The Mars Exploration Rover (MER) folks that operate the Spirit and
Opportunity robots on the red planet have gotten some bad news.
A directive has come from NASA Headquarters to take a 40 percent
financial cut in their program — some $4 million in the remaining months of
fiscal year 2008.
It all comes down to a financial stun gun for one of the
rovers, both still busy at work doing science. Cost to run the Mars twins
is $20 million per year. They've been on the red planet since January 2004 and
are long past their 90-day mission plan.
Steve Squyres, the MER principal investigator at Cornell
University, said the 40 percent cut is huge.
"We're rapidly coming to the conclusion that if we have to
implement this cut, it's going to mean essentially shutting off science
activities for one of the vehicles," Squyres told SPACE.com.
Safely shutting down a rover on a temporary basis is doable,
Squyres said, a move that could save money but at the expense of science.
"We're going to go off and look at what our options are ... but I feel
confident that we have to essentially halt science operations on one of the two
vehicles."
While both robots are healthy and doing good science, it looks
like the one to hibernate for the remainder of this fiscal year could be Spirit, Squyres
suggested.
The MER group has also been told to expect an $8 million cut in
fiscal year 2009. It would essentially be the same magnitude of cut. At that
time, it is expected there would be two healthy rovers both able to move, drive
and explore.
"We would have to make some very tough decisions about which
one we would hibernate and which one we would keep active. That's a situation I
do not want to face...but that's a future worry," Squyres added.
For now, the message back to NASA Headquarters is that, if the MER
team has to take the first cut, there is going to be an impact on science
return...and in fiscal year 2009, it will be much more severe.
Squyres emphasized that the rovers are in good health and doing
good science. Another concern sparked by the budget cut, along with keeping the
rovers healthy, is keeping the MER team together and morale high, he said.
SPACE.com has also learned that the venerable NASA Mars orbiter,
Odyssey, is on the cost-cutting table, too. Odyssey has been in orbit since 2001.
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