Mynock wrote:^^HA!!
One of the nicest features I'm seeing on this beast is the nuclear power source. About damn time they stopped fiddling with solar panels and gave their equipment a reliable source of energy that didn't depend on sunny weather.
To be fair the earlier Mars Excursion Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, were only supposed to have 90 day missions and a much smaller budget so solar panels were fine. Spirit is approaching 9 years and still rolling around on Mars. Curiosity is supposed to last for a minimum of one Martian year (2 Earth years) but is expected to go on for at least five. One of the benefits of carrying your own nuke with you is 2000 watts of waste heat that must continually be radiated away. They ran heat pipes through the thing and this is used to keep the rover's insides warm no matter how cold it gets outside.
The two Viking missions were the last nuclear powered craft to land on Mars and they ran for six years with early 70's technology. We will hopefully be reading about Curiosity for a long time to come.