Artist's concept of Mars Exploration Rover

1000-day birthday Thursday for Mars rover 'Spirit'

The Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, are still alive
and exploring the planet's surface with alacrity, or semi-alacrity in the case of Spirit which has a locked wheel that merely slows down exploration.

Because of the amazing robustness of these spacecraft, they have already completed the equivalent of over 10 prime missions to Mars.

Opportunity is the star of the show at the moment.
It recently began an overview of Victoria Crater which may offer the richest science trove of the entire mission. For scale, Victoria is about a half mile wide and 230 feet deep, and is pictured at the URL below.

The really big news is that this Thursday will be Spirit's
1,000-day birthday, and NASA is expected to release a high
resolution panorama from Spirit's current location just before
the big event. According to NASA staff, NASA-TV "may" put the panorama into a video format with pans and zooms suitable for airing.

Right about now, the communication path between Earth and Mars is being obstructed by the Sun, so both rovers are going into hibernation. Opportunity is expected to move again in early November, while Spirit should get underway later that month.

Incredible missions; incredible spacecraft.

http://tinyurl.com/y3sauo

W6VR

Source: CGC Communicator - with thanks to Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF

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