NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity on Monday managed to climb up and out of the crater that it explored for nearly two months, overcoming a slippery slope that left the vehicle spinning its wheels during an earlier attempt. The short drive across the sandy inner rim of Eagle Crater placed the rover outside the shallow depression for the first time since it landed January 24, 2004.
March 22nd, 2004
Spirit Update: One Step Closer
Spirit woke up on sol 77, which ended at 8:24 a.m. PST on March 22, 2004, to “One Step Closer” by the Doobie Brothers, since the rover was to make its final approach to the rock target named “Mazatzal” today.
March 22nd, 2004
Opportunity Update: Opportunity Leaves the Nest
After a slightly slippery start yestersol, Opportunity made it out of “Eagle Crater”on sol 57, which ends at 8:45 p.m. PST on March 22. The drive along the crater’s inner slope that was initiated on the last sol continued this sol until Opportunity exited its landing-site crater. Images from the navigation camera confirm that the rover is about 9 meters (about 29.5 feet) outside of the crater.
March 22nd, 2004
News flash from the Red Planet
NASA’s top officials and the Mars rover missions’ top scientists will announce “a major scientific finding” at 2 p.m. ET Tuesday, the space agency announced today. The last time a Mars news briefing was announced just a day in advance, it was to report geological hints that the Opportunity rover’s landing site was “drenched” with water many millions or even billions of years ago. Those were considered “significant findings.” So how does a major finding compare? One could argue that “major” outranks “significant,” because NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe is due to give opening remarks this time around.
March 22nd, 2004
NASA Announces Major Mars Rover Finding on Tuesday, 23 March
NASA will announce a major scientific finding at a Space Science Update (SSU) Tuesday at 2 p.m. EST, in the headquarters Webb Auditorium, 300 E St. SW, Washington. The Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Opportunity is exploring the martian Meridiani Planum and recently discovered evidence rocks at the landing site have been altered by water.
March 22nd, 2004
Opportunity: Try Again to Exit Crater
NASA’s Opportunity tried driving uphill out of its landing-site crater during its 56th sol, ending at 10:05 p.m. March 21, PST, but slippage prevented success. The rover is healthy, and it later completed a turn to the right and a short drive along the crater’s inner slope. Controllers plan to send it on a different route for exiting the crater on sol 57.
March 22nd, 2004
Pitman native takes ‘Opportunity’ to be a part of Mars mission Gloucester County Times
Just because you have the only car on the road, that doesn’t mean you can speed.
“We wish there could be speeding,” 38-year-old Pitman native Frank Hartman jokes via telephone from his Pasadena, Ca. home. He is referring to the leisurely pace of his current method of transportation — a little 384-pound rover called Opportunity, one of two currently cruising the surface of Mars.
March 22nd, 2004
Iron Blueberries Astrobiology Magazine
MER mission scientists have found hematite in the small spherical “blueberries” embedded in the rock outcrop near Opportunity’s landing site. They speculate that the broad plain surrounding Eagle Crater, where the rover landed, may be littered with blueberries.
March 21st, 2004
Off-Off-Off-Roading on Mars in a $414 Million S.U.V. The New York Times
To date, there are no traffic jams on Mars. This is a good thing for John R. Wright, an engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory here, whose daily drive includes time at the controls of the Mars rover Spirit, whose $414 million price tag makes the most luxurious Range Rover look cheap.
March 20th, 2004
Mars’s Air Up There Sky & Telescope
Since their arrival on the red planet, the Mars Exploration Rovers have sent back thousands of breathtaking pictures of the ruddy landscape. The rovers are doing much more than analyzing rocks and looking for water. Michael Wolff (Planetary Science Institute), Michael Smith (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center), and others have been using Spirit and Opportunity to learn as much as they can about Mars’s atmosphere and weather.