2005 08 17, August 17th, 2005 Options

[OWW]

Hi, I’m Jake Matijevic of the Mars Exploration Project and I’ll be giving the Flight Director’s Report for the 17th day of August 2005.

In Gusev crater it’s sol 577 of the Spirit mission. Yestersol Spirit drove approximately 30 meters again away from the “Voltaire Outrcop” towards the summit of “Husband Hill”. There’s a local high point called “Summit One”, which is currently the direction of subsequent drives for Spirit to reach a location in the “Columbia Hills” where Spirit can take a rather nice panorama of the area on the other side, the mountains and valleys there in Gusev crater.

On the other side of the planet it’s sol 556 and on sol 555 Opportunity continued an in-situ campaign on outcrop rocks, which has been the focus of its activities for the last two weeks. These rocks represent what is believed to be the bedrock underneath the Meridiani Plain. Today is also the summer solstice on Mars and in the southern hemisphere this is the warmest day of the year both at Meridiani and at Gusev Plain.

And that’s what’s going on on Mars today.