Aero-News: Quote of the Day

ANN's Quote of the Day usually derives from current news, though we reserve the right to pick quotes out of history that have a bearing on the day's events and issues.

Sometimes, you'll find them timely and in keeping with the content of the day's news... and sometimes, they'll just be thought-provoking.

Reader suggestions and comments are welcome... and if particularly intriguing, timely, or poignant, may themselves become future Quotes of the Day.

Let us hear from you, folks!

Aero-News Quote of the Day

"Opportunity successfully executed our second deep sleep of the mission. We survived the night just fine with that and it saved the energy that we expected to. More importantly our Mini-TES instrument, which we put in danger by the deep sleep operation, did survive the night and we hope it will survive more of these. But we're getting dangerously close to the cold temperatures that it isn't able to survive through."

Source: Mars Rover Flight Director Chris Lewicki in JPL's recorded update, after Opportunity apparently cheated death again last week. The rover's heat circuit, activated at night to preserve temperature-sensitive equipment, failed to turn itself off during the Martian days, severely draining the rover's solar-fed batteries. The solution: put Opportunity into a deep sleep to conserve energy. Both Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, have completed their assigned missions, so every day that the probes continue to operate is manna from heaven (or Mars).

FMI: www.nasa.gov