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Posted by on September 27, 2007, 11:56 am
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release 07-109
Opportunity Reaches First Target Inside Crater
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
September 26, 2007
PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has
reached its science team's first destination for the rover inside
Victoria Crater, information received from Mars late Tuesday confirms.
Opportunity has descended the inner slope of the 800-meter-wide crater
(half a mile wide) to a band of relatively bright bedrock exposed
partway down. The rover is in position to touch a selected slab of
rock
with tools at the end of its robotic arm, after safety checks being
commanded because the rover is at a 25-degree tilt. Researchers intend
to begin examining the rock with those tools later this week.
"This will be the first of several stops within this band of rock,"
said
Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal
investigator for the science payloads on Opportunity and its twin
rover,
Spirit. "By sampling it at several different levels in the crater,
were
hoping to figure out the processes that led to its formation and its
very distinctive appearance."
Opportunity drove 2.25 meters (7.38 feet) on Sept. 25 to get the
selected flat rock within reach. That was the 1,305th Martian day of a
mission originally planned for 90 Martian days. After entering the
crater on Sept. 13 for a multi-week investigation of rock exposed
inside, the rover advanced toward the bright band with drives of 7.45
meters (24 feet) on Sept. 18, and 2.47 meters (8 feet) on Sept. 22.
"We have completed several successful drives with Opportunity inside
Victoria Crater," said John Callas, Mars rover project manager at
NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The rover is experiencing
slopes as high as 25 degrees at some places, but wheel slippage has
only
been around 10 percent."
Spirit, meanwhile, is exploring the top surface of a plateau called
"Home Plate," where rocks hold evidence about an explosive combination
of water and volcanism. JPL, a division of the California Institute of
Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for
the
NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Media contacts: Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov
Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
2007-109
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