Now that it's been a while since the rovers landed, it's time to open a reminiscence thread.

What are your favorite memories of the MER missions thus far?

Bearing in mind that I have had NASA-TV on my cable system throughout most of the mission, here are a few of mine:

- The launches. The onboard camera from Spirit's launch was impressive, showing the Florida coast dwindling as the curvature of the Earth became more and more apparent. Opportunity's night launch gave less impressive onboard views, but the last-chance anxiety as Oppy finally launched, after several delays, near the end of its weeks-long launch window made her successful departure even more memorable.

- Spirit's landing. The pressure, the tension, the excitement as each phase successfully unfolded, the elation at the first bouncing signal, the sheer terror as signal was lost for many long minutes. The satisfaction of seeing a new place on Mars. I remember when the first navcam pans came in, I said to myself, "Yep, that's Mars, all right -- rock-strewn, wind-eroded, Mars." I remember thinking that Gusev actually looked considerably less rocky than the previous three landing sites, with a similar population of smaller rocks but not nearly so many large rocks as we had seen elsewhere.

- Six wheels in the dirt. As Spirit trundled off its lander and headed out, away from its landing point, I got this odd feeling. It seemed totally odd that we were leaving the lander, never to return. This has never happened in the course of American space exploration, ever. (I know the Lunokhods did it, but the Lunokhods' missions took place at such a remove, information-wise, from my world that they might as well never have happened.) It was a very funny feeling, leaving your touchdown point and never intending to return. It took some getting used to.

- Opportunity's landing. The pressure was no less, but since we knew the system worked, it seemed like less of a risk. And the absolute elation of the EDL team was electric -- I *loved* their victory lap at the post-landing press conference. And, I must admit, my first reactions to the first images from Oppy were very, very similar to what Steve Squyres reported. My first impression was "Wow, no rocks! That surface looks almost completely featureless! This is nothing like the other rock-strewn sites we've seen before!" And then I saw the outcrop, and said, out loud, "Oh. My. God. That's a layered outcrop of bedrock. A LAYERED OUTCROP!" (I then followed this with a string of totally flabbergasted expletives which, for the sake of the forum rules, I will omit from my discussion... *grin*...)

- The first Endurance rim pan. Just totally blew me away. What more do I need to say?

So, what are your most cherished memories of the MER missions?

-the other Doug

The other very vividly memory was when Oppy suffered a lot on the purgatory sand. When I saw the topography maps and realized it is a matter of time to get out of the stuck land.

Rodolfo

The relief I felt when they found and fixed the flash memory problem on Spirit. She was almost lost for good then - remembering that makes me much more appreciative of the dust devil movies and the view from the summit of Husband Hill!

That early photo from Opportunity in Eagle Crater where the mast is folded and behind it is a view of the smooth, dark, inner-slope of the crater and the glimpse of layered bedding.

Compared to the Viking sites, Pathfinder and MER-A it seemed so un-Mars like. It reaffirmed that this is indeed a world with assorted vistas and varied landscapes. You just wanted to gaze at it and say WOW!

- Finding the blueberries, and RATing them in half

- Anatolia rift and Fram crater

- The before/after images of the solar panels with the first cleaning event

- The solar eclipses by Deimos and Phobos

- The dust devil movies!

A to the sol 1000 problem!

It's funny. The first time I saw the above picture of Opportunity in Eagle crater I got the impression that the outcrop was much bigger than it really was. So the first time I saw an animation with Opportunity driving over it I realised how you can misinterprete things when you don't have a sense of scale in a picture

Anyone else got that feeling?

I did, and no doubt many others.

At that time, I was a guy with no much geology in mind and when I saw the above picture and tought it as a nice place to take picture but I didn't realice that this was a very important finding. About the height, I tought it was taller than the real height.

Rodolfo

All of the moments for me please !

In addition: the over the (eagle)rim image of the backshell and parachute of oppy.

And offcourse...the fullsize colourpan of spirit's empty nest. This spotlessly clean platform, laid down in this billion year old, dusty, untouched, barren landscape where "nothing ever happens", besides a lander rolling down. Breathtaking experience to imagine what it would be like for a Martian to see it coming and unfolding.......