Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity Roll Out on Mars at 12 AM PST 1-31-2004 (LIVE THREAD)

Jet Propulsion Laboratory ^ | 1-30-04 | NASA JPL

[bonesmccoy]

The roll off of Opportunity from the lander pad at Meridiani Planum will occur at midnight tonight.

JPL NASA will be carried live on NASA TV.

JPL reports a 12 AM PST "Opportunity egree live coverage"

4 AM PST : Opportunity egress briefing

[DeepDish]

Good night! And thank you.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Nite!

[Miss Marple]

Good morning! Is there a press conference scheduled?

My husband is from St. Joseph, by the way.

[CasearianDaoist]

I just got up...meant to watch but fell asleep...git me the skinny...what happened?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

What's the temperature?

Are you going to get the usual glaze of ice before the snow drops?

[DeepDish]

Egress successful, data returned, Rear haz-cam picture up.

[ZAKJAN]

news conference 6:45 live on Nasa tv..

Rover left the landing pad, images seen, both front and back.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html look on the left for the live feed.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

News conference at 3:45!

Rover has 6 wheels on the surface of Mars.

We got pictures back verifying that fact.

It was mostly watch and wait everything progressed quietly and a bit ahead of schedule. No surprises!

I'll check back tomorrow to read any reports !


Nite all!

[CasearianDaoist]

Thanks, Good night!

[KC Burke]

Ernest, its only about 9 degrees with a wind chill of -3. Yesterday morning it was -1, actual.

However, the cold air layer has been thin, with temperatures in the thirties above 3,000 feet. We may get some ice or sleet prior to the storm due to the moisture forming and falling in a warmer upper atmosphere.

Miss Marple, your lesser-half's home town will, as always, get hit with more than we will. They are now saying up to 10" here and maybe 12" up there.

We have some NASA pictures up on one of the education channels now.

[KC Burke]

press conference now starting

[Simmy2.5]

Picture from JPL website. Off the lander. Whooohoo.

[Miss Marple]

Here in central Indiana it is -7! Brrrr.

Can't get the press conference on TV....please let me know anything important.

[DeepDish]

They just said that they have detected hematite from the rover.

[ZAKJAN]

Ok.....what does hematite mean to us folks...

[DeepDish]

It is a iron bearing mineral.

[Flyer]

Formed in the presence of water, I believe.

[KC Burke]

Do I understand correctly that the crater they are in will allow them to determine, to some extent, if sedimentary action occured in some past martian geolic age?

[DeepDish]

"We believe that the gray hematite is very strong evidence that water was once present in that area," said Victoria Hamilton, a planetary geologist at Arizona State University (ASU). "We think the deposit is fairly old. It was buried, perhaps, for several hundred million years or more and now it's being exposed by wind erosion."

From the NASA web site. Hematite can be formed in hot springs.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast28mar_1.htm

[KC Burke]

dang....live coverage just dropped to run some prerecorded leftist kiddie ed show...

Fox carrying Jocko coverage, as usual..... < frown >