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Mars Pathfinder Update - September 26, 1997

MARS PATHFINDER MISSION STATUS
26 September 1997, 3:00 a.m. PDT

The Earth rose over Mars this morning at 4:00 p.m. PDT
and the Sun rose at 6:30 p.m. PDT.

The data received during our 2.5 hour transmit session
indicated that the spacecraft and rover are in good
health. We received less data than expected from the Deep
Space Station located in Canberra Australia due to bad
weather. Although we expected to drive the rover today,
we were not able to do so due to critical Mars Global
Surveyor operations which occurred at the same time and
required extra DSN support.

So, we contacted the spacecraft after it woke up at 3:00
p.m. PDT, made sure it was healthy and then verified that
the expected super resolution imaging data and ASI/MET
measurements were being collected.

We played the rover wakeup song Slud by Jive of Clay,
reminding us of what the area near our landing site was
like 4.5 billion years ago. Earth set on Mars will be at
4:45 am and the Sun will set at 6:30 a.m. PDT on
September 26th.

The spacecraft will sleep from 5:17 a.m. and until 9:00
p.m. tomorrow PDT. We should receive data from the
spacecraft from between 10:00 p.m. and 3:30 a.m. this
time tomorrow. We are planning for the rover to drive
towards toward Mermaid Dune.

For further information on the Mars Pathfinder Mission,
please call our Mission Status Report line at
1-800-391-6654.