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January 16, 2004 Rover's Robotic Arm Studies Soil with Microscope NASA's Spirit rover reached out with its versatile robotic arm for the first time early today and examined a patch of fine-grained martian soil with a microscope. The microscopic imager, one of four tools on a turret at the end of the arm, serves as the functional equivalent of a field geologist's hand lens for examining structural details of rocks and soils. Virtual Rover Deploys Arm Click for larger image Courtesy NASA/JPL Robotic Arm Reaches Out Click for larger image Courtesy NASA/JPL Dr. Ken Herkenhoff of the U.S. Geological Survey Astrogeology Team, Flagstaff, Ariz., said, "I'm elated and relieved at how well things are going. We got some great images in our first day of using the microscopic imager on Mars." Herkenhoff is the lead scientist for the microscopic imagers on Spirit and on Spirit's twin Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity. The microscope can show features as small as the width of a human hair. While analysis of today's images from the instrument has barely begun, Herkenhoff said his first impression is that some of the tiny particles appear to be stuck together. Before driving to a selected rock early next week, Spirit will rotate the turret of tools to use two spectrometer instruments this weekend on the same patch of soil examined by the microsope, said Jessica Collisson, mission flight director. The Mössbauer Spectrometer identifies types of iron-bearing minerals. The Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer identifies the elements in rocks and soils. The rover's arm is about the same size as a human arm, with comparable shoulder, elbow and wrist joints. It is one of the most dextrous and capable robotic devices ever flown in space, according to JPL's Dr. Eric Baumgartner, lead engineer for the robotic arm. "Spirit will take this arm, and the tremendous science package along with it, to reach out and investigate the surface," he said. The wheels Spirit travels on provide other ways to examine Mars' soil. Details visible in images of the wheel tracks from the rover's first drive onto the soil give information about the soil's physical properties. The first tracks show that the wheels did not sink too deep for driving and that the soil has very small particles that provide a finely detailed imprint of the wheels. Today, Spirit completes its 13th martian day, or "sol", at its landing site in Gusev Crater. Each sol lasts 39 minutes and 35 seconds longer than an Earth day. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.   Previous article: Spirit Successfully on Martian Soil