[X] My Assistant

[Tesheiner]

Well I think that Spirit has finally left Silica Valley for good --please don't tell me that we should go back again to Silica Valley because of another turned up soil deposit or cracked rock-- and is about to start another science campaign at Home Plate, so it would be time to start a new thread devoted to this period of time.

I said on a previous post on the older thread that it looks like the plan is to traverse the top. Digging on an old MER report (at TPS) I found this reference:

"The general desire is to stay on top of Home Plate, but follow the outcrop exposures around to the portion that everybody really wants to get to -- the far end or southwestern portion of Home Plate," said Yen.

Edited: This even older report might apply too.

At that time, the team will have to decide if Spirit will cross the diameter of Home Plate, roving radially toward the center and across the feature to look at what might be exposed. "If this feature is bowl-shaped, as the rover goes to the center, it will go higher and higher stratigraphically even though it's not going up in elevation," explained Banerdt. "That's one of the primary arguments for spending some time on top of Home Plate." There's no clear evidence of this stratification from MRO's HiRISE images. "But it could be there and just covered by surface dust," he suggested.