• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Opportunity Mars Rover Scores a Hole in One

Posted on: Monday, 26 January 2004, 06:00 CST

By ANDREW BRIDGES

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) -- NASA's Opportunity rover on Monday sent its first color "postcard" from the crater on Mars where it landed during the weekend, as engineers prepared to begin purging computer files on the spacecraft's hobbled twin to restore its health.

The new image from Opportunity shows the smooth, brick-red slopes of a shallow crater, broken up by a fragmented slab of bedrock that has excited scientists.

"It's going to be a wonderful area for geologists to explore with our rover," said Jim Bell, of Cornell University and the main scientist on Opportunity's panoramic camera.

Opportunity began sending images to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory about four hours after it bounced to a landing late Saturday on the opposite side of the Red Planet from its temporarily crippled twin, Spirit.

Bounce marks left by the rover's air bags when it landed were clearly visible. Mars at the time was 124 million miles from Earth.

"The pictures just blow me away. We've certainly not been to this place before," deputy project manager Richard Cook said.

Opportunity plunged into the martian atmosphere at more than 12,000 mph and bounced down on Mars just six minutes later, swaddled in protective air bags. It hit with a force estimated to be just two to three times that of Earth's gravity. Engineers had designed it to withstand as much as 40 Gs, said Chris Jones, director of flight projects at JPL.

The six-wheeled rover landed at 9:05 p.m. PST in Meridiani Planum, believed to be the smoothest, flattest spot on Mars. Opportunity lies 6,600 miles and halfway around the planet from where its twin, Spirit, landed on Jan. 3.

On Monday, NASA said Opportunity was in excellent health and Spirit was on the mend after a serious software problems had hobbled it.

Opportunity landed in a crater roughly 20 yards across and rimmed with gentle slopes that shouldn't block the rolling robot once it gets going, said Steve Squyres, of Cornell and the mission's main scientist.

Opportunity could roll off its lander in 10 to 14 days' time, mission manager Arthur Amador said. Opportunity's possible targets include a larger crater, maybe 500 feet across, that lies an estimated half-mile from where the spacecraft landed.

The rover's ramp off its lander also appeared unobstructed, unlike Spirit's landing, when a deflated air bag blocked its safest route to the martian surface, said Matt Wallace, another of the mission managers.

Together, the twin 384-pound rovers make up a $820 million mission to seek out geologic evidence that Mars was once a wetter world possibly capable of sustaining life. NASA launched Spirit on June 10 and Opportunity on July 7. Each carries nine cameras and six scientific instruments.

On Wednesday, Spirit developed serious problems, cutting off what had been a steady flow of pictures and scientific data.

Engineers believe Spirit has too little random-access memory to adequately manage its flash memory. They temporarily disabled Spirit's flash memory to ease the burden on its random-access memory, ending a looping sequence of computer reboots that had plagued the spacecraft, mission manager Jennifer Trosper said.

Engineers planned to do a health check on Spirit's flash memory on Tuesday, and then begin deleting hundreds of unneeded files to make the memory more manageable for Spirit's random-access memory, Trosper added.

"It's kind of like we have a patient in rehab and we are nursing her back to health," Trosper said.

Spirit could resume normal operations in two to three weeks, mission members said.

NASA sent Spirit to Gusev Crater, a broad depression believed to once have contained a lake. Opportunity was sent to Meridiani Planum, which scientists believe abounds in a mineral called gray hematite.

The iron-rich mineral typically forms in marine or volcanic environments marked by hydrothermal activity.

NASA launched two rovers to double its chances of successfully landing on Mars. Both carry identical plaques memorializing the seven astronauts who died aboard space shuttle Columbia nearly a year ago, Opportunity mission manager Jim Erickson said.

As of early Sunday, there were a record five spacecraft operating on or around Mars, including two NASA satellites and one from the European Space Agency orbiting the planet.

About the Mars Exploration Rover Mission

NASA's twin robot geologists, the Mars Exploration Rovers, launched toward Mars on June 10 and July 7, 2003, in search of answers about the history of water on Mars. Spirit landed on January 3, and Opportunity is scheduled to land on January 24, 2004.

The Mars Exploration Rover mission is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the red planet.

Primary among the mission's scientific goals is to search for and characterize a wide range of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity on Mars. The spacecraft are targeted to sites on opposite sides of Mars that appear to have been affected by liquid water in the past.

The landing sites are at Gusev Crater, a possible former lake in a giant impact crater, and Meridiani Planum, where mineral deposits (hematite) suggest Mars had a wet past.

This image from the navigation camera on the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has been projected to show an overhead perspective of the rover. This image was taken shortly after the rover touched down at Meridiani Planum, Mars, at approximately 9:05 p.m. PST on Saturday, Jan. 24. Image Credit: NASA/JPL

This "postcard" from the panoramic camera on the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows the view of the martian landscape southwest of the rover. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell

This color image shows the martian landscape at Meridiani Planum, where the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity successfully landed at 9:05 p.m. PST on Saturday. This is one of the first images beamed back to Earth from the rover shortly after it touched down. The image was captured by the rover's panoramic camera. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell

After the airbag-protected landing craft settle onto the surface and open, the rovers will roll out to take panoramic images.

These will give scientists the information they need to select promising geological targets that will tell part of the story of water in Mars' past. Then, the rovers will drive to those locations to perform on-site scientific investigations over the course of their 90-day mission.

These are the primary science instruments to be carried by the rovers:

-- Panoramic Camera (Pancam): for determining the mineralogy, texture, and structure of the local terrain.

-- Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES): for identifying promising rocks and soils for closer examination and for determining the processes that formed Martian rocks. The instrument will also look skyward to provide temperature profiles of the Martian atmosphere.

-- Mössbauer Spectrometer (MB): for close-up investigations of the mineralogy of iron-bearing rocks and soils.

-- Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS): for close-up analysis of the abundances of elements that make up rocks and soils.

-- Magnets: for collecting magnetic dust particles. The Mössbauer Spectrometer and the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer will analyze the particles collected and help determine the ratio of magnetic particles to non-magnetic particles. They will also analyze the composition of magnetic minerals in airborne dust and rocks that have been ground by the Rock Abrasion Tool.

-- Microscopic Imager (MI): for obtaining close-up, high-resolution images of rocks and soils.

-- Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT): for removing dusty and weathered rock surfaces and exposing fresh material for examination by instruments onboard.

A goal for the rover is to drive up to 40 meters (about 44 yards) in a single day, for a total of up to one 1 kilometer (about three-quarters of a mile).

Moving from place to place, the rovers will perform on-site geological investigations. Each rover is sort of the mechanical equivalent of a geologist walking the surface of Mars. The mast-mounted cameras are mounted 1.5 meters(5 feet) high and will provide 360-degree, stereoscopic, humanlike views of the terrain.

The robotic arm will be capable of movement in much the same way as a human arm with an elbow and wrist, and will place instruments directly up against rock and soil targets of interest.

In the mechanical "fist" of the arm is a microscopic camera that will serve the same purpose as a geologist's handheld magnifying lens. The Rock Abrasion Tool serves the purpose of a geologist's rock hammer to expose the insides of rocks.

-----

Follow every step of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission with RedNova. Click here to learn more...

-----

On the Net:

Mars Exploration Rover Mission

NASA

Cornell University Athena

More science, space, and technology from RedNova

Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All right reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

More News in this Category