CNN reports that NASA is cutting back the Mars Rovers’ team budget, which will likely result in Spirit sitting catatonic until funding comes back (yeah, right):
NASA officials have directed the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) program to cut $4 million dollars from its approximately $20 million dollar budget this year, and principal investigator Steve Squyres tells CNN that will likely mean science operations will have to be suspended for Spirit. The rover would be put in hibernation mode, and if all goes well it could be reactivated in the future in the event funding is restored.
Hey, congress, are you listening? I’d like to donate my income taxes for the year to the Mars Rover folks. Please?
[Update: Yay, looks like funding for the rovers will not be cut after all. Hey, Congress, can I have my income taxes back now please?]
Congratulations NASA on another successful mission! Stardust is on the ground after a succesful 2.9 billion mile journey! Now that the engineering is over, the years of science can begin!
Yesterday at work, Steve Squyres came to give a talk to the company's research group, but anyone could attend. So, I quickly made sure my calendar wasn't booked at the time and immediately blocked it off so I could attend. Having just finished his book ( Roving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet , ISBN 1401301495) and having followed the EDL phase and subsequent rovings of Spirit and Opportunity, I figured this was a once in a lifetime shot to hear him speak.
For those of you that aren't as NASA-nerdy as I am, Steve Squyres is the PI of the MER team that put Spirit and Opportunity on Mars in January 2004.
Steve talked and showed some truly breathtaking photography. He got asked the same question I posted about back in February 2004 about a mechanism to knock dust of the solar panels, and gave the same answer as I've heard all the other times I've seen it responded to.
Definitely an amazing talk, and I highly recommend reading the book.
I got to listen to the liftoff of the space shuttle Discovery this morning on the drive in to work. I'm really glad to see that the wait is over and that NASA is back in business doing what they're supposed to be doing - scientific research in space. Hopefully everything else in this mission will go as planned.
Kudos to everyone at NASA involved in the return to flight effort!
NASA does it again, reports are in that Deep Impact did in fact hit the comet
Today marks mankinds first visit to Titan, one of Saturn's moons. Article from Space.com notes that landing confirmation occurred at 11:35AM EST.
UPDATE: ESA says that the first pictures should be up at 11:45AM PST
UPDATE: CNN has a picture from Huygens on the front page! No pictures from the ESA or JPL yet.
UPDATE: ESA and JPL have pictures now.
Back in February I posted my nasa deep thought about why they didn't put blowers/wipers on the mars rovers… I got to ask one of the NASA scientists during a talk recently at Texas A&M, and then this morning I pull up CNN. There's an article about the rovers getting their lives extended. Then there it is, in paragraph 6:
Steve Squyres, the Mars rovers principal investigator, said the rovers' designers deemed the additional weight of adding wipers or blowers to the solar panels was not worthwhile. Instead they increased the size of the panels to maximize the power input.
Well, NASA's Opportunity rover has snapped a picture (scroll down) of a bunny on Mars. Space.com has coverage of the bunny here.
I'd be willing to bet this shows up in next month's Playboy. 
According to NASA and JPL, there was, at one time, water on mars where the Opportunity landed! NASA press release here, CNN coverage here.
So, all the talk is that this heater problem on the Opportunity Martian rover will eventually cause problems because the solar panels onboard will become sufficiently dusty that they won't generate enough power to keep up with the drain of this malfunctioning 15W heater.
My question: This rover is golf-cart sized, can rove around, take amazing pictures, has an arm that can drill into rock and analyze what the rock is made of… How difficult would it have been to put a feather duster on this arm to clean off the solar panels? Or maybe a fan blowing the little bit of martian atmosphere over the panels… If the dust is being blown there, can't it just be blown off?
