Sliding into 'Home Plate North', Heading for Spirit's 2008 Winter Retreat Options

[MahFL]

Excellent.

[imipak]

With apologies to Mr McGowan...

It was Martian Spring babe
In Gusev Crater
An old rover said to me
"Won't see another one"...[1]

Here's to a blaze of glory in four or five months when Spirit rocks up to von Braun and/or Goddard.

[1] It's the anniversary of my incept date today, so I'm entitled to feel a little maudlin singing *)

[alan]

a month of nothing but pancam tau measurements taken leading up to the solstice (not counting previously recorded images downloaded from the flash memory), I suppose we can expect another month of the same.

[briv1016]

Detailed update on Spirit
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status.html

Edit: Removed unnecessary quote

Edit Edit: 2 new updates

sol 1567-1573, May 30-June 5, 2008: Not Quite Hibernation
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/sta...ll.html#sol1567

sol 1574-1579, June 06-12, 2008: New Tricks for an Old Rover
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/sta...ll.html#sol1574

[MahFL]

Spirit will be running all over the place like a young puppy come the spring .

[centsworth_II]

Spirit will be running all over the place like a young puppy come the spring .

I would prefer to think of Spirit as a wily old dog. Doggedly heading for Von Braun and Goddard come spring, bum leg and all.

[Tesheiner]

Some tidbits from the monthly status report by A.J.S. Rayl @ TPS.

"Its current levels are around 230 watt-hours," noted Matijevic, "so it's better than we predicted and we've basically gotten to the bottom of the energy curve, again."
...
In coming sols, it will return its routine atmospheric research to its daily agenda, and eventually get on with taking the hundreds of images still needed to complete the grand Bonestell Panorama, “as the power permits,” said Squyres.

[briv1016]

Relatively small downlink, but they are back to daily tau measurements.

01467 p1561.06 0 10 0 0 0 10 navcam_fast_DustDevil_SF_LEYE_lvlaz_290
01595 p2600.12 2 2 0 0 2 6 pancam_tau
01596 p2600.12 2 2 0 0 2 6 Unexpected sequence!!!!
01597 p2600.12 2 2 0 0 2 6 Unexpected sequence!!!!
01598 p2600.12 2 2 0 0 2 6 Unexpected sequence!!!!
Total 8 18 0 0 8 34

[3488]

I would prefer to think of Spirit as a wily old dog. Doggedly heading for Von Braun and Goddard come spring, bum leg and all.

I do not doubt in Centsworth_II. It's quite an oxymoron that the MERs are likely to outlive the New Kid on the Block, Phoenix.

I still think that Von Braun looks like a volcanic plug, much like the Roque Agando on the Canary Island of La Gomera, though not as large.

Below are two Redshift charts I did for the MER A Spirit site at Midsol on the Martian Solstice on: Wednesday 25th June 2008.

Phobos & Deimos were both visible below the Sun & the planets left & right respectively.

With Constellations.


Without Constellations.


I have done these for all six of the successful landers.

Andrew Brown.

[Reckless]

La Gomera looks like Go MER A

Roy