Mars Exploration Rover controllers will finish transition-ing to a more humane schedule this week, one based on Earth time instead of Mars time, as the rover Spirit completes its 90-Martian-day primary mission and moves into extended operations. Spirit and its twin, Opportunity, are showing their middle age, being struck with little bugs recently that have been overcome but may cost a day of operations. Both still enjoy power and temperature margins that suggest they could last on the order of a year, although engineers worry about the effect of day-night temperature cycling on the electronics. Problems encountered recently include a corrupted block of EEPROM memory on Opportunity in an area dealing with rover commands. After diagnosing the Mar. 28 error message, engineers cordoned off the affected area the next day.
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