From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Mon Jan 05 2004 - 06:14:27 PST
http://www.theithacajournal.com/news/stories/20040105/localnews/166573.html
CU staff, astronomy enthusiasts hail early success
By ANNE JU
Journal Staff; aju_at_ithaca.gannett.com
ITHACA -- Ithacans were thrilled to be close to the action Saturday night as the Mars Rover Spirit bounced calmly onto the Red Planet's surface.
Cries of joy and applause from Cornell's Space Sciences building met news of the first tonal signals indicating "I'm OK" from Spirit, shortly before midnight EST.
Moments later, champagne was passed around in plastic cups, as experts joined the celebration with colleagues thousands of miles away at mission control in California.
Scientists with personal stake in the mission and astronomy enthusiasts who wanted a piece of real life sci-fi hailed Spirit's apparently perfect landing.
"This is revolutionary," said Tim McConnochie, a graduate student of astronomy.
The local crowd of about 70 watched a live feed on three projection screens of NASA-TV, from Pasadena, Calif.
There, at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, mission control of the Mars Exploration Rovers listened and watched through what National Aeronautics and Space Administration official Ed Weiler dubbed "six minutes of hell," as the rover entered the Martian atmosphere.
Spirit's identical twin, Opportunity, is expected to reach Mars later this month.
In sync with the scientists at JPL, moments of anxious silence preceded news of Spirit's arrival at Mars' Gusev Crater while its fate was still unknown.
That was after initial, albeit cautious cheers when mission control confirmed that the rover's parachute, reverse rockets and airbags had worked properly. That slowed it to a viable landing speed as it approached the rocky Mars terrain.
"It's good to hear the plane didn't crash," said Anthony Toigo, a Cornell research associate in radiophysics and space. "But it's another to get the call from your mother or father."
But minutes after he spoke, the air was punctuated with another round of rejoicing. The call came, and Spirit was home.
Cornell astronomy researcher Don Banfield, who worked on the rover team, said the lag between Spirit's bounce-down signal and its tonal indication of survival was within expected limits, and the landing was smooth.
"It was somewhat expected to need a lot of processing to get the faint tones," he said.
Throughout the night, Cornell's connection to the world-class Mars Rover mission was clear. Every time the chief scientist for the mission, Steve Squyres, appeared onscreen, colleagues and friends in Cornell's astronomy department cheered or laughed.
Squyres is a professor of astronomy at Cornell, and for the months leading up to the mission, had divided his time between Ithaca and Pasadena.
Peter Thomas, a senior research associate in Cornell's astronomy department, called Spirit "powerfully modern," with a complex set of instruments that makes it the first of its kind.
"It's a real field geologist," he said. "This is a huge leap over previous missions."
Also in attendance Saturday, Cornell students Rich Chomko and J.R. Skok have a busy few weeks ahead. Working on Martian time of 24-hour and 39-minute days, they'll be part of the team that takes data from Spirit and Opportunity, and calibrates it to Earth scale so it can be analyzed.
"We have to do this fairly quickly," Chomko said.
And it wasn't just scientists who took part Saturday. Patty and David Thon, along with their children Leah, 12, and Margaret, 9, made the 45-minute drive from Marathon in time for the landing.
"To be part of history," Patty Thon said.
By about 3 a.m. Sunday, those still awake in Ithaca witnessed the first black-and-white images from Mars, courtesy of Spirit.
Originally published Monday, January 5, 2004
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