2004 03 18, March 18th, 2004 Options

[OWW]

Good afternoon, I’m Joel Krajewski, Flight Director for MER-A Spirit. This is the Mars Exploration Rover. Today is the 18th of March 2004.

The solnumber is sol 74 on Spirit and recall that our goal is to study some dustdrifts around the crater rim. Yesterday we took some science measurements using the instrument arm stretched out in front of us against a piece of a drift that we had … away with one of our wheels and over my shoulder here to see a picture of the instrument arm stretched out to take those science measurements.
Those were achieved yesterday and today we’re gonna take some more measurements with the instrument arm on a little different part of the drift and then do a drive, continue our drive around the southern rim of the crater, about 30 meters, to take it a little further along and see what we can find.

On Opportunity today is sol 53 and recall the goal here is we’re exploring the southern part of the crater, the part that has mostly just soil, no outcrop. We are setting several soiltargets. Couple of days ago we drove to a place called ‘Chocolate’ and took some instrument measurements there, in particular using the Microscopic Imager, the image here on my left.
Today we finished those up and drove a little further onto a place called ‘Neopolitan’. And expect to get data down in about an hour for that site. We’re gonna continue our drive today to a place called ‘Mudpie’. You’ll notice that today’s theme is icecream for naming the sites in Opportunity. So, expect today’s drive on Opportunity to be about 4.5 meters, a little further around the crater rim on Opportunity.

That’s today’s update, looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.