NASA Hobbles Rover Program to Save a Buck

Scientists plan to put one of the twin Mars rovers to sleep and limit the activities of the other robot to fulfill a NASA order to cut $4 million from the program's budget, mission team members said Monday. The news comes amid belt-tightening at NASA headquarters, which is under pressure to cover cost overruns of a flagship Mars mission to land a Hummer-sized rover on the Red Planet next year. Read »

Created by deep Created 36 weeks 8 hours ago – Made popular 36 weeks 8 hours ago
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Mars Rovers to Keep On Trucking Created 35 weeks 6 days ago: NASA has no plans to turn off either of the healthy twin Mars rovers to make up for cost overruns faced by a big new rover slated to fly to the Red Planet next year, the space agency said Tuesday. In a rare move, NASA said it rescinded a letter sent last week to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena that directed budget cuts to the Mars exploration program.
No plans to turn off Mars rovers:NASA Created 36 weeks 8 hours ago: NASA has no plans to turn off either of the healthy twin Mars rovers to make up for cost overruns faced by a big new rover slated to fly to the Red Planet next year.
Bad News for Twin Martian Rovers Created 36 weeks 8 hours ago: Although still healthy and working round the clock of the surface of the Red Planet, NASA's twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity may soon find themselves hibernating for a undefined amount of time. If mechanical and software problems won't disable them permanently, NASA will surely do so. According to a NASA Headquarters press release, the Mars Exploration Rover program operating the two robots will receive a budget cut of 40 percent for the remaining of 2008, spanning all the way to Sep...
NASA Reverses Controversial Budget Cut Created 35 weeks 6 days ago: Well, it seems that NASA 'did it again', so to say. Just recently the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, responsible for the Mars Exploration Rover program, was ordered to apply a budget cut of 4 million US dollars for the 2008 fiscal year. Yet another cut was scheduled for the 2009, totaling 8 million dollars of the budget for the rover program. However, NASA seems to have missed some details along the way.

Upon the receiving of the letter from NASA announcing the budget cut, ...
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