Monday, May 29, 2006

Mars robots to get smart upgrade





Quite why we need to look at pictures of clouds, when there are prefectly good craft orbiting Mars that can better analyse them, is anyone's guess, but the dust-storms will be of interest, as it is these that are thought to be responsible for clearing the dust and debris from the Rovers' solar panels, thus greatly extending their operational lives.

On the downside, this new upgrade to the Rovers' software might mean they miss other photo opportunities on the ground - after all, in the event of coming across anomalous surface features, how is a Rover to image them if its cameras are constantly pointed up at the sky?


A good question indeed.

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