GRAHAM WARWICK / WASHINGTON DC
Agency analyses touchdown to plan for landing of second rover on Red Planet this Sunday
NASA is to aim its first Mars expedition rover, Spirit, at a nearby crater before sending the robotic vehicle towards a distant range of hills. Spirit rolled off its lander on 15 January, 12 days after it touched down in Gusev Crater.
The last cable connecting the rover to its lander was severed on 12 January, freeing Spirit to perform a three-stage, 115° clockwise pirouette to align with an unobstructed exit ramp. Efforts to retract sections of deflated landing airbag potentially blocking the ramp that the rover had planned to use failed.
Spirit drove 3m in 78s on the Martian surface, ending up 80cm from the foot of the egress ramp. It will head for a shallow depression about 250m (820ft) to the north east, with stops en route to sample soil and rocks in search of evidence that Gusev was once a lake. Scientists hope to find subsurface rocks ejected from the 200m-wide target crater.
NASA then plans to aim Spirit towards the East Hills Complex, a range of hills rising about 100m above the plain. The hills are 3km (2 miles) from the landing site, about five times the distance the rover was planned to travel during its 90-day mission. But getting closer to the hills will improve the detail provided by Spirit's panoramic camera and infrared spectrometer.
Based on analysis of Spirit's touchdown, NASA is fine-tuning plans for the 25 January landing of the second rover, Opportunity.
Source: Flight International
