What would darn scary if it woke up and it was revieled two clocks had failed......
32 months asleep sounds pretty scary.

Oh I saw that deck picture earlier and did not realise it was taken by the Mastcam. Pretty cool, and very white...for now.

I thik the subtitle of this topic needs amending, as Spirit is now officially dead.

Well despite years of experience, luck will no doubt play a part in getting MSL down safely onto Mars. The backshell could have been irriversably damaged......
I recall that satellite that fell off its stand.


Oh and now my status report is late, as I was reading UMSF !......

The drive towards the Columbia Hills was one of the most exciting things I have seen, almost each day new details of the hills came into sight.

I liked those Vesta Chow Mein meals !

Well it at least appears to still be there, which I suppose is good news.
Vesta is my mother in laws first name too .

The arm is a lot longer than I thought it was.

Oh dear I can't use IE7, which is on my work PC, bummer.

Cat's are a law unto themselves, ours called "Chase" is no exception.

How about "Armada" from "The Spanish Armada" , they did not last very long.....

Oh I did not realise that was Santa Maria.
It's quite far back now.

It's just like the approach to the Columbia Hills all over again

Exactly how "good to go" will MSL be ? I would imagine there would still be a bunch of flight locks to release before driving.

I just saw this headline from the AP.

"NASA: Mars rover, phone home after yearlong sleep."

And no she did not phone.....

Grrrr.

I sadly think Spirit is dead.

"The MESSENGER team designed the orbit to optimize the scientific yield of the mission and data transfer to Earth, while addressing thermal environment concerns.".

MESSENGER spends most of the time away from the surface to transmit data back to earth, and not to overheat due to reflected heat.

Hello everyone.
Pretty exciting !

It would be logical to use the smallest/cheapest rocket needed for the payload. Only $54m.

I just read that, pretty sad.

Remember, nothing, except maybe matter itself, is perminent in the Universe, even stars are born and they also die.

They are proberbly asleep, or keeping them back for the news conference. It's 4:16 am at JPL.
Also the spacecraft isn't sending the pictures down in the order expected.

Watching.

Subscription only though.