2004 04 14, April 14th, 2004 Options

[OWW]

Hello, this is the update for Mars Exploration Rovers. My name is Chris Lewicki and I’m the Flight Director for Opportunity today.

Today is sol 100 at Spirit in Gusev crater and we are finished with our flight software upload and leaving Route 66. Today we will stow the arm, back up from Route 66, take some imaging of the RAT mosaic that we left there yesterday and begin our first drive using our new flight software. We’re actually expecting the results of that drive shortly. That drive consists of about 27 meters of blind driving where we specificly tell the rover where to go, and following that drive is about an hour of automatic navigation where the rover decides on its own where to go.

It’s early on sol 80 on Opportunity in Meridiani Planum and today will be our first full sol on our new flight software on Opportunity. We will be doing some Microscopic Imaging and APXS integrations at the trench that we’ve had in front of us for the last several days. And also some imaging behind the rover to help localize the rover and help us to more accurately place its position in our area between Endurance crater and Eagle crater.

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