Richard Lawrence - The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disaster

Dr Squyres said that they had received 12 thumbnail pictures showing that Spirit had taken the required photographs, which were being stored in the craft’s memory, awaiting the right opportunity to return them to Earth.

“We have acquired the image, the pictures are taken and on board Spirit, ready to be downlinked,” he said.

Earlier, the team successfully deployed the rover’s high-gain antenna and pointed it to Earth, which will allow it to talk directly with mission control.

This will cut communication times to nine minutes, compared with more than an hour when signals are relayed through NASA’s twin orbiters, Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor.

Matt Wallace, deputy surface mission manager, said Spirit had taken pictures of the Sun’s position overhead to point the antenna in the correct direction.

“Just as the ancient mariners used sextants to locate themselves by shooting the Sun, we were successful at shooting the Sun using our pan-cam,” he said. “It’s been another good day on Mars.”

On 16 January 2004, Mark Henderson reported:

NASA’s Spirit rover took its first spin on Mars yesterday, successfully driving the three metres from its landing platform to the planet’s surface. Engineers played “Who Let the Dogs Out?” on the mission control stereo as pictures showing two parallel tracks in the Martian dirt were beamed back to Earth, confirming that the golf-cart-sized robot had completed the most hazardous manoeuvre of its three-month mission.

The 78-second journey to the surface ended a 12-day wait since Spirit’s landing at Gusev Crater on January 4, during which the rover had been unfolding itself, checking its systems and turning 115 degrees to line up with the most favourable exit ramp. It is now parked next to the lander, where it will stay for three days while scientists conduct experiments on nearby soil and rocks.

At the weekend, Spirit will set off on its first long drive, probably towards a crater approximately 250 metres away. If all goes well, the plan is then to turn right at the crater and head for the hills about 3km (1.9 miles) away.

The success, which scientists toasted with champagne, came the day after President Bush announced NASA budget increases of $1 billion (£549 million) a year to support efforts to establish a permanent Moon base and send a manned mission to Mars.

Charles Elachi, director of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, California, which built and operates Spirit said: “Less than 24 hours ago, President Bush committed our nation to a sustained mission of space exploration. We at NASA move awfully fast. We have six wheels in the dirt. Mars is our sandbox and we’re ready to play and work.”

Though the first drive took just 78 seconds, at a speed of 4cm per second, Spirit then had to turn its main antenna towards Earth before it could confirm its new position and send back pictures. Scientists at mission control cheered as the good news arrived at 9.50 am GMT.

Russia could send a man to Mars at a tenth of the cost of American plans, according to one of Russia’s top space officials, Leonid Gorshkov, the chief designer of the state-controlled Energia company, which built the core of the International Space Station and now wants to re-enter the space race. “Technically, the first flight to Mars could be made in 2014,” Dr Gorshkov said.

Today Spirit’s science team will join European colleagues in an unprecedented experiment when Europe’s Mars Express orbiter flies directly overhead. Spirit will look up into the Martian atmosphere with its panoramic cameras and a thermal emissions spectrometer while Mars Express looks at the same portion from above with its instruments. Data from the spacecraft will be combined to create the most comprehensive picture yet of the atmosphere on Mars.

Spirit’s sister rover, Opportunity, is scheduled to land next Sunday at the Meridiani Planum region of Mars.

On 25 January 2004, a second NASA robotic probe landed on Mars and began to send back pictures. The next day Mark Henderson reported in The Times:

A dark and mysterious side to Mars that has never been seen before was revealed by NASA’s Opportunity rover yesterday in a remarkable series of pictures beamed to Earth within hours of its faultless landing.

The images of Meridiani Planum, where NASA’s second robotic probe touched down at 5.05 am, show a strange plain covered in fine-grain maroon soil much darker than anything yet observed on Mars, and an outcrop of grey bedrock that could offer clues to the planet’s geological past.

These odd features are ideal for the rover’s mission – the search for evidence that the planet was once wet and suitable for life – and led one scientist to describe the landing site as “the promised land”.

The slabs of protruding rock could contain grey haematite, a form of iron oxide that is normally formed in the presence of water. They are the rover’s most likely first target. Meridiani Planum was chosen for Opportunity’s landing as orbiting spacecraft had picked up traces of the mineral in the region. Steve Squyres, the rover missions’ chief scientist, said that he was flabbergasted by the pictures, which look different from those taken by Opportunity’s twin, Spirit, at Gusev Crater.

“Opportunity has touched down in a bizarre, alien landscape,” he said. “I’m astonished. I’m blown away. It looks like nothing that I’ve ever seen in my life. Holy smokes, I’ve got nothing else to say.”

The rover’s textbook landing brightened the mood at NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, California, where the team has been working furiously since Wednesday to diagnose and correct a potentially catastrophic fault aboard Spirit, which landed three weeks ago.

Engineers said that they had established the root cause of its problems and had stabilised the robot by switching off a malfuctioning memory system.

Even so, it may be three weeks or more before Spirit can resume scientific investigations, and the memory problem may prevent it from recovering full operational capacity.

Mission control had said that it could take 22 hours for Opportunity to make contact with Earth following its scheduled arrival at 5.05 am, but the rover sent signals within moments of landing. Scientists cheered, and were congratulated by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California, and former Vice President Al Gore, who joined the vigil at the laboratory.

Sean O’Keefe, the NASA administrator, saluted his team for landing both rovers successfully, and for beating the “Mars jinx under which two thirds of all missions to the planet have failed. What a night,” he said as he broke open champagne for a second time in three weeks. “No one dared hope that both rover landings would be so successful.”

While Spirit landed on the base petal of its protective pyramidal shell, Opportunity landed on a side petal and had to be flipped into an upright position.

All the airbags that cushioned it on landing appear to have been successfully retracted. One of Spirit’s airbags refused to deflate properly forcing engineers to turn the rover 120 degrees before it could be driven away from the landing module.

British scientists will today begin one of their final attempts to find their missing Beagle 2 lander. The team has not tried to contact the probe for almost two weeks to try to force it into an emergency transmission mode.

On 27 January 2004, Mark Henderson reported in The Times:

NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover has landed in a small crater, to the delight of scientists who hope that it will provide a ready made window into the planet’s geological past.

The shallow crater, about 65ft across, was formed by a meteor impact, which has performed natural excavation work allowing the rover to peer below the Martian surface without having to dig.