[meteorite-list] NASA Mars Rover Images Honor Apollo 12

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:50:23 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201011190050.oAJ0oNeW019293_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-388
  
NASA Mars Rover Images Honor Apollo 12
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
November 18, 2010

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has
visited and photographed two craters informally named for the spacecraft
that carried men to the moon 41 years ago this week.

Opportunity drove past "Yankee Clipper" crater on Nov. 4 and reached
"Intrepid crater" on Nov. 9. For NASA's Apollo 12, the second mission to
put humans onto the moon, the command and service module was called
Yankee Clipper, piloted by Dick Gordon, and the lunar module was named
Intrepid, piloted by Alan Bean and commanded by the late Pete Conrad.
The Intrepid landed on the moon with Bean and Conrad on Nov. 19, 1969,
while Yankee Clipper orbited overhead. Their landing came a mere four
months after Apollo 11's first lunar landing.

This week, Bean wrote to the Mars Exploration Rover team: "I just talked
with Dick Gordon about the wonderful honor you have bestowed upon our
Apollo 12 spacecraft. Forty-one years ago today, we were approaching the
moon in Yankee Clipper with Intrepid in tow. We were excited to have the
opportunity to perform some important exploration of a place in the
universe other than planet Earth where humans had not gone before. We
were anxious to give it our best effort. You and your team have that
same opportunity. Give it your best effort."

Rover science team member James Rice, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center, Greenbelt, Md., suggested using the Apollo 12 names. He was
applying the rover team's convention of using names of historic ships of
exploration for the informal names of craters that Opportunity sees in
the Meridian Planum region of Mars.

"The Apollo missions were so inspiring when I was young, I remember all
the dates. When we were approaching these craters, I realized we were
getting close to the Nov. 19 anniversary for Apollo 12," Rice said. He
sent Bean and Gordon photographs that Opportunity took of the two craters.

The images are available online at
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA13593 and
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA13596. Intrepid crater is
about 20 meters (66 feet) in diameter. Yankee Clipper crater is about
half that width.

After a two-day stop to photograph the rocks exposed at Intrepid,
Opportunity continued on a long-term trek toward Endeavour crater, a
highly eroded crater about 1,000 times wider than Intrepid. Endeavour's
name comes from the ship of James Cook's first Pacific voyage.

During a drive of 116.9 meters (383.5 feet) on Nov. 14, Opportunity's
"odometer" passed 25 kilometers (15.53 miles). That is more than 40
times the driving-distance goal set for Opportunity to accomplish during
its original three-month prime mission in 2004.

Mars Exploration Project Manager John Callas, of NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., said, "Importantly, it's not how far the
rovers have gone but how much exploration and science discovery they
have accomplished on behalf of all humankind."

At the beginning of Opportunity's mission, the rover landed inside
"Eagle crater," about the same size as Intrepid crater. The team's name
for that landing-site crater paid tribute to the lunar module of Apollo
11, the first human landing on the moon. Opportunity spent two months
inside Eagle crater, where it found multiple lines of evidence for a wet
environment in the area's ancient past.

The rover team is checking regularly for Opportunity's twin, Spirit, in
case the increasing daily solar energy available at Spirit's location
enables the rover to reawaken and resume communication. No signal from
Spirit has been received since March 22. Spring began last week in the
southern hemisphere of Mars.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena,
manages the Mars Exploration Rovers for the NASA Science Mission
Directorate, Washington. For more information about the rovers, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/rovers.

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

Nancy Neal Jones 301-286-0039
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
nancy.n.jones at nasa.gov

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

2010-388
Received on Thu 18 Nov 2010 07:50:23 PM PST