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Spirit Makes It Four Miles At Home Plate
Pasadena CA (SPX) Feb 07, 2006 Over the Super Bowl weekend, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission controllers wrapped up all their work on a formation called Upper Overgaard. "It was a struggle, but everything's done, it's all in focus, and we're ready to move on," said chief scientists Steve Squyres. "With everything we wanted at Upper Overgaard in the can, we're now ready to move on to Roosevelt. Commands have been uplinked, and we'll see what we see next." Spirit continues to explore an area called Home Plate. As Spirit arrived at the front of the formation's north edge, Squyres called it "stunning - by far the best layering we've ever seen at Gusev," and urged interested Mars watchers to check out the images from Sol 744. "Only the fine-scale layering we've seen at Meridiani comes close," he said. So far, the team does not know what the rock's composition is. "This stuff could be volcanic," Squyres said. "It could have been formed by impact, or it could be sedimentary. Everything's on the table at this point. We've got a lot of work to do here." Next up is an outcrop named Gibson, after the baseball player Josh Gibson. Squyres said it will take a sol or two to approach it. "It's difficult terrain," he added, "rugged and steep, but the slopes face north, which is good for power, and the rover planners have gotten very good at dealing with this kind of stuff. So I'm optimistic." Meanwhile, the Mars rover mission team reports Spirit is healthy and continues to make progress toward Home Plate after driving more than 492 feet (150 meters), taking images, making atmospheric observations and analyzing Martian geology. They said Spirit completed two diagnostic tests of the dynamic brakes on sol 735 (Jan. 27), after the team detected a dynamic brake fault associated with the left-front and right-rear steering actuators on Sol 733. The tests duplicated the tests run after a similar anomaly on sol 265. Also on sol 735, Spirit performed a small wheel wiggle maneuver, and the action caused no dynamic brake warnings. The intermittent behavior of the relay status that controls the dynamic brakes, as well as the results of the diagnostic activities, are consistent with the behavior observed after the sol 265 anomaly, the team reported. They used the same resolution, which was to instruct the rover to ignore the dynamic brake error status. As a result, Spirit's driving has continued with normal steering function. Sol-by-sol summaries: Sol 735 (Jan. 27): Rover planners had a busy day of preparing and executing a dynamic brake diagnostic test in addition to a day of driving. Spirit drove 86.3 feet (26.3 meters) without using the steering motors on the left-front and right-rear wheels. Results of the diagnostic testing were consistent with behavior following an anomaly on sol 265 (Oct. 1, 2004). Spirit also acquired panoramic camera images of formations called Allegheny Ridge and YuGong. Sol 736: Rover science team members discovered an interesting rock and decided to spend a couple of days studying it with instruments on Spirit's robotic arm. Spirit collected a mosaic of microscopic images and collected spectrographic information with the Moessbauer instrument. Spirit took panoramic camera images of rock targets called Xing Tian, GongGong, Luo Zu, Sui Ren, Cang Jie, and it used the miniature thermal emission spectrometer to examine Cang Jie, Sui Ren, Ho Ji and Luo Zu. Sol 737: Spirit made remote sensing observations of Ho Ji and atmospheric observations using the rover's panoramic camera. Sol 738: Spirit began driving around a rocky ridge that separated the rover from Home Plate, traveling an additional 111 feet (33.7 meters). Following a complete analysis of diagnostic tests run on sol 735, rover drivers decided to follow the same recovery plan used after the sol 265 anomaly, and Spirit continued to drive without incident. Sol 739: Spirit drove about 100 feet (30.5 meters. The rover stopped after 49 feet (15 meters) of autonomous navigation because of a sequencing error. Rover drivers added an automated flight check to the sequence to catch future errors of a similar nature. Spirit was unable to complete most of the planned post-drive imaging. Sol 740: Rather than wait another day for Spirit to take a set of post-drive images, rover drivers gave Spirit the go-ahead to navigate independently using onboard instruments. Spirit drove 56 feet (17 meters) autonomously. Sol 741: Spirit drove 143 feet (43.5 meters) to the top of a gently sloping ridge, providing an excellent view of the path to Home Plate. Sol 742 (Feb. 3): Spirit prepared for a day of driving 97 feet (30 meters) as directed by rover drivers plus driving 15 meters to 20 meters autonomously. As of sol 741 (Feb. 2), Spirit's total odometry reached exactly 4 miles (6,430 meters). Related Links Mars Rovers at JPL Mars Rovers at Cornell
Making 3D Images Of Fossils Will Have Applications Beyond Earth
Washington DC (SPX) Feb 06, 2006UCLA paleobiologist J. William Schopf and colleagues have produced 3-D images of ancient fossils - 650 million to 850 million years old - preserved in rocks, an achievement that has never been done before. |
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