[meteorite-list] Mars Exploration Rover Update - September 9, 2005

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Sep 9 22:46:19 2005
Message-ID: <200509100230.j8A2UYX14675_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

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

SPIRIT UPDATE: Moonstruck - sol 591-598, Sept 09, 2005:

Spirit is in good health, power positive, and has no issues. This week
the telecom team changed Spirit's uplink rate from 1000 bits per second
to 2000 bits per second. In its orbit around the Sun, Mars comes close
to Earth for a few months once every two years. Mars is now close enough
to Earth that the one-way communication travel time from the spacecraft
at Mars to the Deep Space Network antennas on Earth is only about 5
minutes away (at light speed). This shorter communication travel time
means that the rover team has plenty of communication-link margin to
support the higher uplink rate. The new uplink rate was successful
during the sol 598 uplink session.

Between Sept. 2 and Sept. 8, Spirit drove to another imaging location
and completed the second stereo imaging campaign. Spirit returned to
"Irvine" in order to explore what might be a dike, which is a crack-like
cut that often forms when magma from a volcano travels through or over
another rock. Spirit also performed more observations of the moons
Phobos and Deimos, and completed three days of Moessbauer spectrometer
readings on the capture magnets.

Sol-by-sol summaries:

Sol 592 (Sept. 2, 2005): Spirit drove to the second hilltop location for
stereo imaging.

Sol 593: Spirit performed remote sensing observations.

Sol 594 and 595: On both sols, Spirit performed a Moessbauer spectrometer
reading on a capture magnet, observed Phobos and Deimos, and did stereo
imaging.

Sol 596: Spirit performed a Moessbauer spectrometer reading on a capture
magnet and took images with 13 filters on the panoramic camera.

Sol 597: Spirit finished the panoramic camera imaging. Spirit used the
microscopic imager to take pictures of the capture and filter magnets,
and used the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer on the capture magnet.

Sol 598: Spirit drove back to Irvine.

As of the end of sol 598, (Sept. 8, 2005), Spirit has driven 4,895
meters (3.04 miles).
Received on Fri 09 Sep 2005 10:30:30 PM PDT