Spirit - 2010 Winter@Troy, The first stationary science campaign Options

[Astro0]

Well, with perhaps a few more weeks of tilt-enhancing drives to go and then settling in for the winter, I thought it might be a good time to have a thread dedicated to ideas and observations that will come. It's likely that we won't hear much from Spirit during the coldest part of winter (April-June) possibly longer. There'll hopefully be beeps to tell us that she's still alive.

Already there are plans for radio science and determining the fluidity or otherwise of the Martian core, plus weather observations, surface changes etc.
What else could you think of that Spirit could do? Remember that she's not going anywhere (vonBraun is out)

In the meantime, have you sent your postcard to Spirit yet?! It's a great idea from the Mars outreach team.
http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/spiritpostcards
What would you say to Spirit?

[vikingmars]

Now, let's derive some experience from the mission of Viking Lander 1, an active static lander for 6.5 years...

We did :
1. digging trenches (soil analysis AND soil mechanics) ;
2. long-term surface change surveys ;
3. monitoring dust storms (at that time we were not aware of dust devils) ;
4. "Marsquakes" surveys ;
5. sky dynamics surveys (i.e. for opacity and search for clouds) ;
6. Phobos & Deïmos imaging (i.e. also for dust opacity) ;
7. full 360° hi-res panoramic pics taken : early morning (7:30 am), at noon, early afternoon (15:00 pm) and some sections at sunset (i.e. 17:00 pm) ;
8. meteorology (temperature + pressure + wind direction).

I think nearly all the same goals can be met with Spirit as a stationary lander, with :
- wheels and/or the IDD for (1) ;
- the cameras for (2), (3), (5), (6) and (7) ;
- the inertial measurement unit (which provides 3-axis information on position) for (4) if sensitive enough ;
- some heaters consumptions from which an outside temp can be derived for (8) and dust movements on the solar panels for long-term wind directions for (8) also...

Well... still a lot of GOOD SCIENCE to expect from Spirit !

AND.. let's imagine Spirit sending back to Earth spectacular images such as romantic full hi-res 360° sunrise or sunset panoramas with rocks casting long shadows...

Now, let's have a "positive Spirit" !