Mars Rover Spirit May Never Respond Again!

Spirit, one of NASA’s six-year-old Mars rovers, has missed its winter wake-up call! This action raised serious concerns that it will never wake up again from the coldness. This has never happened before because in the previous winters, Spirit could get to a sun-facing slope in Gusev Crater before the extreme cold occur. This allowed them to get enough power from its solar cells to keep heaters turned on and to phone home when it is supposed to. Spirit went on hibernation since March and it suspended all communications and other activities so any accessible energy can be used to recharge, heat batteries, and keep its mission going. The ground control teams sent out a beacon for Spirit starting on July 26, but it didn’t respond. NASA predicted that it may never wake up again. Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program said that it would be a miracle if Spirit would phone home because they had never gone through this situation before. Spirit may be going through -67ºF, where its normal temperature is -40ºF. Spirit and Opportunity arrived on Mars in January 2004 for a 3-month mission. Opportunity is doing well and it sent home its first picture of a Martian dust devil during this week.

This topic has to do with Earth science. Mars is one of the planets in the solar system. Rovers are sent to different planets to investigate about its surrounding and in the solar system. The rovers send pictures back to Earth so scientists can figure out what is going on there and around the world. Temperatures such as -40ºF and -67ºF are considered extremely cold in our every day life. Only those temperatures would be available in other planets where humans do not exist.

We should care about this problem because if scientists cannot figure out what is going on at Mars, this may be a really big trouble on Earth because it could affect us in many ways. We should always be aware of our surroundings. This problem may signal something that is going wrong at Mars or the rover. This may encourage us to do something to control the temperature that rovers go through or we can get a new rover that will replace and do Spirit’s job.

http://news.discovery.com/space/mars-rover-spirit-may-never-wake-from-deep-sleep.html