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Mars Exploration Rover surface mission flight thermal performanceNASA launched two rovers in June and July of 2003 as a part of the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) project. MER-A (Spirit) landed on Mars in Gusev Crater at 15 degrees South latitude and 175 degree East longitude on January 4, 2004 (Squyres, et al., Dec. 2004)). MER-B (Opportunity) landed on Mars in Terra Meridiani at 2 degrees South latitude and 354 degrees East longitude on January 25, 2004 (Squyres, et al., August 2004) Both rovers have well exceeded their design lifetime (90 Sols) by more than a factor of 4. Spirit and Opportunity are still healthy and continue to execute their roving science missions at the time of this writing. This paper discusses rover flight thermal performance during the surface missions of both vehicles, covering roughly the time from the MER-A landing in late Southern Summer (Ls = 328, Sol 1A) through the Southern Winter solstice (Ls = 90, Sol 255A) to nearly Southern Vernal equinox (Ls = 160 , Sol 398A).
Document ID
20060042640
Acquisition Source
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Document Type
Conference Paper
External Source(s)
Authors
Novak, Keith S.
Phillips, Charles J.
Sunada, Eric T.
Kinsella, Gary M.
Date Acquired
August 23, 2013
Publication Date
July 1, 2005
Subject Category
Lunar And Planetary Science And Exploration
Meeting Information
Meeting: 35th International Conference on Environmental Systems (ICES), Society of Automotive Engineers
Location: Rome
Country: Italy
Start Date: July 11, 2005
End Date: July 14, 2005
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
thermal design
Mars Exploration Rover (MER)

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