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Spirit successfully rolled off the lander and onto the martian surface last Thursday. To make the drive to Adirondack, the rover turned 40 degrees in short arcs totaling 95 centimeters (3.1 feet). It then turned in place to face the target rock and drove four short moves straightforward totaling 1.9 meters (6.2 feet). The moves covered a span of 30 minutes on Sunday, though most of that was sitting still and taking pictures between moves. The total amount of time when Spirit was actually moving was about two minutes. "The drive was designed for two purposes, one of which was to get to the rock," JPL's Dr. Eddie Tunstel said. "From the mobility engineers' standpoint, this drive was geared to testing out how we do drives on this new surface." He explained that gathering new information, such as how much the wheels slip in the martian soil, will give the team confidence for more ambitious drives in future weeks and months. Adirondack is now about one foot (30 centimeters) in front of the front wheels, according to Tunstel. Scientists chose Adirondack to be Spirit's first target rock rather than another rock, called Sashimi, that would have been a shorter, straight-ahead drive. Sashimi is more pitted than Adirondack. That makes it a poorer candidate for the rover's rock abrasion tool, which scrapes away a rock's surface for a view of the interior evidence about environmental conditions when the rock first formed. Adirondack has a nice, flat surface well suited to trying out the rover's tools on their first martian rock. Sashimi also appears dustier than Adirondack, which could interfere with observations of the rock's surface that could give information about chemical changes and other weathering from environmental conditions. Mission scientists think Adirondack is a volcanic rock but will test that hypothesis. Spirit arrived at Mars Jan. 3 (EST and PST; Jan. 4 Universal Time) after a seven-month journey. In coming weeks and months, according to plans, it will be exploring for clues in rocks and soil to decipher whether the past environment in Gusev Crater was ever watery and possibly suitable to sustain life. Spirit's twin Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity,
will reach Mars on Jan. 25 (EST and Universal Time; 9:05 p.m.,
Jan. 24, PST) to begin a similar examination of a site on the
opposite side of the planet from Gusev Crater. Previous article: Opportunity a Week Away from Mars |
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