Does anyone know whether Opportunity will examine the heat shield after it's done with Endurance crater? The heat shield isn't that far away, and finding out how well it survived would be interesting from an engineering perspective.

That's always been the plan, is my understanding, because analysis of the heatshield could aid in future designs. That said, Opportunity may be inside Endurance for several more weeks...perhaps even "hibernating" there over the Martian winter.

They did discuss visiting the heatshield quite a bit, but it seems to have taken a back set now that Opportunity has made its way safely into Endurance Crater.

There were quite a few other features out on the plains they still wanted to investigate, the cracks and small rocks on the surface for instance. I'm not sure what the long term plan is now.

Thanks for the responses.

Was anything useful determined from the images of Spirit's heatshield?

I don't think they got close enough to get any useful information from it, it did look pretty mangled though.

Spirit's Heatshield on far rim of Bonneville crater:

Was the best I could do with the imagery taken of the heatshield

Doug

Yes, the images of Spirit's heatshield show that it crumpled pretty good when it hit the rim of Bonneville. I don't think anyone will be surprised if Opportunity's heatshield did the same thing.

The point of interest at the heatshield isn't as much seeing how the shield held up as it is looking at the hole it dug when it impacted the surface.

There is *no* better way to look at and sample the materials in the top, oh, four or five feet of the plains unit (as it stands out there today) than looking at and sampling the ejecta from a hole whose age is known nearly to the second.

I recall the discussion about moving into Endurance, saying that if they decided to go into the crater they would do some exploring on the plains first, just in case they couldn't get OUT of Endurance. That included a trip to the heatshield and its hole.

Personally, I think what happened here was

a) the geologists began to become convinced that they *must* examine the rock strata in Endurance, that it's just too good an opportunity to sample layers that far down,

the engineers have started to see signs of old age in Spirit and are concerned that Opportunity may be heading for its own old age within the next couple of months,

c) the engineers think that the deep sleep mode will kill the mini-TES, sooner rather than later, and the geologists want to have it functioning while the examine the Endurance units, and

d) apohelion is coming for all of Mars, as well as seasonal winter, at both sites -- since no one knows if the rovers will be able to survive the winter, the scientists have to concentrate on their highest-priority objectives.

All of those factors argued for an entry into Endurance without doing any more plains research.

Doug
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