[meteorite-list] Mars Exploration Rover Update - January 5, 2005

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Jan 6 12:14:59 2005
Message-ID: <200501061714.JAA25482_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status.html

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Sizing Up the Heat Shield - sol 325-332,
January 05, 2005

Opportunity is healthy and has reached the site where its heat shield
hit the ground. The rover will make detailed observations of the heat
shield's remains, weather permitting. The rover experienced its first
dust storm since landing, which has affected the amount of energy
Opportunity gets each sol. When the rover landed nearly one Earth year
ago, a dust storm was subsiding and the atmosphere had an opacity of 0.9
(the higher the number, the murkier the skies). Since then, the opacity
had improved significantly and was roughly 0.5 on sol 327. On sol 328
the opacity jumped to 0.6 then to 0.8, 1.2, and 1.25 on sols 329-331. As
of sol 332 it is at 1.2 and dropping. Images from Mars Global Surveyor
orbiter have confirmed the presence of a few small dust storms in the
region. The energy intake has decreased roughly 30 percent, leaving
Opportunity with less energy for operations and communications but still
enough, with comfortable margin, to continue with the plan to
investigate the heat shield remains. The dust storms will be monitored
carefully using the rover's own instruments and images from Mars Global
Surveyor. The team will also be walking through low-energy contingencies
should they become necessary.

Sol-by-sol summaries:

On sol 325, Opportunity drove 27 meters (about 89 feet) backward, to
"West Point." It imaged the heat shield debris field from that vantage
point. The engineers choose to occasionally drive the rover backward for
convenience and to keep the wheel-motor lubrication more evenly distributed.

Sol 326 was the second sol of a two-sol plan. This sol was spent imaging
the heat shield debris field.

On sols 327 to 329, the M?ssbauer spectrometer was placed on the
compositional calibration target for a series of observations over the
Earth weekend. This is done periodically to calibrate the M?ssbauer
instrument. The rover continued routine atmospheric observations and
remote sensing of the heat shield debris field.

On sol 330, Opportunity used its panoramic camera to take images of the
heat shield debris field, then drove 15 meters (about 49 feet) to a
location called "South Point" for another look at the debris field.

On sol 331, Opportunity drove roughly 10 meters (33 feet) to approach
the flank portion of the heat shield remains. The heat shield broke into
two main piece when it hit the ground. The flank is the smaller of those
portions.

On sol 332, which ended on Dec. 30, the rover made its final approach to
the flank portion of the heat shield wreckage in preparation for
close-up inspection of the heat shield material over the New Year's
holiday weekend. The drive brought Opportunity's odometer total to 2,051
meters (1.27 miles).
Received on Thu 06 Jan 2005 12:14:47 PM PST