SciTechBlog: Blog Archive – Budget woes at NASA to impact Mars Rovers « – Blogs from CNN.com
NASA officials have directed the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) program to cut $4 million dollars from its $approximately 20 million dollar budget this year, and principal investigator Steve Squyres tells CNN that will likely mean science operations will have to be suspended for Spirit. The rover would be put in hibernation mode, and if all goes well it could be reactivated in the future in the event funding is restored.
NASA Headquarters spokesman Dwayne Brown confirmed the budget directive has been issued. He said the reason behind the cut is to offset cost overruns with the Mars Science Laboratory, a follow-on rover set to launch next year.
NASA spent $800 million to build and launch Spirit and its twin, Opportunity, to Mars. They landed about 3 weeks apart in January 2004, on opposite sides of the planet from each other. Both were designed for 90 day missions, but are still operating more than four years later.
Hmmm, designed for 90 days and lasting over four years….kinda sounds like a certain war to me.
Update:
Just hours after we reported that NASA budget cuts would lead to the shut down of the Mars rover “Spirit,” we received this from NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs:
“There is a process that has to be followed for any mission to be canceled and the cancellation of the Mars Exploration Rovers is not under consideration. There is an ongoing budget review within the agency’s Mars exploration program. However, shutting down of one of the rovers is not an option.”
And this from NASA Administrator Michael Griffin:
“NASA will not shut down one of the Mars rovers.”
As you were…
Robot Pirate Ninja 