As we have become accustomed to here on UMSF, the Rovers have reached another incredible milestone.
Today (tosol), the Mars Exploration Rover 'Spirit' has been operating on the red planet for 2000 Sols.
To celebrate, here are a few logos, desktops and a poster for you to download and enjoy.
The poster features another brilliant work of prose from our UMSF 'Poet Dude' Stuart Atkinson and a big credit to James Canvin for the Calypso Pan (with some Astro0 enhancements ). You guys rock!
Poster:
Looks great - you can make celebratory New Year's-style glasses out of those
Congrats to the MER team!
I also wanted to take this opportunity (no pun intended) to congratulate once again, everyone who works so hard on the Mars Rover mission.
The team currently working tirelessly on the effort to FREE SPIRIT and the Opportunity mission planners examing every exquisite detail of the Block Island meteorite. The science teams studying the soils of Troy, the imaging teams taking stunning panoramas and the drivers and engineers who keep these vehicles exploring.
To all of you - THANKS!
None of us five and half years ago could have imagined that these two astounding vehicles would still be exploring the red planet after 2000 Sols. What a ride!
Over those years, many of you on the Rover team have become valued contributors to UMSF as well as good friends. You have lectured, blogged and twittered (tweeted) and emailed and given all of us an amazing insight into your mission.
Most incredible of all is that you have let UMSF'ers contribute to the Rover adventure in a variety of ways.
Yes, at times we have been nagging 'backseat drivers', but you know it's all been done with good intentions.
To Steve Squyres, let me say a special thanks...
Your dream to explore a distant world, born from an afternoon of looking over the dusty prints of Mars images from earlier missions, has, so many years later, not only changed your life but totally transformed ours
Also, your vision and that of Jim Bell and others, to take the unprecedented step to share Spirit & Opportunity's images as they arrive on Earth, was to say the least an enormous leap of faith. Trusting the public to take those images and hope they would create and share those images for education, outreach and just pure enjoyment. I know that it has affected my life and the life, nights and days of everyone on UMSF.
Enjoy tosol and may there be many more to come.
THANK YOU.
Astro0
It's really been 5.5 years ?
I know that he would do it eventually, but I thought it worth posting Stu's poem which features on the poster. Enjoy
2K
This morning, yawning as I woke
From another Troy-trapped night
I watched Sol rise for the 2000th time
And wondered: “Was it all a dream?”
Did I really climb the scree-streaked
Side of Husband Hill? Did one night I thrill
To the sight of shooting stars and two
Silvery moons fleeing across the sky? Did I
Drag my ruined wheel for mile after endless mile,
Ploughing a ragged furrow through Barsoom’s
Cinnamon-dusted crust before Doom
Caught up with me and left me stranded
Here, impatient in this pit of ancient sand?
When I arrived, falling out of the salmon-
Hued sky, trailing a flapping banner of flame
And fury, a backshelled-Beowulf, none on Earth
Thought I Would survive even a hundred nights -
Yet, here I am, alive, after two thousand!
True, I cannot move, and my horizon has
Not changed for what seems like an eternity
But I can still see, and there is beauty in every
Rock, and stone, sliver, slice and shelf of shale
Around me. And if I am fated to stand
At this wind-whipped, stony place, statue-
Still, until only ghostly traces of my graceless
Lines remain then so be it; I will not rage
Against the end of my days, I have seen
More wonders than I dared dream I would,
And I have always known that every turn
Of my wheels was carrying me closer to
The End.
They will send others after me –
Bigger, bolder, more capable machines –
But I will always be The First,
The one that faced and overcame the worst
That Mars could do and made the old
World New again for millions watching
Back on Earth. That was my worth – the rebirth
Of the Red Planet in the minds of restless men.
I’ll be forgotten, that is the way of things, but when,
One day, I’m found, and the so-long silent hills
Of Gusev ring to the sound of celebratory “She’s here!”
Cheers, they’ll speak my name again..!
© Stuart Atkinson 2009
Wow... excellent work on the banner, logos and poster Astro0, just superb! Honoured to be a part of the Sol2000 celebrations!
Yay! Here's to 2000 more sols!
I couldn't believe it's true… The Sol TWO-THOUSAND. A sol beyond the most crazy dream…
But, we are in!
I'm joining Astro0 to thanks for all of you to! This is for me the most incredible mission I ever seen on Mars. And I know that Spirit can continue to amaze us.
Excellent pictures, posters and logo Astro0, and with a very good poem of Stu which gives me shivers.
PS : this event was for me the occasion to change the header of my website.
Wow... look what's on the big screens at JPL as they start their Sol 2000 celebrations!
This is a significant milestone! Only Viking 1 has lived more than 2000 sols!
Technically you're right, but it was written to be emotional, not scientifically or chronologically accurate.
