They belong in the Planet Earth Space Exploration Hall of Fame.

Here's to the 2018 opposition of Mars!

The Martian dust problem, like the moon's, is unparalleled on Earth. The dust storms will inevitably generate static electrical charge which will cause dust particles to adhere fast to any surface they contact. Adding some kind of wiping mechanism to the solar panels would more likely just smear the abrasive dust, scratching the panels' surfaces and reducing their ability to absorb sunlight.

Some kind of vibratory mechanism would shake off larger particles but, again, would do nothing for the statically charged dust. Imagine you have coffee table in your attic, uncovered, for several years. If you were to grab it and hold it upside down and shake it violently, you'd liberate very little dust. A sharper, high frequency vibration wouldn't do much better against static cling.

Additionally, incorporating either a vibratory mechanism or wipers into the rovers would require more space and an unnecessary amount of moving parts that would increase the potential technical failure rates of the rovers. It would also increase power consumption every time the mechanisms were engaged.

Using compressed gas is also out of the question, because hidden nozzles would have to incorporate moving parts like the previous two options, they would have limited use according to their capacity (and I certainly doubt mission designers would have allowed for a 5 year supply of gas canisters to maintain the panels), and would've decreased available space and increased the overall weight of the rovers' design. Conversely, exposed nozzles would have undoubtedly gotten clogged during the first dust storm the rovers experienced.

Quite to the contrary, the technical difficulties of employing and maintaining operational solar panels in such a hostile extraterrestrial environment are monumental and I sincerely doubt their design and implementation was arrived at lightly or underthought in any way by NASA's engineers.

What you can look forward to is to the arrival of the MSL on Mars, the first mobile platform platform to utilize RTGs as its power source, much like the Viking landers, which will then free it from much of the power issues experienced by the MERs' solar panels. However, the dust storms will always be a threat to any mechanical instruments we employ on Mars as we still do not fully understand the extent of their power and can't physically examine the equipment already employed there for any ill-effects they may have suffered as a result.

Needless to say and despite all that's occurred, these two little fellas have been an inspiration for years, they have more than lived up to their names, and in no way now can they fail because they have already defeated all contention thrown at them. If they both 'died' tomorrow, they still will not have failed at anything, which is something I'm quite sure cannot be said of very many machines, and even fewer people.

I think i will send a nice present to NASA this Christmas, some window wipers. =)

Damn, automobils have those since like forever, how come a multi-million dolar experiment like this is missing some rather rudimentary pieaces of obvious hardware??

I don't get it….but hey, i'm happy as hell that these machines are sturdy enough to even make it so far so….yupieeeee goooo rovers….

In fact as I recall, it may have lasted longer than the lander station it came from, but it konked out and the problem was that the rover had to use it as a relay to talk to Earth.
So it may have been circling the base for a while, waiting for a signal that never came.

Steve Squyres said they thought the MERs would last past 90 days, but not much more than 120 to 180 days in reality. I think we got our money's worth out of them and then some, don't you?

Too bad the rovers can't drive north and bring Phoenix towards the equator.

BTW, MRO should be able to watch Phoenix so we can see what happens to it, such as if its solar panels snap off from the weight of all the frozen carbon dioxide that will build up on them over the long winter.

I bet ya the MERs will still be kicking (or is that rolling) when MSL lands in 2010.

Hopefully Phoenix will rise (as it should!) again to roam.
Such a shame that it only lasted this long, and that NASA actually designed them for only lasting this long.
Isn't that a massive waste of money if they are designing them to last a few months?
Why not next time, spend loads on a massive ship with a massive rover with loads of instruments, and have it sealed up nicely, to prevent it from ever failing from the nasties of Mars.
They seem to have the landing-without-completely-destroying-it more-or-less mastered.
And hell, throw in a nuclear generator backup just in case.

Wished that they put the mic on Phoenix long time ago which they should had done so.

Hail to the Red Planet Gladiators!!!