[Phil V.]

why does it take days of preparation to perform tasks like getting the rover off the lander and extending its arm?

There is a long list of tests and checklists to run . . . to verify that all is working. Complicating this (I believe) is the constraint of not being to communicate 24-7. There are limited "windows" of communication and about a 20 minute "round trip" for the "conversation".

Bones, what can you add?

Here'sa 3-D pic

[bonesmccoy]

The communication windows are limited between the rover and JPL. They have to squeeze the data into a thin packet stream. So, most of the data is probably the image/photo data.

The signal strength impacts bandwidth. The bandwidth depends upon which antenna is used to transmit and receive.

They want to use the high-gain antenna as much as possible, but the windows are still limited by when Earth is overhead and the Deep Space Network is available.

I'm pretty sure that MER must have the highest priority on DSN, but there are still other missions flying and those missions have to be in queue also.

[Hunble]

Just 10 minutes ago, I was checking the

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html

and they had nothing about this!

No wonder the American public is getting so darn frustrated with NASA.

Just now, Free Republic was the first source of this new information for me, and I have been looking for the last 3 hours for recent NASA updates.

GRRRRRRRR....