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ZL2VAL > SPIRIT 22.01.04 12:45l 166 Lines 6793 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Thunderstorm delays comm's
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From: ZL2VAL@ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC
To : SPIRIT@WW
Spirit Mars Work Delayed By Earth Weather
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 04:15 pm ET
21 January 2004
PASADENA, Calif. -- Mother Nature here on the blue planet has put a
crimp on red planet research. Scientists had hoped to operate a rock
grinding tool onboard NASA's Spirit rover. That duty, however, has been
upstaged by rain and lightning at a Deep Space Network radio dish in
Canberra, Australia.
The bad weather weakened uplink signals to the robot, preventing it from
receiving full commands to use for the first time, Spirit's Rock
Abrasion Tool, affectionately known as the RAT.
Scientists and engineers expect to pick up the choir of using the RAT to
grind into a football-sized rock dubbed Adirondack in the next day or two.
Spirit is in no danger, using built-in smarts to put itself into sleep
mode and maintain its systems, said the robot's ground handlers here at
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
"It's not doing anything harmful," said Jennifer Trosper, JPL Mission
Manager for the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) project at an early morning
press briefing.
"It's possible we'll wait until we get all the data we need before we
actually move onto the RAT activities. It is possible we'll RAT
tomorrow. It's also possible that we would wait one more day to RAT, to
make sure we understand all the things that executed and didn't execute
on the spacecraft," Trosper said.
A big nothing
"We were planning to use the RAT today...but because of the uplink
problems that didn't take place. So we're going to try again tomorrow,
that's all," Steve Squyres, Principal Investigator for the MER effort
from Cornell University told SPACE.com .
The Mars science team had assumed that only two out of three days of
Mars operations were going to work, Squyres said. "But we've been 17 for
18 days so far - so one day it was rainy. This is a big nothing."
Spirit has already made an extensive study of Adirondack, taking
detailed images of the object with a Microscopic Imager.
Meanwhile, a stunning image was released today, using multiple pictures
to show Spirit's left-behind landing pedestal sitting in the stark
martian landscape that is Gusev Crater. That landing hardware is now
called the Columbia Memorial Station in honor of the crew that was lost
in shuttle Columbia's reentry breakup nearly a year ago.
International science
Scientists continue to make step-by-step progress in utilizing the
talents of the robot field geologist on the surface of Mars.
Early findings from science instruments on the Spirit Mars rover have
yielded a blend of old news and fresh outlooks about the physical makeup
of Mars in evidence at the Gusev Crater landing site.
The international nature of Spirit operations was underscored by Squyres
in a briefing held here yesterday.
Squyres said he likened Spirit's array of science instruments to a Swiss
Army Knife, "each having its own strength," he said.
Here at JPL, home of Spirit control, the preliminary results from two
German-built instruments, an Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS)
and a Mössbauer spectrometer were discussed. Both devices analyzed the
same patch of soil that was directly in front of the rover after Spirit
drove off its lander January 15.
These same two pieces of science gear, as well as Spirit's Microscopic
Imager, have been busy again yielding new data on Adirondack.
Olivine surprise
Goestar Klingelhoefer, Payload Element Lead for the Mössbauer
spectrometer from University Mainz in Germany, explained during the
Tuesday briefing the preliminary results in using the instrument on Mars.
"This soil contains a mixture of minerals, and each mineral has its own
distinctive Mössbauer pattern, like a fingerprint," Klingelhoefer noted.
In a surprise find, Klingelhoefer said the instrument identified
olivine, a shiny green rock commonly found in lava on Earth. The other
two have yet to be pinned down.
Scientists were somewhat perplexed by the discovery of olivine. Finding
that material at Gusev Crater implies the soil consists at least
partially of ground up rocks that have not been weathered or chemically
altered.
That lack of weathering suggested by the presence of olivine might be
evidence that the soil particles are finely ground volcanic material,
Squyres said. Another possible explanation is that the soil layer where
the measurements were taken is extremely thin, and the olivine is
actually in rock hidden below the topside soil.
The Mossbauer spectrometer uses two pieces of radioactive cobalt-57,
each about the size of pencil erasers, to determine with a high degree
of accuracy the composition and abundance of iron-bearing minerals in
martian rocks and soil.
Faint signatures
Reporting on the APSX preliminary findings was Johannes Brueckner,
Science Team Member of the Mars rover team from Germany's Max Planck
Institute for Chemistry.
Brueckner reported that the instrument detected the presence of three
different iron-bearing minerals in the soil at the rover's landing site
within Gusev Crater.
As was found at the landing sites of past missions to Mars, iron and
silicon make up the majority of the martian soil. Sulfur and chlorine
were also observed as expected.
A new APXS finding was spotting trace elements, including zinc and
nickel. These latter observations demonstrate the power of the device,
Brueckner said, to pick up the signatures of elements too faint to be
seen before.
The APXS uses alpha particles and X-rays to measure the presence and
abundance of all major rock-forming elements except hydrogen.
Parking Spirit
Scientists are now deciding where to park Spirit for a stretch of time.
That will give engineers and scientists time to ready themselves for the
landing of Opportunity just a few days away.
"My guess is, if things go well, we'll drive Spirit to another location
before stand down," JPL?s Trosper told SPACE.com after yesterday's
briefing. Spirit's arm will be extended during that duration, using its
science instruments to collect new data on a patch of select martian
soil just a short drive away from Adirondack.
Spirit's twin Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, is nearing Mars. All
is on track for the spacecraft to plunge through the atmosphere on Mars,
touching down on January 24, at 9:05 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.
Opportunity is heading for a landing on the opposite side of the planet
from Spirit's landing site at Gusev Crater.
=========================
73 de Alan.
AX25:ZL2VAL@ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC
APRS:!3903.34S/17406.45E]
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Message timed: 23:07 on 2004-Jan-22 (NZ local)
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Points to ponder
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
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