Sol 1500 Options

[climber]

You probably heard the story "Odyssey gives clues to guide search for life on Mars".
And Alan, saying : "This is a wonderful and scientifically exciting result obtained from a relatively low cost NASA Mars orbiter mission which still has years of life left," said Alan Stern, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "Hold on to your hats, more exciting results from Mars are sure to be coming."
I'm sure he's thinking of Spirit & oppy saying that ...

[Astro0]

Is it time to start shouting yet?
Can we confirm the report in this thread??

Astro0

[DDAVIS]

What a pity if the rovers outlast the willingness to fund them. However a compromise stance might be brought forward to cease driving one or both rovers and continue to use the cameras to monitor one location like the Viking landers. The cameras on Spirit are in good condition, The fouled optics of Opportunity would render it less useful in that capacity. I would save the imaging capability of an immobile Spirit rover if only a fragment of the mission could be salvaged.
I would like to see more use of the cameras for imaging low sun angle scenery, as well as time lapse studies of lighting changes and clouds. A fixed location camera may lend itself to increased consideration of such photography.

Don

[tedstryk]

I still see it as a tactic. Looking at the amount of money compared to the scale of MSL, this is chump change. It is definitely time to start screaming, but I would be shocked if this actually stands.

[climber]

Back on Topic (to think positive), here are some stats :

Date Spirit Days Oppy Days Total Days Spirit Sols Oppy Sols Total Sols Min. correc day/sol Equ.hours
10-févr 15001478 2978 1459 1439 2898 59381.10 989.69
21-févr 1511 1489 30001470 1450 2920 59816.56 996.94
26-févr 1516 1494 3010 1475 1455 2930 60014.50 1000
03-mars 1522 15003022 1481 1461 2942 60252.02 1004.20
23-mars 1542 1520 3062 15001480 2980 61043.77 1017.40
02-avr 1552 1530 3082 1510 1490 300061439.64 1023.99
12-avr 1562 1540 3102 1520 15003020 61835.52 1030.59
Sols and days are self explanatory.
Minutes corrections between Sols & days and equivalent in hours are interesting on february 26th
All this happen in about 2 months.

Let's hope we'll NOT have to launch a SOS campain (Save Oppy & Spirit)

Edit : sorry, the .xls copy paste doesn't look very great here

[bmerrow]

The directive was rescinded an hour ago - there will be no shutdown of either Rover. Last weeks letter was removed from the table.
See yahoo news update at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080325/ap_on_...OlHz0gApw_737YB