Cav's Place

The Martian winter solstice was over two weeks ago, yet NASA hasn’t provided any updates about the rovers since, even though those updates should be weekly. Sure, there wouldn’t be much to say about Opportunity, who likely performed nothing other than a couple more short drives, and nothing at all about Spirit, who has been silent for over two months due to the very low energy levels, but they should have at least posted something to let people know that nothing unexpected happened to Opportunity during this time and that solar energy levels should now start to improve.
The lack of posts could, of course, actually mean that something bad did happen to Opportunity and they don’t want to talk about it before figuring out what to do next. But the most likely scenario is that they simply don’t feel like writing these updates when there’s nothing even remotely interesting to say. Though I’d say that making it past yet another winter solstice would be something worthy of being mentioned, and setting a new Martian surface longevity record on May 20, surpassing Viking 1‘s six years and 116 days, even more so, especially since Viking 1 relied on its own nuclear energy generator instead of using solar panels like Spirit and Opportunity do, which makes the twins’ accomplishment even more impressive.

One would assume the twins have proved that solar power is a viable option for Mars rovers and that improving the efficiency of solar panels would allow for long and safe missions which could also achieve many scientific goals, not to mention help all of us back here on Earth with our energy problems. But NASA doesn’t agree with that, as Curiosity will mark the return to nuclear power. And that can never be really safe, despite all the precautions taken, which seems pretty counterproductive when one of Curiosity’s main objectives will be to look for microbial life. If any somehow exists around the landing site, it may easily be destroyed by any leak from the rover’s generator, which would make us the destroyers of life on two planets instead of just one. Then again, the Viking landers also had nuclear generators and they’ve been there for decades, so who knows what kind of contamination we may already be guilty of. The difference, however, is that back when those were launched we really didn’t have any viable alternative, while now we do…
Still, the good news is that, after many delays, the launch window for Curiosity has finally been selected as being between November 25 and December 18, 2011, with landing scheduled to take place between August 6 and August 20, 2012. If all will go according to plan, that’s when Opportunity will finally get her replacement, assuming she’ll survive that long.

I’m only mentioning Opportunity’s survival because there is one more Martian winter the existing rovers will have to get through before Curiosity will join them, and Spirit isn’t too likely to even make it out of this one. As I said, she went silent over two months ago and simple logic would dictate that another two months are likely to pass before solar energy levels will again rise enough to allow her to wake up from hibernation, and that’s a long time for her components to survive the cold Martian winter without any heating whatsoever. And even if she will somehow survive this one, I really don’t see how she could make it past the next one as well. Either way, as she’s stuck in that sand trap, Spirit can no longer be considered a rover, and in fact has been officially designated a stationary research platform earlier this year.
Opportunity, on the other hand, seems to have quite easily made it past the worst of it this time around and, unexpected technical problems aside, is likely to do better and better from now on, at least until the dust storm season. And since she made it past a few such seasons before, there’s a distinct possibility that she will still be operating when Curiosity will touch down in 2012. And I really think the main goal of the current mission should be to ensure her survival at the very least until her replacement will be proven to land and function properly. In addition, if hibernation could be avoided during the next Martian winter as well, that’d provide us with an uninterrupted active presence on Martian soil, which should be a considerable achievement in itself…

But there are bad news coming from Mars as well, though we’re only talking about a confirmation of something we already knew. After a final attempt to communicate with it, the Phoenix lander remained silent and has also likely been destroyed by ice. As I said, none of this is unexpected, as communications ended a year and a half ago and therefore survival wasn’t exactly a possibility, while the lander’s solar panels were not designed to withstand the amount of ice that was likely to build up on them during the harsh Martian winter, considering the landing site.
This only serves to once again prove the harshness of the Martian environment, if anyone needed additional evidence, and likely makes the twins’ survival for well over six years that much more extraordinary.

So we’ll wait and see what the future holds. Hopefully we’ll manage to learn a lot about another planet without damaging it for a change… But that doesn’t seem at all likely, considering we’re talking about humans here and our capacity for destruction, intentional or not, is unmatched.
I think Spirit and Opportunity did a pretty good job of returning scientific data while using a renewable energy source and without causing or even creating the possibility of noticeable damage to any potential Martian forms of life or even the Martian environment itself, as harsh as it is. So I can only hope that our future exploration attempts will use them as an example and not Curiosity, and that we’ll also learn from the environments that force us to come up with sustainable and safe solutions and apply that knowledge here on Earth as well. Sometimes, even a risk of one in a million is one in a million too much.