From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Wed Feb 18 2004 - 16:39:29 PST
>From: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory <info_at_jpl.nasa.gov>
>Reply-To: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory <info_at_jpl.nasa.gov>
>To: ljk4_at_msn.com
>Subject: Opportunity Digs; Spirit Advances
>Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 16:54:33 -0600
>
>Guy Webster (818) 354-5011
>Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
>
>Donald Savage (202) 358-1547
>NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
>
>News Release: 2004-062 February 17, 2004
>
>Opportunity Digs; Spirit Advances
>
>NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has scooped a
>trench with one of its wheels to reveal what is below the
>surface of a selected patch of soil.
>
>"Yesterday we dug a nice big hole on Mars," said Jeffrey
>Biesiadecki, a rover planner at NASA's Jet Propulsion
>Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
>
>The rover alternately pushed soil forward and backward out of
>the trench with its right front wheel while other wheels held
>the rover in place. The rover turned slightly between bouts
>of digging to widen the hole. "We took a patient, gentle
>approach to digging," Biesiadecki said. The process lasted 22
>minutes.
>
>The resulting trench -- the first dug by either Mars
>Exploration Rover -- is about 50 centimeters (20 inches) long
>and 10 centimeters (4 inches) deep. "It came out deeper than
>I expected," said Dr. Rob Sullivan of Cornell University,
>Ithaca, N.Y., a science-team member who worked closely with
>engineers to plan the digging.
>
>Two features that caught scientists' attention were the
>clotty texture of soil in the upper wall of the trench and
>the brightness of soil on the trench floor, Sullivan said.
>Researchers look forward to getting more information from
>observations of the trench planned during the next two or
>three days using the rover's full set of science instruments.
>
>Opportunity's twin rover, Spirit, drove 21.6 meters closer to
>its target destination of a crater nicknamed "Bonneville"
>overnight Monday to Tuesday. It has now rolled a total of
>108 meters (354 feet) since leaving its lander 34 days ago,
>surpassing the total distance driven by the Mars Pathfinder
>mission's Sojourner rover in 1997.
>
>Spirit has also begun using a transmission rate of 256
>kilobits per second, double its previous best, said JPL's
>Richard Cook. Cook became project manager for the Mars
>Exploration Rover Project today when the former manager,
>Peter Theisinger, switched to manage NASA's Mars Science
>Laboratory Project, in development for a 2009 launch.
>
>Spirit's drive toward "Bonneville" is based on expectations
>that the impact that created the crater "would have
>overturned the stratigraphy and exposed it for our viewing
>pleasure," said Dr. Ray Arvidson of Washington University in
>St. Louis, deputy principal investigator for the rovers'
>science instruments. That stratigraphy, or arrangement of
>rock layers, could hold clues to the mission's overriding
>question -- whether the past environment in the region of
>Mars where Spirit landed was ever persistently wet and
>possibly suitable for sustaining life.
>
>Both rovers have returned striking new pictures in recent
>days. Microscope images of soil along Spirit's path reveal
>smoothly rounded pebbles. Views from both rovers' navigation
>cameras looking back toward their now-empty landers show the
>wheel tracks of the rovers' travels since leaving the
>landers.
>
>Each martian day, or "sol" lasts about 40 minutes longer than
>an Earth day. Opportunity begins its 25th sol on Mars at
>10:59 p.m. Tuesday, PST. Spirit begins its 46th sol on Mars
>at 11:17 a.m. Wednesday, Pacific Standard Time. The two
>rovers are halfway around Mars from each other.
>
>JPL, a division of the California Institute of
>Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration
>Rover project for NASA's Office of Space Science,
>Washington, D.C. Images and additional information
>about the project are available from JPL at
>http://jpl.convio.net/site/R?i=7HiZZ_-MjshO-3BCLCXxIg.. and from Cornell
> http://jpl.convio.net/site/R?i=ByUcssAzdRtO-3BCLCXxIg..
>
>University at http://jpl.convio.net/site/R?i=zv7dqjkns8tO-3BCLCXxIg.. .
> http://jpl.convio.net/site/R?i=umSuydaMnpJO-3BCLCXxIg..
>
> -end-
>
>
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