Posted on 01/28/2004 12:37:42 PM PST by LibWhacker
Jan. 28, 2004 — NASA's Mars rover Opportunity could touch Martian dirt on Sunday night, while halfway around the planet, Opportunity's troubled sister robotic explorer Spirit might be back on track to do science by early next week, project specialists said.
Mars mission engineers are taking Opportunity through its standing-up routine to make sure all is in working order before sending the rover on what NASA scientists are calling a historic geologic field trip to explore a nearby rock outcrop and beyond.
"Opportunity has begun the stand-up process," Rick Welch, activity lead at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., told a televised press briefing on Wednesday. "Depending on how it goes, we're targeting for egress potentially on Sunday night."
As far as where Opportunity will go first, Cornell University's Jim Bell, lead scientist for the rover's panoramic camera, which has been sending back stunning images of its surroundings, confirmed that the layered rock outcrop just six to eight meters (20 to 26 feet) from the lander platform would be the first target for study. That area, on the rim of the crater in which Opportunity landed, is geologically varied enough so that the rover could gather a lot of data without having to move.
The rover's instrument arm, on the front of the machine, contains four critical instruments: the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, which detects alpha particles and X-rays emitted by rocks and soils to determine their chemical makeup; the Mössbauer spectrometer, which studies iron-bearing materials; the microscopic imager, which takes very close-up images; and the rock abrasion tool, which grinds into the surface of rock.
"Putting the rover in a place where the arm can access different materials would be the best thing to do," Bell said.
Opportunity will at some point during its 90-day mission poke up over the crater's rim and take panoramic views of the flat plain of Meridiani Planum similar to those taken by Spirit at Gusev Crater. But for now, Bell said: "We've been given an incredible gift by being where we are with this outcrop so easily exposed in front of us. We could have ended up out in the plains, literally in the middle of nowhere, and it would have been very hard to find where we were. It would be irresponsible not to study material which could provide some key to the action of water in this area. We also have these incredible dark soils with interesting properties, so we have to do some exploration in the area that we're in."
A problem with the power on Opportunity has not been resolved, Welch said. One of the heaters that turns on when one of the instruments gets too cold in the Martian night is not turning off, draining the battery, experts said at a briefing on Tuesday.
But, Welch said, "Near-term (the heater) is not impacting us at all."
Spirit Update A problem with Spirit's flash memory — memory similar to that used in digital cameras — is moving closer to being resolved, said mission manager Jennifer Trosper.
Engineers were working Wednesday to get complete control of the rover and "we're still not quite there," she said.
The high-gain antenna that allows high-speed communications with Earth was under repair Wednesday, she said. If engineers can get it to work, "that will be a significant step forward for Spirit. We will be back on a communications plan that will allow us to transmit 11,000 bits per second instead of between 40 and 120 bits per second. so you can imagine the additional data we'll be able get to debug the problem," Trosper said.
Engineers were tackling the problem "surgically," Trosper said, taking a careful, targeted approach in order to save any scientific data that has been gathered so far.
"If we're on the right track, we would hope to, at the earliest, be back to doing science early next week. If we're not on the right track, it could take longer than that," Trosper said.
| Spirit: All 1,855 Raw Images - 2 new images since 01/26/2004 08:57:01 PST |
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Sol 17 raw images have arrived! Much of the information coming from Spirit over the past few days has been engineering data. As any new images arrive from Spirit, they will be posted here. Stay tuned, Spirit is on the mend.
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NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit took and returned this image on January 28, 2004, the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image from the rover's front hazard identification camera shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack. As it had been instructed a week earlier, the Moessbauer spectrometer, an instrument for identifying the minerals in rocks and soils, is still placed against the rock. Engineers are working to restore Spirit to working order so that the rover can resume the scientific exploration of its landing area.
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