2004 03 05, March 5th, 2004 Options

[OWW]

Welcome to the Mars Exploration Rover mission support area. I am George Chen, the flight director for MER-A Spirit.
Today we have a very exciting day planned for both vehicles. On MER-A Spirit it is a drive day. We woke up at Humphrey rock, which we have been studying for the last couple of days. In the image behind me you can see a hole that we drilled into the rock two days ago. We are going to finish up a PanCam panorama that we started two days ago. And then we are going to back away from the rock, turn, and continue our drive to Bonneville crater. We hope to achieve about 25 meters of drive today and that would put us about two thirds of the way towards our destination Bonneville crater.

On MER-B Opportunity, we began the day next to a rock known as Last Chance. This is a rock that they have been studying for the last couple of sols. We are going to back away and drive a total of nine meters to another rock formation known as Wave Ripple. This is a formation that is interesting because it may have been formed by waves of water some time in Mars’ distant past. So, we are going to spend the next day or so, at least, studying Wave Ripple. And that is what is going on on Mars today.