Partypooper.
Congratulations to the MER team. Here's to the next 2000
This post from Scott Maxwell caught my eye a while back http://marsandme.blogspot.com/2009/07/spirit-sol-200.html
Big WOW & congrats to Stu & Astro0 for their wonderful collaboration featured in the very House of the Holy itself...still can't believe you guys let me hang out here!
2000 sols...it's just unreal to think about it. Here's a gee-whiz in true NASA tradition for comparison: US children born on the day she landed will be entering kindergarten next month, or even first grade depending on local qualification requirements.
With any luck some of those same children will be watching her still when they enter high school.
MER team- what can any of us really say? You've exhausted all superlatives. My God, how we the space-aware public admire your collective dedication, ingenuity, and accomplishments!
We got a mention on MSNBC which notes Stu's poem plus the logos and posters....
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/08/18/2034421.aspx
Nice one Mr Boyle!
I hope everything was made rust-proof.
Once we get unbogged, may the winds of Mars blow fair and keep her solar sails clean so that we can all celebrate Sol 4000.
I know that it's been said before but it bears repeating again and again - THANKS you guys in the Rover team, especially Steve Squyres and Jim Bell, for having the guts and foresight to allow us real time access. You're not just leaders in space! NASA bosses, please note that we're voting for them as one of your GREAT assets!!
When I think of time - especially deep space time or v personal time - I think of this - one of the greatest (but short...under 4 mins) pieces of music produced by European culture in the last couple of hundred years (by one of Ireland's best composers.... if not the best).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rm9c30ZRro
It's Sol 2001 - time for a new Space Odyssey.
Enjoy this special presentation...
2001.wmv ( 712.14K )
: 688
Sorry, I just couldn't help myself
Someone asked me about getting a copy of the background I used for the 2001 film with the Monolith.
Thought I'd share it
"My God... it's full of wheel lube!"
-the other Doug
What did Homeplate look like long, long ago? My old mate Kees Veenenbos, artist extraordinairs, has produced two beautiul images..
http://www.space4case.com/mmw/pages/wordt-gebouwd/mars/mars-images-2008/mars-homeplate.php
Those are very cool. I've been much wondering lately what it might have looked like.
Thanks Stu for the link and thanks also for your beautifull poem.
Regarding old Homeplate, it's specialy emotional for me since I visisted Kilauea volcano on Hawaii big Island... just last week (I'm still in Hawaii (Kauaii) BTW ) and that fumeroles are just what I saw including the smell, the heat, and eveything.
2000 thanks Stu, I realise I was walking near HP last week...
I have been wanting to add a comment to this thread, but I really couldn't come up with better words than others before me have already used to congratulate the rover teams on this incredulous milestone. This really has been one heck of a ride. I finally thought of another angle to celebrate which hasn't entered the conversation so far.
I avidly followed the Pathfinder mission, and was surprised by the nearly real time data and software NASA provided for space exploration enthusiasts to see things as the rover and lander saw them.
When I learned of the Mars Rover missions, and that the rovers were designed to operate as robotic geologists on an alien planet, I was hooked. I watched the triumphant landings of both rovers on live NASA TV and saw the images they were returning. It became clear that these would be two amazing explorers. I wanted to find others who also appreciated the accomplishments of these wonderful devices, with whom I could share the experience and also talk to about the visible discoveries. I eventually found other, like-minded individuals here.
So, to all of you who have enjoyed discussing the discoveries of Spirit and Opportunity over the years in this forum, thanks. You are the people I was looking for.
I remember January 2004, back when Spirit suddenly stopped in its tracks, upon its 18th sol only. At the time the rovers were expected to last 90 sols and drive for 600 meters only, so it fell like such a run against the clock waiting for Spirit to resume driving again, time was flying!
Of course, the Columbia hills were science fiction only, I was wondering if that little rover would ever make it to Bonneville crater... and 2000 sols... that was BEYOND science fiction!!
I too would like to congratulate all the rovers teams for that amazing journey on the Red Planet. What an amazing 2000 sols it has been!
How do we say 'Thank you!' in Martian?
BTW Stu, I've just checked out your friend's website, his work is absolutely amazing... breathtaking! Thanks for sharing!
Is the 3 year anniversary today or tomorrow?
The first images were taken in the afternoon of sol 1 so landing + 3 years = 1.656 + 3 * 668.5921 = 2008.4325
So the third anniversary is tomorrow nextersol
Three Martian years....it seems like only yestersol when they arrived!
Enjoy.
Nice pic Astro0!
I missed this one in my stats!
3 martian years Total was on Nov 8th 2006 so, this was the half mission date if tomorrow will be the last day.
Edited: BTW, the day after tomorrow will see 4000 Sols Total
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