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Twin rovers to extend Mars visit

Posted on: Monday, 12 April 2004, 06:00 CDT

NASA's twin Mars rovers, the hardest-working stars in space exploration, face five months of extended duty on the Red Planet, space agency officials say.

NASA Mars Exploration Program director Orlando Figueroa announced the extension last week as the official 90-day mission of the Spirit rover ended. Opportunity landed three weeks after Spirit; its 90 days aren't up until April 26.

The agency approved a $15 million extension to the $820 million twin-rover endeavor. ''The extension more than doubles exploration for less than a 2% additional investment, if the rovers remain in working condition,'' NASA said in a news release Thursday.

The Spirit and Opportunity rovers will now look for geologic evidence of water in Mars' past until September. Water is considered a necessary ingredient for microbial life to have existed on Mars.

''Even though the extended mission is approved to September, and the rovers could last even longer, they also might stop in their tracks next week or next month. They are operating under extremely harsh conditions,'' says Firouz Naderi, manager of Mars exploration at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., where the rovers were built and are controlled.

''However, while Spirit is past its 'warranty,' we look forward to continued discoveries by both rovers in the months ahead.''

Last month, the Opportunity rover reported the discovery of evidence that a salty sea once covered its landing region, Meridiani Planum. Sedimentary rock deposits were found on the Oklahoma-size plain. And Meridiani is covered with deposits of gray hematite, a mineral usually formed in hot springs.

Gusev Crater, Spirit's landing site on the other side of the planet, has so far yielded signs of only trace amounts of water. ''We're going to continue exploring and try to understand the water story at Gusev,'' says JPL's Mark Adler, deputy mission manager for Spirit.

Both rovers landed under near-optimal conditions in January. Despite a power-draining computer glitch on Spirit and a balky heater on Opportunity, project chief Richard Cook had expressed optimism about extending the rover missions as early as February.''''

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