Spectrometers Sample Clean And Dirty Targets

MARSDAILY

This overview of "Endurance Crater" traces the path of the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity from sol 94 (April 29, 2004) to sol 205 (August 21, 2004). The route charted to enter the crater was a bit circuitous, but well worth the extra care engineers took to ensure the rover's safety. On sol 94, Opportunity sat on the edge of this impressive, football field-sized crater while rover team members assessed the scene. After traversing around the "Karatepe" region and past "Burns Cliff," the rover engineering team assessed the possibility of entering the crater. Careful analysis of the angles Opportunity would face, including testing an Earth-bound model on simulated martian terrain, led the team to decide against entering the crater at that particular place. Opportunity then backed up before finally dipping into the crater on its 130th sol (June 5, 2004). The rover has since made its way down the crater's inner slope, grinding, trenching and examining fascinating rocks and soil targets along the way. The rover nearly made it to the intriguing dunes at the bottom of the crater, but when it got close, the terrain did not look safe enough to cross.

Pasadena CA (JPL) Sep 15, 2004
On sol 215 Opportunity completed a reading with its Moessbauer spectrometer of a target called "Kirchner," where a wire brush on the rover's rock abrasion tool had scrubbed a circular patch on the surface of a rock called "Escher."

The rover also made some remote-sensing observations then then set up for using its alpha particle X-ray spectrometer on Kirchner early the following morning.

However, an image from the rover's hazard-avoidance camera revealed that the doors of the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer had not completely opened.

The door is a tricky mechanism; incomplete openings and closings have occurred before, and the team continues to work on approaches to more reliably maneuver the door.

On sol 216 the rover successfully acquired early morning alpha particle X-ray spectrometer data on Kirchner. Despite the incomplete opening of the instrument's dust doors, the spectra look good.

No repeat of the integration will be necessary. The rover also used the Moessbauer spectrometer to examine another brushed target, "EmilNolde," on Escher. This reading was planned to run into the evening then later, following a deep sleep, to resume in the early morning of sol 217.

The Moessbauer placement went fine. The rover was commanded to close and reopen the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer doors and this went well. The doors are now properly open and ready for action on sol 217.

On sol 217, which ended on Sept. 3, Opportunity used its rock abrasion tool to brush a target called "Otto Dix," and used its microscopic imager to look at the brushed area.

Then the rover was commanded to place the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer on EmilNolde, precisely on a "dirty" portion of that target (an area that was not very well cleared away by the brush action a few sols ago).

The plan was to collect data with the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer in the evening, perform a move in the middle of the night to a cleanly brushed portion of EmilNolde and integrate again until morning.

These two integrations will be used to discern the differences between the "clean" and "dirty" portions of the target.

A 100-megabit afternoon downlink through Mars Odyssey on sol 217 showed that all activities went well through the placement of the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer on the "dirty" part of EmilNolde.

MARSDAILY

Spirit On Autopilot

Pasadena CA (JPL) Sep 10, 2004
Spirit is in safe place to continue daily science observations automatically throughout the solar conjunction period when engineers and scientists will be unable to send commands reliably to the rover.

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