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Posted by: mars loon Jun 30 2009, 09:00 PM

Spirit Approaching "von Braun": Mosaic at Spaceflight Now website, 25 Jun 09

See our newly published Spirit mosiac from Sol 1869 here:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0906/25spirit/

JPL rover tests next week begin efforts to free Spirit
BY CRAIG COVAULT
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: June 25, 2009
Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers working to free the rover Spirit from its slippery Martian trap
will begin JPL test rover drives by June 29, aimed at freeing Spirit to continue roving by late July.

The objective will be to demonstrate how the rover wheels can "get a bite" on simulated slippery
Martian soil that JPL has formulated using the same gritty, white material that dentists use
to clean teeth, and which is also a key component of dynamite. .....

small version here:

Caption: Mosaic of the area abeam Home Plate where Spirit remains stuck was made especially for Spaceflight Now. It shows smooth area, foreground, that concealed slippery water related sulfate material where rover became stuck. Once free, Spirit will drive to area near the unusually capped hill ahead designated Von Braun to sample water related evidence there. Credit: Kenneth Kremer, Marco DiLorenzo, NASA/JPL/Cornell/Spaceflight Now

created some time ago actually. more to follow ...

FREE SPIRIT !

Ken Kremer & Marco Di Lorenzo

Posted by: climber Jun 30 2009, 09:10 PM

So, Craig has no doubt about it!

Posted by: mars loon Jul 2 2009, 08:30 PM

Spirit mosaic reprinted today (July 2, 09) at Universe Today in this article about Tee-Bee adventures here:
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/07/02/test-bed-rover-is-now-stuck-which-is-a-good-thing/
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/07/02/test-bed-rover-is-now-stuck-which-is-a-good-thing/spirit-panorama-by-ken-kremer/

based on quotes from Squyres about the Home plate area:

Spirit literally fell into a small camouflaged pit of empiric sulfate salts, a highly powdery and slippery by product of the presence of ancient water with volcanic soils, says Steve Squyres of Cornell University, principal investigator for the mission.