit, which had arrived three weeks earlier, proceeded to crawl over and through plains, craters, and sand dunes, collecting and analyzing soil and rock samples, and taking panoramic photos of their surroundings, blowing orders of magnitude past the original projected 90 day mission timeframe. Spirit's mission drew to a close after it became irretrievably bogged down in soft soil in 2009; scientists lost contact with the rover in early 2010. Meanwhile, Opportunity is still going strong, with scientists announcing new evidence this past week of an ancient mild watery environment conducive to microbial life. Several web sites have mined the NASA archives to assemble tributes commemorating 10 years of work from Opportunity: Time, space.com, Information Week/Techweb. There's also a bricks-and-mortar tribute; the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC has just opened an exhibit featuring photos sent by the two rovers."
To Those Who Say ... (Score:1)
To those who say some variation of "American can't build them like they used to", I say "top that!"
10 years of service when built to last 90 days. E.nough.said
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I know that's right. I bought some of that cheap shit too. Now I spend more money and buy stuff that will hold up.
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As a non-USAian even I have to say STFU.
Could they have done it for less 10 years ago? Highly unlikely. The USA still leads the world in certain fields and this is one of them.
China may be landing rovers on the Moon and more power to them but Opportunity and Curiosity for the win!
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That's called "well-managed expectations."
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That's called an amazing job. Show me any other nation on this planet that could do that. 10 YEARS working in an incredibly hostile environment w/o an chance of a repair. No one would claim that up front because no one would possibly believe it.
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Thank you, Martian winds. I always like extra bonus science.
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10 years of service when built to last 90 days.
Thank the Martian winds. The wind blows the dust off of the rovers solar collectors, that wasn't expected.
It could do with another scrub though... them Martian dust devils are getting lazy!! [wikimedia.org]. I'm amazed any solar energy actually gets through all that stuff.
[raises glass to the continued awesomeness of Opportunity rover]
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Also, something something profit motive government can never do anything right.
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To those who say some variation of "American can't build them like they used to", I say "top that!"
10 years of service when built to last 90 days. E.nough.said
Well, We'll see how long Curiosity lasts.
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To those who say some variation of "American can't build them like they used to", I say "top that!"
But that was more than 10 years ago. They don't build 'em like that any more.
Super-Ob xkcd. [xkcd.com]
10 Year Anniversary (Score:2)
I've noticed that "everybody" says it this way nowadays. Why don't people just say "tenth anniversary" anymore?
Re:10 Year Anniversary (Score:5, Interesting)
Why don't people just say "tenth anniversary" anymore?
Probably because people forgot - or never learned - that the word "anniversary" contains the root "annus", meaning year. Thus, the word has become so degraded that people celebrate things like their "two month anniversary since when we first started dating". Therefore it has become necessary these days to specify how long is each "anniversary".
It drives me nuts too, but you know that if you confront people about it they will just say, "language evolves."
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It drives me nuts too, but you know that if you confront people about it they will just say, "language evolves."
And much like evolution there's no direction towards a "higher" lifeform, there's just selection pressure. For example, they say the inuits have so many words for snow. Well, perhaps other people who rarely see snow don't need half a dictionary of snow forms. Maybe they want to use adjectives like dry snow, wet snow, light snow, heavy snow, powdery snow since the words dry, wet, light, heavy, powdery can be reused in other contexts. Short words (piracy) tends to win over long words (copyright infringement)
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However their language allows to combine words into a new noun, examples in English would probably work like this:
"snow on ground" -> "groundsnow"
"falling snow" -> "fallsnow"
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And much like evolution there's no direction towards a "higher" lifeform, there's just selection pressure. For example, they say the inuits have so many words for snow.
And "they" are wrong [wikipedia.org], it turns out. But on another note, I do agree that, of course, language evolves. What's wrong today becomes accepted usage tomorrow. It's perhaps unfortunate because it muddies the origins of our language, but it's also inevitable. Interestingly, there have been attempts to go the other way and bring back the older usages. For example, the modern Greek Katharevousa [wikipedia.org], "purist", dialect. Which is a marriage of ancient and modern Greek that was invented about 200 years ago and persisted u
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It's because a 10th anniversary occurs after the passage of 11 years. The first happened at the end of year one. This is the start of the 10th year for Opportunity, its 9th anniversary and 10th year anniversary.
Re:10 Year Anniversary (Score:4, Informative)
It's because a 10th anniversary occurs after the passage of 11 years.
Maybe in Bizarro World...
The first happened at the end of year one.
Yes, after one year had passed. See how all the numbers are the same?
1st anniversary, end of year one, one year has passed.
10th anniversary, end of year ten, ten years have passed.
This is the start of the 10th year for Opportunity
The start of the first year of Opporunity's Mars journey occurred in January 2004. We're now in January 2014. This is the start of its 1st+10=11th year.
its 9th anniversary and 10th year anniversary.
I think the fourth character of your username needs to be moved back a couple of places.
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Ten years ago today means end of ten years and start of the year eleven.
I.e tenth anniversary.
And the original point is valid - using anniversary for things other than turnings of whole years diminishes the significance and meaning of 'anniversary'.
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using anniversary for things other than turnings of whole years diminishes the significance and meaning of 'anniversary'.
I can't think of anyone who wouldn't know exactly what was meant if one said "tenth anniversary." And by co-opting the word - the root of which isn't English, and of which most English speakers are probably unaware in day-to-day conversation - we've now got a quick convenient way of expressing a wider range of passages of time than just years.
It's not like we're losing anything or introducing any real ambiguity, as is the case with "literally" and "begging the question."
If anything, it's a measure of Englis
When will it get to the Face on Mars? (Score:1, Funny)
Does anybody know when it will get to the Face on Mars? This is something truly worth investigating from the ground. They could provide real evidence to show one way or another that it is or is not it is intelligently-made.
