Spirit Continues To Compile Panoramic Image

May 18, 2006

The latest report on NASA's Spirit rover shows it continuing to make progress on collecting images as part of its McMurdo panorama, as well as conducting detailed studies of soil targets on its wintering slope using the Mössbauer spectrometer.

The rover has acquired another column of the McMurdo panorama and relayed new data to Earth via the UHF antenna on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter.

Sol-by-sol summary

Sol 835 (May 9): Spirit conducted scientific analysis of the soil target Halley using its Mössbauer spectrometer. Spirit also acquired panel 11 of the planned 27 panel, 360 degree, full-color McMurdo panorama.

Sol 836: Spirit conducted remote sensing observations.

Sol 837: Spirit continued acquisition of scientific data from Halley using the Mössbauer spectrometer.

Sol 838: Spirit continued acquisition of scientific data from Halley using the Mössbauer spectrometer.

Sol 839 to 841 (May 13 to 15): Mission controllers moved Spirit's robotic arm back to the soil target nicknamed Progress, where the rover previously brushed away a fine layer of soil. The next phase of the rover's detailed winter soil analysis experiment will be to conduct a three-day study of the brushed surface using the Mössbauer spectrometer. Controllers have kept plans for remote sensing very light in order to devote resources to transmitting data acquired in recent weeks.

As of sol 841 (May 15), Spirit's odometry totaled 6,876.18 meters (4.27 miles), and is expected to remain so for the duration of the Martian winter at Gusev Crater.

Copyright 2006 by Space Daily, Distributed United Press International