This is the Flight Director’s report for January 24th of 2005. I am Jake Matijevic and the conditions on Mars today are as follows.

The Spirit rover has just completed sol 377. On this day the rover RAT-ted the rock called ‘Peace’ and continued an in situ measurement campaign on this particular rock that’s part of the large set of outcrops in the Columbia Hills. Spirit has been experiencing an increase in dust opacity at the Gusev site, its landing site. This increased dust in the atmosphere is the result of localized duststorms that have been forming in the southern hemisphere and have slowly been forming and dissipating in this vicinity as Mars moves from winter into spring.

On the other side of the planet Opportunity has been experiencing aspects of this same duststorm, but is continuing its campaign of detailed investigating the heatshield, the entry heatshield for Opportunity at the Meridiani site. These detailed measurements, including a number of close-up images of the burn pattern on the heatshield and some remote sensing which has been done on sol 357, will allow the mars program to actually learn something about heatshield technology can be improved for future mars missions. This detailed imaging and investigation campaign at the heatshield will complete tomorrow if all goes well and Opportunity will move away from the heatshield and continue its investigation of the Meridiani site.

That’s what’s been going on on Mars today.