Second Rover Lands Successfully on Mars

[BEER980]

Second Rover Lands Successfully on Mars


By ANDREW BRIDGES, AP Science Writer

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA (news - web sites)'s Opportunity rover successfully landed on Mars late Saturday, arriving at the Red Planet exactly three weeks after its identical twin set down, and prompting whoops and cheers of delight from mission scientists. "We're on Mars everybody," Rob Manning, manager of the entry, descent and landing portion of the Mars mission, shouted as fellow scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory burst into wild applause.

The unmanned, six-wheeled rover landed at 9:05 p.m. PST in Meridiani Planum, NASA said. The smooth, flat plain lies 6,600 miles and halfway around the planet from where its twin, Spirit, set down on Jan. 3. Minutes after the landing, former Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites) and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites) strode through mission control, shaking hands with elated scientists.


Together, the twin rovers make up a single $820 million mission to determine if Mars ever was a wetter world capable of sustaining life. NASA launched Spirit on June 10. Opportunity followed on July 7. Earlier this week, Spirit developed serious problems, cutting off what had been a steady flow of pictures and other scientific data. Scientists said earlier Saturday, however, that they believe they can fix the problem in the weeks ahead.

Opportunity, meanwhile, made what for it was a relatively soft landing, scientists said. Swaddled in protective air bags, it struck Mars at a force estimated to be two to three times Earth's gravity. Engineers had designed it to withstand as much as 40 G's, said Chris Jones, director of flight projects at JPL. "It probably barely noticed it hit anything," Jones said.

Manning said the signals it was sending indicated it was in good shape. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration had warned that it could take as long as 22 hours after Opportunity's landing for it to make contact with Earth, but it did so almost immediately.

Shortly before entering the martian atmosphere, Opportunity jettisoned its cruise stage, shedding the disc-shaped structure that had provided power, propulsion and communications capabilities during its seven-month trip through space. In the minutes before cruise separation, mission scientists at JPL broke open containers of "good luck peanuts" they had brought for the occasion, and Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, arrived to watch the drama unfold.


As they prepared for the landing, scientists also said they were closing in on the root of the problem that led the Spirit rover to begin spewing gibberish and beeps instead of science and engineering data earlier this week. They brought stability to the six-wheeled vehicle by disabling its flash memory, which is similar to the memory digital cameras use to store pictures, said Orlando Figueroa, director of NASA's Mars exploration program.

"We made good progress overnight," project manager Pete Theisinger said during a news conference at JPL. "The rover has been upgraded from critical to serious." Spirit had resumed transmitting data Friday, but only in limited batches. The malfunction, which appeared Wednesday, may prevent the rover from taking another drive on Mars for as long as three weeks, Theisinger said.

Despite its woes, scientists said there is still a chance Spirit can take up where it left off when it began malfunctioning. JPL Director Charles Elachi said other NASA spacecraft, including Voyager, Magellan and Galileo, have recovered from even graver problems. "I am completely confident, without any hesitation, that I think we will get that rover back to full operation," Elachi said.

The rover developed problems after working nearly flawlessly for days.
Mission members were able to stop the rover from rebooting its computer as it had done roughly 130 times and place it in so-called "cripple" mode to bypass its troubled flash memory. They also succeeded in coaxing the robot to sleep after it stayed up two nights in a row when it should have been turned off to conserve power.

The root cause of Spirit's problems remained elusive, however, and NASA's inability to reproduce the problem in laboratory tests of its software on Earth suggests that something is awry with the rover's hardware, Theisinger said. The problem may prevent Spirit from taking another drive on Mars for as long as three weeks.

Before it began to malfunction, Spirit took thousands of pictures and began its work prospecting the soil and rocks around its landing site. As Spirit shut down systems and "slept" 124 million miles from Earth, Opportunity made a flawless arrival on the other side of Mars.

Like Spirit did three weeks ago, it had to execute a choreographed sequence of events to ensure its safe arrival. The only difference: Opportunity had to open its parachute 4,500 feet higher above Mars than Spirit did to compensate for the higher elevation of its landing site.

