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ZL2VAL > ROVERS 06.02.04 12:52l 76 Lines 3229 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 450494ZL2VAL
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Subj: Rovers update, 5 Feb
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Sent: 040206/1007Z @:ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC #:35197 [New Plymouth] FBB7.00g
From: ZL2VAL@ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC
To : ROVERS@WW
NEWS RELEASE: 2004-052
February 05, 2004
Mars Exploration Rover Mission Status
Opportunity's looks through its Rear Hazard Camera after taking a drive.
NASA's Opportunity rover drove about 3.5 meters (11 feet) early Thursday
toward a rock outcrop in the wall of a small crater on Mars, and mission
controllers plan to send it the rest of the way to the outcrop late
Thursday.
Opportunity's twin, Spirit, successfully reformatted its flash memory on
Wednesday. Flash is a type of rewritable memory used in many electronic
devices, such as digital cameras, to retain information even while power
is off. Problems with the flash memory interfered with Spirit's
operations from Jan. 22 until this week. Engineers prescribed the
reformatting to prevent recurrence of the problem.
On Thursday, Spirit's main assignment is to brush off an area on the
rock nicknamed "Adirondack" to prepare for a dust-free examination of
its surface. On Friday, controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif., plan to have Spirit grind off a small patch of
Adirondack?s outer surface and inspect the rock's interior. Spirit may
start driving over the weekend toward a crater about 250 meters (about
270 yards) to the northeast.
For Opportunity, halfway around Mars from Spirit, controllers changed
plans Thursday morning. They postponed a trenching operation until the
rover gets to an area of its landing-site crater where the soil has a
higher concentration of large-grain hematite. That mineral holds high
interest because it usually forms under wet conditions. The main science
goal for both rovers is to find geological clues about past
environmental conditions at the landing sites, especially about whether
conditions were ever watery and possibly suitable for sustaining life.
Instead of trenching, Opportunity will be commanded after it next wakes
up to drive about 1.5 meters (about 5 feet) farther, possibly to within
arm's reach of one of the rocks in the exposed outcrop.
Before it began driving on Wednesday, Opportunity finished using its
alpha particle X-ray spectrometer for the first time. This spectrometer,
which assesses what chemical elements are present, took readings on an
area of soil that the rover had previously examined with its microscope.
Each martian day, or "sol," lasts about 40 minutes longer than an Earth
day. Spirit begins its 34rd sol on Mars at 3:22 a.m. Thursday, Pacific
Standard Time. Opportunity begins its 14th sol on Mars at 3:43 p.m.
Friday, PST.
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena,
manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Office of Space
Science, Washington, D.C. Images and additional information about the
project are available from JPL at http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov
and from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., at http://athena.cornell.edu
=========================
73 de Alan, (Sysop ZL2AB).
AX25:ZL2VAL@ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC
APRS:!3903.34S/17406.45E]
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Message timed: 23:00 on 2004-Feb-06 (NZ local)
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Points to ponder
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Birthdays are good for you;
the more you have,
the longer you live.
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