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

Second Mars rover begins sending pictures back to Earth AP Photos

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

PASADENA, California (AP) -- NASA's Opportunity rover sent its first color ``postcard'' Monday from the crater on Mars where it landed during the weekend, and 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, 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 Sunday 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 200 million kilometers (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 19,308 kph (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 0505 GMT in Meridiani Planum, believed to be the smoothest, flattest spot on Mars. Opportunity lies 10,620 kilometers (6,600 miles) and halfway around the planet from where Spirit landed on Jan. 3.

On Monday, NASA said Opportunity was in excellent health and Spirit was on the mend after a serious software problem that cut off what had been a steady flow of pictures and scientific data.

``Spirit is still serious but we are moving to guarded condition,'' project manager Pete Theisinger said, adding Spirit could resume normal operations in two to three weeks.

Opportunity landed in a crater roughly 18 meters (20 yards) across and rimmed with gentle slopes that shouldn't block the rolling robot once it gets going, said Steve Squyres, the mission's main scientist.

Opportunity could roll off its lander in 10 to 14 days, mission manager Arthur Amador said. Opportunity's possible targets include a larger crater, maybe 150 meters (500 feet) across, that lies an estimated 0.8 kilometers (half a 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 173-kilogram (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.

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. Hematite is common in the red soil found across the Southeastern United States and is frequently used as a pigment, said Doug Ming, of NASA's Johnson Space Center and a member of the science team.

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.

------

On the Net:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov

More News in this Category