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Mars Pathfinder Update #2 - July 5,1997

MARS PATHFINDER MISSION STATUS
5 July 1997, 11:30 pm PDT

After a very tense early morning, when communications with the still stowed
Sojurner rover were intermittent and unreliable, the second sol on Mars has
turned to triumph.

At approximately 5:00 pm Pacific Daylight Time, confirmation that
communications were reliably re-established with the rover was received in
Mission Control. Two hours later, during the next downlink session,
confirmation was received that the rover deployment ramps were deployed on
both sides of the petal on which it rested. After careful analysis of the
images provided by the IMP camera, rover controllers decided to deploy the
rover off the right-hand ramp. Stand up was confirmed during the final
downlink session of this historic day, and the IMP again provided dramatic
pictures of the rover moving down the selected ramp onto the surface of the
Red Planet. Clear tracks were visible in the dusty soil and the rover came
to rest about 10 cm from a nearby rock. During the martian night it will
deploy its Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) onto the surrounding soil
for 10 hours, and finally go into "sleep" mode to await the dawn of the
next exciting new sol.


For further information, please visit our website at http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov.

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Status report prepared by:
Office of the Flight Operations Manager
Mars Pathfinder Project
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA 91109
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