Mars Exploration Rover Update - February 24, 2005

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status.html

SPIRIT UPDATE: Spirit's Intelligence Increasing - sol 394-402,
February 24, 2005

Spirit is getting new software for increased brainpower, but the rover
is not using it quite yet.

Sol-by-sol summaries:

On sol 394, Spirit drove to a safe spot for good communications with
Earth during upload of new software. The rover team successfully loaded
all of the new software modules on sol 395 and booted the spacecraft
with the latest software on sol 397. At the end of sol 397, the rover
team re-booted back into the old software. Opportunity (Spirit's
sister)
is running on the new software, and Spirit will start using it after
the
project team gets a chance to see the software's new capabilities in
action.

On sol 398, Spirit continued climbing toward "Larry's Lookout" in the
"Columbia Hills" with an 18-meter (59-foot) drive backward up the hill.
During part of the drive, the rover slipped, and Spirit churned up some
soil under the front right wheel. In the images taken after the drive,
the rover team noticed some very bright spots in the soil.

On sol 399, Spirit placed the robotic arm down on the churned up soil
and performed a quick reading of the soil's composition with the alpha
particle X-ray spectrometer. Spirit then stowed the robotic arm and
continued the drive toward the summit. However, the attempted drive
failed due to slippage, and Spirit ended up only churning up more soil.
This turned out to be fortuitous because the alpha particle X-ray
spectrometer reading the rover team received on sol 400 from the sol
399
integration showed interesting results. Because the team had only a
quick alpha particle X-ray spectrometer reading the sol before, the
rover team decided to dedicate sol 400 to doing a more extensive
integration with the same instrument.

For sols 401 and 402, Spirit's instructions were to complete more
observations of the soil at this location. Spirit changed tools to the
Mossbauer spectrometer for collecting data with that instrument more
than 12 hours each day. The plan actually ended in the early morning
hours of sol 403. During the morning of sol 403, Spirit attempted to
image Phobos (one of the moons of Mars) as it eclipsed the Sun. Sol 402
ended on Feb. 18, 2005.