Spirit & Opportunit Landing Coverage Options

[brianc]

Does anyone have the original webcast or TV feed coverage of the Spirit and Opportunit EDL landing events (or links to these), the only one I can find is a short MPEG on the MER site that links an Animation with a few clips of JPL control center and a somewhat broken-up commentary by Mr Lee.

[djellison]

If you buy the second volume of the Mars Mission Reports - the Opportunity Landing is on the enclosed DVD - more than 40 minutes in all

Doug

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

The exploratorium website has an archive of Opportunity landing. I still get sweaty palms listening to it 18 months after landing lol

http://www.exploratorium.edu/mars/

[Nix]

Yeah, man that was nerve-wrecking those two landings. I remember sitting here at night with a bottle of Jack and some tears in my eyes when they confirmed the parachute deploy

[djellison]

'RAD HAS FIRED'

was my OMFG moment

Doug

[ilbasso]

The tones that indicated when critical events happened really added to the excitement. It was SO much more enjoyable than some talking head saying, "by now, this will have happened..."

With Oppy, I remember the controller trying to shout to everyone over their jubilation that "we're still rolling" (or was it bouncing?) for what seems like several minutes longer than expected. It looked from subsequent pictures that Oppy rolled around quite a bit in the crater before coming to a stop. And seeing those first pictures from Eagle Crater, wow, they looked so different than anything we had seen from Mars before.

[djellison]

gah - that first pre-deploy navcam frame of the outcrop in eagle crater...just...wow

Doug

[lyford]

We got together with friends to watch Spirit land and had a little party. But for Opportunity, we had family commitments, so I had to convince my brother in law (a big sports fan) to "put on the landing." I don't think he understood how I could be so entralled watching a bunch of guys and gals in Pasadena listening for tones on headsets....

After we got home, I stayed up for Oppy's first image transmission and that gave me goosebumps.... it looked so alien compared to all the other lander pictures. There was one point (I think it was Oppy - not sure) during the first thumbnail download that still gets me - a small picture comes on the screen, then another one or two, and then a flood of images fills the monitor and everyone starts cheering wildly.

I was very moved by the humanity of that moment - these folks had worked so hard to send a robot so far, and it came down to those few moments to make or break the whole endeavor. The immense joy and relief comes through so clearly...

[brianc]

Thanks for the links guys, I never tire of seeing these clips !

[Decepticon]

I'll never get tired of it.


I can't wait to show my kid these clips when he gets old enough to understand them.

[SFJCody]

gah - that first pre-deploy navcam frame of the outcrop in eagle crater...just...wow

Doug

Is the NASA TV coverage of this moment (and the first Opportunity press conference) archived anywhere?

[MaG]

Hi, I search some coverge too.. It was so memorable..

Here is link: http://astro.sci.muni.cz/video.htm

It´s in czech, but search down "Mars 2004" and there roll:

5 videos up -> down

1) Oppy - getting first images
2) 25 years of exploring Mars
3) Bouncing to Mars (document)
4) Spirit - press conference (4.1.2004)
5) Animation of EDL (Egress, Descent, Landing)

Videos are in low quality, but memories go up :-)

(Sorry for my english)

[mhall]

> (Sorry for my english)

Please don't say that - your English is significantly better than my Czech.

-- Martin

[SFJCody]

Hi, I search some coverge too.. It was so memorable..

Here is link: http://astro.sci.muni.cz/video.htm

It´s in czech, but search down "Mars 2004" and there roll:

5 videos up -> down

1) Oppy - getting first images

Thanks, I couldn't find that one anywhere!

[lyford]

1) Oppy - getting first images

thanks so much! This was the bit I remembered - at about 20 minutes into the movie the images just flood in.... very cool!