Four Years: Happy Birthday MERs!
By Mike Deliman
About four years ago a pair of robots, who began life as MER-A and
MER-B, landed on Mars, starting a 90 day mission. That was one of the
most exciting Januaries I’ve ever experienced! (It’s hard to top the
successful landings of two probes on another planet in 3 weeks!!)
About 5 months ago a planet-wide dust storm gave us cause for
concern – it had the potential to kill both of the rovers. Happily
both survived. In fact, the weather is why we’ve run so long – as much
dust as the winds have dropped on our babies, the winds have also kept
the panels clean enough to keep the rovers alive this long.
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