• This Week in Science History: The Rover Spirit landing on Mars

    January 2, 2012

    Brian Nunnally, Associate Director

    Happy New Year to all of my loyal U.S. readers and to any new readers! Let’s start 2012 off with a big anniversary! On January 4, 2004, the rover Spirit landed on Mars. By any measure used, this mission was a resounding success. Spirit was the first mobile laboratory to land on another planet. It was intended to function for 90 Martian days – or sols (approximately 92 earth days). The rover was operational for 2208 sols and mobile for 1892 sols!  This was an incredible surprise and was arguably the most science per investment mission NASA had ever experienced (Opportunity, its twin rover is still functioning and is extending it smission as I type; Viking 1 held the record for longest Martian mission before Opportunity passed it).

    Spirit is a six-wheeled, solar-powered robot standing 1.5 m high, 2.3 m wide and 1.6 m long, and weighing 180 kg.  The robot was equipped with a panoramic camera (for those great pictures!), a Navigation Camera, a Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (used to identify promising rocks), a Mössbauer spectrometer (for mineralogy of the rocks), Alpha particle X-ray spectrometer (for elemental makeup), magnets (for collecting magnetic dust particles), a microscopic imager (for high resolution images), and a rock abrasion tool (to expose additional layers). These instruments supported its search for past water activity, investigate geologic features in the rocks close to the landing site, and ultimately assess the likelihood that life existed on Mars.

    Spirit was launched on June 10, 2003 and roamed the Martian landscape until getting stuck in soft soil on May 1, 2009. Spirit had been stuck before, but efforts to free the rover by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) were unsuccessful.  JPL scientists finally gave up on January 26, 2010 making the rover a stationary science platform. Spirit continued to function until contact was lost on March 22, 2010.  Attempts to regain communication were made until May 24, 2011, when NASA formally ended the mission.

    While I remain a proponent for manned space travel (especially to Mars), the opportunity to do science with these robots is both economically and ethically better. The science generated from these mission is top notch and there is no possibility for loss of human life once launched. NASA has wisely chose to invest in these unmanned missions and recently launched the Curiosity Rover on November 26, 2011 (landing is planned for August 5, 2012). Curisoity is over six times heavier than Spirit and will greatly extend the science possibility for Mars. Horray!

    Make a New Year’s resolution to follow me on Twitter (@tsntwish) for daily science history factoids. You will not regret it — and I am sure it will both last longer and make you happier than the other resolutions, although it will probably will not outlast that fruitcake you received as a gift…

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