SPIRIT UPDATE: Spirit Taking in ‘Tennessee Valley’ – sol 402-407, February 28, 2005
Spirit has spent the last 70 sols climbing up the “Columbia Hills” to reach “Larry’s Lookout,” a point on “Cumberland Ridge.” Having accomplished the trek up to Larry’s Lookout, Spirit is getting into position to shoot a panorama of the “Tennessee Valley” located below. Spirit is still in excellent health.
Sol-by-sol summaries:
Sols 401 and 402 were planned in a single planning cycle. On sol 401, Spirit placed the Mössbauer spectrometer on a target of disturbed soil called “Paso Robles” and collected data for most of sols 401 and 402. Spirit also performed about three hours of remote-sensing observations, including imaging of Phobos, one of the moons of Mars.
Sols 403 through 405 were planned in another single planning cycle, to allow the Earthlings to take President’s Day holiday off. Sol 403 was spent continuing the very long Mössbauer spectrometer integration on Paso Robles. Spirit stowed the rover arm, and then moved back about a meter (3 feet) to allow imaging of Paso Robles with the miniature thermal emission spectrometer and panoramic camera. Spirit then began moving closer to Larry’s Lookout, covering 16 meters (52 feet). On sol 405, Spirit spent over two hours performing remote-sensing observations and recharging the batteries.
Spirit moved still closer to Larry’s Lookout on sol 406, driving another 14 meters (46 feet) uphill. By the end of the drive, Spirit was within 5 meters (16 meters) of the crest. Spirit also performed another Phobos observation.
On sol 407, Spirit reached Larry’s Lookout, driving another 3.5 meters (11 feet). Spirit performed an hour of post-drive imaging and was ready to begin observations of Tennessee Valley.
Total odometry as of sol 407 is 4,157 meters (2.58 miles).
Sol 407 ended on Feb. 24, 2005.