[meteorite-list] A Good Year on Mars for NASA Rover Opportunity

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Jan 25 13:35:25 2005
Message-ID: <200501251835.KAA03518_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://space.com/missionlaunches/opp_oneyr_050125.html

A Good Year on Mars for NASA Rover Opportunity
By Tariq Malik
space.com
25 January 2005

When it comes to long life, NASA's Mars rover Opportunity takes after
its robotic twin Spirit.

Today Opportunity officially hit the one-year mark in its mission to
explore Mars and send home data about the red planet's conditions and
its history of water. The longevity of the two rovers --
Spirit celebrated its own one-year anniversary on
Jan. 3 -- has been a stunning success for rover scientists and
engineers, who originally planned for just a 90-day mission.

"This whole mission has surpassed all of our expectations," said Steven
Squyres, principal investigator for the rover mission at Cornell
University.

Opportunity landed at
Meridiani Planum at 12:05 a.m. EST (0505 a.m. GMT) on Jan. 25, 2004,
though it was still late Jan. 24 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
(JPL) in Pasadena, California where the mission was being
managed. Squyres said the entire rover team, including managers,
engineers and scientists, planned a one-year celebration Monday night
during a two-day mission science meeting at JPL.

But while Squyres said he looked forward to anniversary party, he is
still waiting for Jan. 31. It was on that day in 2004 that Opportunity
rolled off its landing platform and planted six wheels in Martian soil,
he told SPACE.com.

"I've always felt that we had six terrifying events in this mission; two
launches, two landings and two egresses," Squyres said. "And it wasn't
until both [rovers] were in their native environments on Mars, for me,
that I could really feel like I could breathe a sigh of relief."

Only a few major glitches have plagued Opportunity, including a stuck
heater, which was a glutton for power early in the mission but
circumvented later by the addition of a "deep sleep" mode during a
software update. The rover's rear hazard-identification camera has also
suffered some minor mottling in images due to dust picked up during
recent investigations of its heat shield, JPL officials said.

A flood of science

Both Spirit and Opportunity have returned a wealth of data back to
Earth, but rover scientists concur that Opportunity has made the lion's
share of Mars science discoveries.

"When you look at the most important accomplishments of the mission, a
lot of them were due to Opportunity," Squyres said. "It was the one that
found the really powerful evidence for a habitable environment in Mars'
past. It's sort have been the good luck rover for this whole thing."

It was Opportunity's studies at its initial landing site Eagle Crater
that gave scientists conclusive proof that the region had once been
drenched in liquid water. Scientists now believe that Opportunity's
Meridiani Planum landing zone supported a habitable environment
and possibly a salty sea.

Matt Golombek, a rover scientist at JPL, spent years working to pinpoint
Opportunity's landing site.

"There, we have been extraordinary," Golombek said in a telephone
interview. "But we've only been able to look at a section of rock maybe
10 meters thick, and we want to know how do these rocks relate to what's
above and beneath them."

Mars rocks have not been the only target for Opportunity's panoramic
sights. The rover has also been able to swing by its own heat shield,
which it cast off during the fiery entry into Mars' atmosphere.
Opportunity's images and data taken of the scorched and twisted
debris may help engineers develop better heat shields for future
missions, NASA officials said.

The rover has also stumbled upon an iron meteorite, the
first ever found on another world, which has galvanized
rover and non-mission scientists alike to discuss its importance to
their understanding of Mars. But for Squyres, just the fact that
Opportunity has managed to move from Eagle Crater, to Endurance, to
its heat shield and the meteorite is impressive.

"The value of mobility can't be overstated," he said of both Opportunity
and Spirit. "We keep finding new stuff with both vehicles, and now this
completely new and different-looking rock. No matter when this mission
ends, there will still be something out there...that's one of the things
I've had to come to terms with."

More exploration ahead

NASA officials have said the Mars rover mission is currently funded
through March, with an average cost of about $3 million a month. But
Spirit and Opportunity are in their second lifetime extension since the
close of their respective 90-day mission in April 2004, and the prospect
of another extension seems good so long as they continue to send home
good data.

"There is certainly talk of getting another extension," Squyres said.

Rover handlers said that Opportunity, like its twin Spirit - which is
busy crawling over hills at its Gusev Crater landing site, still has
much to do. To date the rover has driven 1.3 miles (2.3 kilometers) and
engineers plan to send the rover toward a circular feature dubbed
"Vostok." A longer term goal for the rover is the vast Victoria Crater,
six times larger than Endurance, which lies across what researchers call
"etched terrain" -- a region they're not sure Opportunity will be able
to pass through.

"It's a very exciting time for Opportunity," Golombek said.
Received on Tue 25 Jan 2005 01:35:13 PM PST