Re:When will it get to the Face on Mars? (Score:4, Informative)
Does anybody know when it will get to the Face on Mars? This is something truly worth investigating from the ground. They could provide real evidence to show one way or another that it is or is not it is intelligently-made.
"The Face" is a trick of light/shadow, no mystery to it anymore.
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The hill that makes up the "face on Mars" has been mapped and imaged in 3D from orbit. Its not even remotely face shaped when viewed from all around, it is actually an example of pareidolia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia ) due to the shadows at the time making it look like a face.
Its just one of the many tricks of the brain at work.
Re:When will it get to the Face on Mars? (Score:5, Interesting)
NASA: incredible past, dubious future? (Score:3, Insightful)
NASA has been the preeminent space exploration agency in the whole world for a long time now. Russia and others have sent great probes to Mars, Venus and nearby planets, but NASA has been the only space agency to send probes out of the solar system, to explore Jupiter, Saturn, fly by the Neptune and Uranus, and now sending a mission to Pluto. They've done incredible things with a limited budget. They made the first space telescope, the first Mars rovers, and so much more.
But given the massive investments China is making in space, and the political turmoils and budget problems going on in the US, I think in 20, 30, years China will have the preeminent space agency instead. Not that that's bad really but they're very strongly motivated, while in the US budgets get yanked around, people don't go into advanced engineering and science much any more, Congress is purely dysfunctional and incompetent, etc.
We'll see but I think China will become "where it's at" for space exploration in the future. They have longer term vision, stronger "national will", and an increasingly highly educated population.
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Re:NASA: incredible past, dubious future? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll assume that's a troll, but will say "bullshit" nonetheless. The US space program was a key driver in 60s and 70s technological development, and the spin-offs from that investment are pretty much incalculable.
Of course in the current brain dead, uneducated, backwoods American political environment anything that smacks of "science" is considered evil and untrustworthy. (Canada too.)
My prediction is that the Chinese will turn that investment in space into a couple of decades of profit and growth, and will do what the Americans never did - establish a toe-hold on at least the moon and turn that into a money maker and a prestigious accomplishment.
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The problem with people like you is that nothing, absolutely nothing will shake your unwavering faith. Not reason, not the evidence of your eyes, nothing. I guarantee you that
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The space program was both the result and the source of technological development. It acted as a focal point for many scientists a
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Compared to the budget spent on the military, NASA's budget is a drop in the bucket. It's hardly responsible for the gutting of other programs.
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The development of the first ICBM rockets by the military were used in the first mission to the moon. In fact the space program was the perfect cover for the ICBM weapon development program. The bulk of the funding also came out of the military budget. The project was a perfect example of duel use technology development that could distribute the costs across several agencies. Today the military is funding the reusable X-37B space plan which can serve both military and NASA with the costs being absorbed by t
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China will eventually learn the same lesson that the US now, finally, is seeming to learn: spending money on space exploration is a money pit, a drain on national coffers and more productive endeavors
Like killing people? The US has spent 6 times as much as the entire shuttle program on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars alone. The total military spending for the US in 2010 was $680 billion (ref [wikipedia.org]). The entire shuttle program, consisting of over 100 flights, cost $196 billion (ref [wikipedia.org]). The total cost of the Curiosity lander, the largest rover ever landed, was $2.5 billion (ref [nasa.gov]). Don't even get my started on the bailout, which wouldn't have been necessary if the financial industry was properly regulated. Space exp
Accidents aren't always of the bad sort. (Score:4, Interesting)
chinese moon rover (Score:2)
is out of order, i heard today.
Re:chinese moon rover (Score:4, Informative)
is out of order, i heard today.
The Chinese moon rover, Yutu (Jade Rabbit), has experienced a mechanical control abnormality, and scientists are organizing repairs. The difficult environment was blamed for the malfunction.
The glitch occurred due to the "complicated lunar surface environment,” the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) said in a report on the issue.
The abnormality occurred before the rover entered its second dormant phase on Saturday after the lunar night set in, while the lander, another part of the mission, also “fell asleep” on Friday.
The researchers are currently "organizing an overhaul", according to the SASTIND report quoted by the Xinhua state news agency.
The lunar night is equal to about a fortnight on Earth.
During that time, the temperature plunges to minus 180 degrees Celsius, and the rover, which is equipped with a solar panel, falls dormant due to lack of sunlight.
The Yutu rover gets information via its radar, panorama camera, a particle X-ray device and infrared imaging equipment, according to SASTIND.
The mission, called Chang'e-3, landed on the Moon on December 14, and was the third successful attempt to soft-land a spacecraft after the US and Russia (at the time of the landing – the Soviet Union).
In total, 130 lunar probes have been carried out, with a success rate of only around 51 percent, Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's lunar probe program, told Xinhua in an interview.
http://rt.com/news/rover-china... [rt.com]
obligatory paraphrasing of back to the future gag (Score:3)
"well there's your problem right there, see? it says 'made in China' "
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Never mind.
Not Orders Of Magnitude (Score:4, Funny)
"...blowing orders of magnitude past the original projected 90 day mission timeframe."
Minimum of 2 orders of magnitude. 90 * 100 = 9000, or around 24 to 25 years.
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You need two digits to write the number 90. You need four to write the number that represents ten years of days, 3650 (modulo leap years). Sounds like two orders of magnitude. And it's a good example of why orders of magnitude are so rough an estimation.
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You need two digits to write the number 90.
Not in numbering systems of base-91 or higher, you insensitive clod!
'Years' (Score:3)
Earth or Mars years?
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Good question. At least there is little room for confusion on the 90-day objective.