NASA sent Spirit to Gusev Crater, a broad depression believed to once have contained a lake. It launched Opportunity toward Meridiani Planum, a flat, smooth region relatively free of the reddish dust that cloaks Gusev. Scientists believe Meridiani abounds in a mineral called gray hematite, which typically forms in marine or volcanic environments rich in water.

Not since the 1976 landing of the twin Viking landers has NASA had two working spacecraft on the surface of Mars. NASA launched two rovers to double its chances of successfully landing on Mars. Just one in three international efforts to land on the Red Planet has succeeded.

The list of failures may include the British lander Beagle 2, which has not been heard from since attempting to set down in December.

On the plus side, there are now a record five spacecraft either on or near Mars. Two NASA spacecraft and one from the European Space Agency are orbiting the planet.

Source

[David]

PASADENA, Calif. (Jan. 25) - NASA's Opportunity rover zipped its first pictures of Mars to Earth early Sunday, delighting and puzzling scientists just hours after the spacecraft bounced to a landing on the opposite side of the red planet from its twin rover, Spirit.

The pictures showed a surface smooth and dark red in some places, and strewn with fragmented slabs of light bedrock in others. Bounce marks apparently left by the rover's air bags when it landed were clearly visible.

"I am flabbergasted. I am astonished. I am blown away. Opportunity has touched down in an alien and bizarre landscape,'' Steven Squyres, the mission's main scientist, said early Sunday. "I still don't know what we're looking at.''

NASA began receiving the first of dozens of black-and-white and color images from Opportunity about four hours after its apparently flawless landing. Mars at the time was 124 million miles from Earth.

Mission members hooted and hollered as the images splashed on a screen in mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was there with his wife, Maria Shriver, to watch the drama unfold, and walked through mission control shaking hands with the scientists.

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

Swaddled in protective air bags, Opportunity plunged into the martian atmosphere at more than 12,000 mph and bounced down on Mars at 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 G's, said Chris Jones, director of flight projects at JPL.

The six-wheeled rover landed at 12:05 a.m. EST in Meridiani Planum, believed to be the smoothest, flattest region on Mars. It lies 6,600 miles and halfway around the planet from where Opportunity's twin, Spirit, landed on Jan. 3.


"It's far better to be lucky than good, but you know, the harder we work the luckier we seem to get."
-Sean O'Keefe, NASA administrator

Initial analysis of the images suggested Opportunity landed in a shallow crater. Its low rim shouldn't block the rolling robot once it gets going, Squyres said.


"It's smooth sailing to the horizon,'' he said.

The rover's path off its lander also appeared unobstructed, unlike Spirit's landing, when a deflated air bags blocked its planned route to the martian surface, mission manager Matt Wallace said.

Together, the twin 384-pound rovers make up a $820 million mission to seek out geologic evidence that Mars was 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. Scientists rebooted the

Scientists said Saturday they should be able to fix the problem in coming weeks. JPL director Charles Elachi said other NASA spacecraft, including Voyager, Magellan and Galileo, recovered from even graver problems.

NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe broke open a bottle of champagne and toasted the mission.

"As the old saying goes, it's far better to be lucky than good, but you know, the harder we work the luckier we seem to get,'' O'Keefe said, adding "no one dared hope'' that both rover landings would be so successful.

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.

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.


01/25/04 09:00 EST

[vbhoutex]

It all looks great to start, just like spirit did, but the Maratians will get this one too, just like they did spirit and all the rest.

[GalvestonDuck]

LOL, David! That reminds me of a pic I saw after the Polar Lander was lost. It was an illustration of a little green alien-being, driving around in the Lander.

[vbhoutex]

The reason I know this to be true is I have a picture of a martian looking in th elens of the cmaera on the Spirit rover.hehehe Have one of another picture that Spirit too with a McDonalds sign in the background too! It'll just be a matter of time till they find the latest one too.hehehe