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ZL2VAL > SPIRIT 05.01.04 12:50l 83 Lines 3669 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Spirit shows new neighborhood
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From: ZL2VAL@ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC
To : SPIRIT@WW
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
NEWS RELEASE: 2004-004
January 4, 2004
Healthy Rover Shows Its New Neighborhood on Mars
NASA's Spirit Rover is starting to examine its new surroundings,
revealing a vast flatland well suited to the robot's unprecedented
mobility and scientific toolkit.
"Spirit has told us that it is healthy," Jennifer Trosper of NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., said today. Trosper is Spirit
mission manager for operations on Mars' surface. The rover remains
perched on its lander platform, and the next nine days or more will be
spent preparing for egress, or rolling off, onto the martian surface.
With only two degrees of tilt, with the deck toward the front an average
of only about 37 centimeters (15 inches) off the ground, and with
apparently no large rocks blocking the way, the lander is in good
position for egress. "The egress path we're working toward is straight
ahead," Trosper said.
The rover's initial images excited scientists about the prospects of
exploring the region after the roll-off.
"My hat is off to the navigation team because they did a fantastic job
of getting us right where we wanted to be," said Dr. Steve Squyres of
Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for the science
payload. By correlating images taken by Spirit with earlier images from
spacecraft orbiting Mars, the mission team has determined that the rover
appears to be in a region marked with numerous swaths where dust devils
have removed brighter dust and left darker gravel behind.
"This is our new neighborhood," Squyres said. "We hit the sweet spot. We
wanted someplace where the wind had cleared off the rocks for us. We've
landed in a place that's so thick with dust devil tracks that a lot of
the dust has been blown away."
The terrain looks different from any of the sites examined by NASA's
three previous successful landers -- the two Vikings in 1976 and Mars
Pathfinder in 1987.
"What we're seeing is a section of surface that is remarkably devoid of
big boulders, at least in our immediate vicinity, and that's good news
because big boulders are something we would have trouble driving over,"
Squyres said. "We see a rock population that is different from anything
we've seen elsewhere on Mars, and it comes out very much in our favor."
Spirit arrived at Mars Jan. 3 (EST and PST; Jan. 4 Universal Time) after
a seven month journey. Its task is to spend the next three months
exploring for clues in rocks and soil about whether the past environment
at this part of Mars was ever watery and suitable to sustain life.
Spirit's twin Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, will reach its
landing site on the opposite side of Mars on Jan. 25 (EST and Universal
Time; Jan. 24 PST) to begin a similar examination of a site on the
opposite side of the planet from Gusev Crater.
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the
Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Office of Space Science,
Washington. Additional information about the project is available from
JPL at: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov
and from Cornell University at: http://athena.cornell.edu.
==============================
73 de Alan
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Points to ponder
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Hard work pays off in the future, laziness pays off now.
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