[meteorite-list] Mars Rover Opportunity Mission Status - July 18, 2003

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:21:07 2004
Message-ID: <200307190057.RAA01401_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Guy Webster (818) 354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Donald Savage (202) 358-1547
NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

News Release: 2003-101

July 18, 2003

Mars Rover Opportunity Mission Status

NASA's Opportunity spacecraft made its first trajectory correction
maneuver today, a scheduled operation to fine-tune its Mars-bound
trajectory, or flight path.

The spacecraft and its twin, Spirit, in NASA's Mars Exploration Rover
project are carrying field-geology robots for arrival at Mars in
January.

For the trajectory adjustment, flight team members at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., commanded Opportunity to
perform a prescribed sequence of thruster firings to adjust the
spacecraft's flight path.

"It looks like a beautiful burn," said Jim Erickson, Mars Exploration
Rover mission manager. "The thrusters fired correctly. We're on course
for putting both spacecraft on Mars."

The thruster-firing sequence had three main components. First, the
entire spacecraft, which is spinning at about 2 rotations per minute,
turned to point its spin axis in the direction of the needed course
correction. Next, thrusters that accelerate the spacecraft along the
direction of that axis burned steadily for about 54 minutes.
Afterwards, the spacecraft turned to its next standard cruise
attitude. The attitude is changed periodically during the cruise from
Earth to Mars to keep the spacecraft's antennas pointed toward Earth
and its solar panels facing the Sun.

The total trajectory correction maneuver amounted to a velocity change
of 16.2 meters per second (36 miles per hour) applied to Opportunity's
flight path. This velocity change has two major effects. The first is
to move the arrival time at Mars earlier by 1.48 days, to the intended
landing date at Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004, Universal Time
(January 24, Pacific Standard Time). The second effect is to move the
aimpoint at Mars from one that misses Mars by 340,000 kilometers
(211,000 miles) to one that is targeted to enter the atmosphere. At
launch, the spacecraft was intentionally targeted to miss Mars so that
the upper stage of the Boeing Delta II launch vehicle, traveling on a
nearly identical trajectory, would not hit Mars. A key purpose of
today's maneuver was to adjust for that initial targeting.

As of 6 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time July 19, Opportunity will have
traveled 31.5 million kilometers (19.6 million miles) since its July 7
launch. Spirit, launched on June 10, will have traveled 106.9 million
kilometers (66.4 million miles). Spirit completed its first
trajectory correction maneuver three weeks ago.

After arrival, the rovers will examine their landing areas for
geological evidence about the history of water on Mars.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the
Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Office of Space Science,
Washington, D.C. Additional information about the project is
available from JPL at

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer

and from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., at

http://athena.cornell.edu/ .


-end-
Received on Fri 18 Jul 2003 08:57:42 PM PDT