[meteorite-list] Opportunity Reaches First Target Inside Crater

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2007 08:55:33 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <200709271555.IAA14816_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-109

Opportunity Reaches First Target Inside Crater
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
September 26, 2007

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has
reached its science team's first destination for the rover inside
Victoria Crater, information received from Mars late Tuesday confirms.

Opportunity has descended the inner slope of the 800-meter-wide crater
(half a mile wide) to a band of relatively bright bedrock exposed
partway down. The rover is in position to touch a selected slab of rock
with tools at the end of its robotic arm, after safety checks being
commanded because the rover is at a 25-degree tilt. Researchers intend
to begin examining the rock with those tools later this week.

"This will be the first of several stops within this band of rock," said
Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal
investigator for the science payloads on Opportunity and its twin rover,
Spirit. "By sampling it at several different levels in the crater, we?re
hoping to figure out the processes that led to its formation and its
very distinctive appearance."

Opportunity drove 2.25 meters (7.38 feet) on Sept. 25 to get the
selected flat rock within reach. That was the 1,305th Martian day of a
mission originally planned for 90 Martian days. After entering the
crater on Sept. 13 for a multi-week investigation of rock exposed
inside, the rover advanced toward the bright band with drives of 7.45
meters (24 feet) on Sept. 18, and 2.47 meters (8 feet) on Sept. 22.

"We have completed several successful drives with Opportunity inside
Victoria Crater," said John Callas, Mars rover project manager at NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The rover is experiencing
slopes as high as 25 degrees at some places, but wheel slippage has only
been around 10 percent."

Spirit, meanwhile, is exploring the top surface of a plateau called
"Home Plate," where rocks hold evidence about an explosive combination
of water and volcanism. JPL, a division of the California Institute of
Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for the
NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Media contacts: Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov

2007-109
Received on Thu 27 Sep 2007 11:55:33 AM PDT