# Presentation: 514646

## Week in Review               

**Mars Exploration Rover Mission**

**Week in Review               **
**April 3 - April 9**

**Spirit               and Opportunity **

## Early in the week, 

**Opportunity came across a puzzling crack, consisting of deep dimples in the vast plains of Meridiani Planum.  **

**Navigation camera mosaic from Opportunity, 04/05/04**

## Driving closer to the trough, scientists were intrigued by the curious dimples containing rocks that resembled those in the Eagle Crater rock outcrop where Opportunity had landed.

**04/07/04**

**Driving closer to the trough, scientists were intrigued by the curious dimples containing rocks that resembled those in the Eagle Crater rock outcrop where Opportunity had landed.**

## Scientists named the trough “Anatolia” after the Anatolian fault system in Turkey.

**Notes:**
At the Edge of 'Anatolia'
This 360-degree image mosaic was constructed from a sequence of images taken by the navigation camera onboard the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. The mosaic was created from 10 images. 

The images were acquired on the 72nd martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's mission to Meridiani Planum. The camera acquired the images at approximately 16:00 local solar time, or just before midnight Pacific Daylight Time on April 6, 2004. 

The image was taken from the rover's current position along the edge of the large trough dubbed "Anatolia," located some 150 meters (492 feet) away from "Eagle Crater". Scientists will likely investigate the rocks contained here in coming sols.  The dark crater behind the trough can be seen from orbit. 

Anatolia was named after the Anatolian fault system in Turkey. 

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell 

## Meanwhile, the biggest news 

** ****04/04/04**

**Meanwhile, the biggest news **
**was that Spirit completed its primary mission of 90 sols and achieved MISSION SUCCESS!**

**Spirit’s path across the martian surface during its first 90 sols (martian days).**

**Notes:**
The first of the two rovers, Spirit, met the success criteria set for its prime mission. Spirit gained check marks in the final two boxes on April 3 and 5, when it exceeded 600 meters (1,969 feet) of total drive distance and completed 90 martian operational days after landing. 

Opportunity landed three weeks after Spirit. It will complete the two-rover checklist of required feats when it finishes a 90th martian day of operations April 26. Each martian day, or "sol," lasts about 40 minutes longer than an Earth day.

The mission success criteria are:  1) Launch 2 identical lander/rover missions to Mars during the 2003 launch opportunity aboard separate Delta II-class expendable launch vehicles.  2)  Each rover shall acquire science data and conduct in-situ (soil) analysis for 90 sols (90 martian days), and shall be designed for operations independent of the lander.  3)  At each landing site, acquire at least one full-color and at least one stereo 360 degree panoramic image of the landing site.  Acquire at least one image of a freshly exposed Mars rock that is also analyzed by another science instrument (i.e., microscopic imager, Mini-TES, APXS, or Moessbauer spectrometer).  4)  Drive the rovers to a total of at least eight separate locations and use the instrument suite to investigate the contet and diversity of the Mars geologic environment.  5)  Spirit and Opportunity  must operate simulataneously on the surface of Mars for at least 30 sols.  6)  At least one of the rovers shall demonstrate a total traverse path length of at least 600m.

This map shows the path the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has traveled since arriving on the red planet over 3 months ago. Spirit is still situated on the ejecta, or ejected material, of the 150-meter-wide (492-foot) crater dubbed "Bonneville." The ejecta appears white in this overhead image taken by the rover's descent image motion estimation system camera. The rover has stopped to investigate a rock called "Route 66," and will remain there, with its Moessbauer spectrometer pressed on the rock, through flight software updates scheduled to end on sol 98. During this time, the Moessbauer will take measurements of the rock. The alpha particle X-ray spectrometer , located on the opposite side of the rover's arm from the Moessbauer, will also be at work, acquiring data of the martian atmosphere for calibration purposes. Spirit is on its way to the eastern-lying "Columbia Hills." 

Image credit: NASA/JPL

## With barely a pause for a brief celebration, the Spirit team forged ahead on sol 91 and found a rock that they named “Route 66.”

**Route 66 is 23.6 inches (60 centimeters) wide and 9.4 inches (24 centimeters) high.***** ***

**With barely a pause for a brief celebration, the Spirit team forged ahead on sol 91 and found a rock that they named “Route 66.”**

**Notes:**
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit took this panoramic camera image on sol 91. It shows Spirit's current resting place at the base of a 60-centimeter-wide (23.6-inch-wide), 24-centimeter-high (9.4-inch-high) rock dubbed "Route 66." 

Found along Spirit's trek toward the Columbia Hills, this rock piqued scientists' interest because its light-toned and scalloped surface is very similar to the previously targeted rock called "Mazatzal." 

