Opportunity is on the surface of Mars.

[Integral]

They say it is about 24km North of the center of the predicted landing zone, in other words right on target. It began communicating as soon as it hit the ground. Not to bad, should be a interesting few weeks ahead.

 

[Jeebus]

Originally posted by Integral
They say it is about 24km North of the center of the predicted landing zone, in other words right on target. It began communicating as soon as it hit the ground. Not to bad, should be a interesting few weeks ahead.

Hopefully it doesn't do what Spirit is doing now, eh? Transmitions working on 120 megabytes per whatever, won't "go to sleep", reboots itself after every new find. I still give credit to NASA though. Oppurtunity shall be interesting to watch in the next couple weeks.

 

[LURCH]

Did anybody watch the live webcast? What a ride!

 

[Integral]

I missed the live landing, but watched the live feed of the first data transmission from Odessey and the Press Conferance that followed.

 

[Integral]

They say Opportunity has landed INSIDE a small crater, and a significantly larger crater is nearby and should be easily accessible. The geologist are ecstatic.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by LURCH
Did anybody watch the live webcast? What a ride!

A work of art as well!

It was awesome: Speed 12,000 MPH. After 6 minutes of clockwork precision of who knows how many systems working exactly as planned, chute deployed, retro's fired, chute released, and then we land with 3g's of force [the design limit was 40g's]. Then...confirmation of bouncing, confirmation of rolling, the no error signal recieved, and four hours later the thumbnails fill the NASA screen at 200 Meg. It doesn't get any better! And the website takes you right into the control room for the real time data.

Fantastic!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Opportunity Closing in on Scientific Jackpot

NASA’s Opportunity rover appears to have hit a scientific jackpot sitting in a crater at the Meridiani Planum on Mars. Expectations are running high here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) that the spacecraft should be able to deliver on the Holy Grail of Mars research: Where’s the water and could life have ever existed on the Red Planet?[continued]

good pictures

http://space.com/missionlaunches/opportunity_update_040127.html

 

[Phobos]

Opportunity rover update: Engineers are trying to fix a power drain problem, but they're still planning to start the rover rolling as early as this Sunday.

 

[LURCH]

5 am here in Michigan, and Mission Controll just received a confirmation signal from the rover acknowledging that it had received the command to go ahead with egress. Given the lightspeed lag time in signals, that should mean that we are already "six wheels dirty" on Mars.

 

[neutroncount]

BOOYAH!

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html


Twelve working wheels on Mars now, given Spirit's rebirth. Again, it's a damn shame Beagle2 isn't in such great working order.

LURCH. Glad to see a fellow Michigander. But given my recent graduation and subsequent job search, I'm now forced to move to my home town of crappy Sturgis to cut costs (lost my cushy campus job when I graduated). I swear the cows hove more fun here than I do.

 

[LURCH]

LOL! The cows' only responibility in life is to mate; they have more fun than any of us!

 

[neutroncount]

Hehehe touche LURCH!

http://www.msu.edu/~franci57/marspic.jpg

I thought this was a cool pic. Go Nasa.

Edit...is there a reason the tags are just hyperlinking my pic? The pic is only 24KB in size.

 

[Phobos]

cool panorama

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040204.html

Opportunity is at work...
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/02/05/mars.rovers.ap/index.html

Engineers planned for Opportunity to drive about 10 feet Thursday, moving for the first time since it rolled off its lander Saturday. Since then, the rover has been studying in detail its surroundings, including the unusual ground beneath its six wheels.

 

[Phobos]

CNN Feb 8 update...

Opportunity on Saturday moved about a meter closer to a formation nicknamed "Snout" to give one of its features closer examination. Scientists had Opportunity snap pictures of nearby soil, but skipped plans for the rover to dig into and analyze the soil to get to Snout more quickly. Opportunity's cameras have captured images of fine-scaled rock layering that could have formed in water. Its instruments should shed further light on the origin of the layers.

 

[Phobos]

CNN Feb 9...
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/02/09/mars.rovers/index.html

The Mars rover Opportunity has moved to the lip of the crater in which it landed and peeked out over the rim, mission scientists say. An image taken from that location shows part of the lander's shell and its parachute lying off in the distance across a flat, empty plain. The rover has been using onboard instruments to study a rock outcropping near the edge of the crater.
...
[Mission scientists] are particularly interested in small "spheroids" embedded in the rock [nick-named Stone Mountain]...

Watched CSPAN2 last night with the science team discussing the hypotheses for the formation of the spheroids. Astronomy geeks and geologists are probably the only ones to stick around for these press conferences, but I think it's interesting to see a science team thinking out loud like that about data from a new world. (of course, I'm an astronomy geek).