## Route 66 is one of many light-toned rocks on Mars that are of particular interest to scientists.

** ****04/05/04**

**Route 66 is one of many light-toned rocks on Mars that are of particular interest to scientists.**

**Scientists intended to find out if this light coating might have formed by the cementation of airborne dust, perhaps in a slightly wetter, past environment on the red planet... **

**Notes:**
This image taken by the Mars Exploration Rover's panoramic camera on sol 91 (April 5, 2004) shows the rover's ultimate destination - the eastern-lying "Columbia Hills." The rover will head toward the hills in coming sols, while stopping to investigate rocks and soils along the way. Of particular interest is the light-toned coating seen here on the low-lying rocks. Scientists intend to find out if this coating is the same as that observed on the well-studied rock dubbed "Mazatzal." They believe Mazatzal's coating may have formed by cementation of airborne dust, perhaps in a slightly wetter, past environment. The scientists also plan to determine if the soil here is the same as the somewhat cohesive soil seen near the rover's lander. Like the coatings, this soil may have formed in past moist environments. This image was taken with the panoramic camera's infrared (750 nanometer) filter. 

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell 

## ... but before Spirit could further analyze Route 66 and move toward other light-toned rocks, science had to go “on hold” for a few sols.

**Spirit looking back after reaching mission success on sol 90.**

**... ****but before Spirit could further analyze Route 66 and move toward other light-toned rocks, science had to go “on hold” for a few sols.**

**Notes:**
Following a long drive, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit took this backwards glance at its tracks across the landscape on sol 90 of its mission (April 4, 2004). The image is from Spirit's navigation camera. 

Image credit: NASA/JPL

## Spirit began a planned four-sol stand-down on sol 94, April 8, 2004, to receive new and improved software from Earth via the Deep Space Network antennas.

**Canberra, Australia DSN Complex**

**Spirit began a planned four-sol stand-down on sol 94, April 8, 2004, to receive new and improved software from Earth via the Deep Space Network antennas.**

**Notes:**
Spirit began a four-sol stand-down on sol 94, which ended at 8:37 p.m. on April 8, 2004. During this time, the rover will receive a flight software update that should make its remaining martian days even safer and more productive. The upload will run through sol 97 with a rover re-boot on sol 98, Monday, April 12. Opportunity will be receiving the same update package in upcoming sols.

Spirit is currently parked in front of the rock called "Route 66," and will remain there for the duration of the flight software update, with the Mössbauer spectrometer integrating on the rock, and the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer pointed up to the sky.

The flight software update package includes three key changes. First is an update to the autonomous navigation software that will allow Spirit to travel longer distances autonomously over the extremely rocky Gusev Crater terrain. The current autonomous navigation software sometimes gets stuck when it detects a hazard that it can't navigate around. The new version will allow Spirit to turn in place to find the best possible path.

The second part of the flight software update will allow Spirit to recover more easily from an anomaly like the one that occurred on sol 18. Although operational processes and software have already been updated to prevent something like this from ever happening again, engineers have included additional safety nets in the software that would allow the rover to autonomously react to a similar anomaly and recover to a more stable state.

The third portion of the update is specific to Opportunity and is intended to mitigate against energy loss associated with the stuck heater on Opportunity's instrument deployment device. The fix allows rover planners to put the rover in a deep sleep mode, where the batteries are totally removed from being able to power the stuck switch. Therefore, with no power reaching the stuck heater switch, the Opportunity rover battery will not be drained. Rover controllers will not initiate the deep sleep capability on Spirit unless it becomes necessary.

## The flight software upload gave many members of the rover team a much needed, first vacation in months!

**Opportunity began the same four-sol flight software upload on its 75th sol, April 9, 2004.**

**COMING UP!**

**Opportunity’s long-term goal is to reach **
**Endurance Crater and then the etched terrain area, **
**and Spirit’s goal is to reach the Columbia Hills.**

**Opportunity**

**During the flight software uploads, Opportunity will remain at the trough and Spirit will stay at Route 66.**

**Spirit**

**Notes:**
Spirit's Extended-Mission Destination
The drive route planned for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit during its extended mission is represented by the green line in this traverse map. The gold line traces the path Spirit drove during its prime mission of 90 sols. 

One objective for the rover's extended mission is to continue eastward to reach the high ground named "Columbia Hills," still about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) away at the beginning of the extended mission. 
The base image for this map was taken from orbit by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor. The entire area is within Gusev Crater. 
Image credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS/New Mexico Museum of Natural History

Meridiani Destinations
The starting point and planned destinations for surface travels of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity are indicated on this image of territory within Mars' Meridiani Planum region. Opportunity landed on Jan. 24, 2004, (Universal Time) in the small bowl later nicknamed "Eagle Crater." After about two months of examining rocks and soils within that crater, the rover set out toward a larger crater informally named "Endurance." During an extended mission following its three-month prime mission, Opportunity may finish examining Endurance, then head for a type of landscape to the southeast called "etched terrain." There, additional deposits of layered bedrock may lie exposed. The underlying image for the map was taken from orbit by the camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor. 
Image credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS