Opportunity now joins its sister ship, Spirit which rests on the other side of Mars at Gusev Crater.
Even before Opportunity begins its roving, scientists have announced a key finding -- and why the robot was sent to the Meridiani Planum region of Mars in the first place -- the mineral hematite, which usually forms in the presence of water, has been found in the area the spacecraft landed.
Six-wheeled assault
In preparation for the Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover (MER) to start its six-wheeled assault on Meridiani Planum, Kevin Burke, Lead Mechanical Engineer for Egress here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) had the honor of making the one computer mouse click that signaled Opportunity to begin moving down to Mars surface.
"Thats one small click," said Matt Wallace, MER Mission Manager at JPL.
First indication of movement of the rover was celebrated in the control room by the song, "Going Mobile" by The Who.
Anxious engineers and scientists awaited the first images from Opportunity, beamed up from the crater floor upon which the robot now sits.
"Data is flowing," said Chris Lewicki, JPL Flight Director for the rover said. "Welcome to Meridiani Planum," he said. Images were taken by cameras mounted on both the rear and forward part of the rover.
"Two for two and one dozen wheels on soil," Lewicki said, shortly after 3:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time.
Hematite discovered
At a post-egress press briefing here at JPL in the early morning hours, a major finding from Opportunity was announced, revealed during initial scans of the Mini-Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES) as the rover sat atop its landing perch.
"We came to Meridiani in search of a particular mineral called hematite," said Phil Christensen, Lead Scientist for the Mini-Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES) from Arizona State University in Tempe. "Im here today to say that Mini-TES has indeed discovered hematite on the surface of Mars."
Mini-TES works in the infrared and has yielded the spectra associated with hematite. Christensen said it is not pure hematite, but is carried within other material that still has not been identified.
"Were working hard to figure out what that other material is," Christensen said.
The strongest signature of the hematite is a dark, loose material that is on top of the bedrock not too distant from Opportunity. "Its very likely that the source of the hematite is a rock layer that sits on top of that bedrock," Christensen said.
Low-temperature origin
From the data collected to date, Christensen added, the hematite matches best to a low-temperature origin.
Instruments transported by the rover should allow scientists to determine which of several theories about the region's past environment is right. Those theories include the prospect that the hematite may have formed in a long-lasting lake or in a volcanic environment.
Christensen said it remains open as to which of these theories best fits with the hematite discovered at Meridiani Planum.
The Mini-TES also looked at the white bedrock itself. However, its makeup is unknown and demands close-up, intensive study, Christensen said.
First duty
When Opportunity drove off its lander, it veered slightly to the right. "We went down and up," said Burke, with the robot leaving distinct wheel tracks in the martian surface. The robot came to a stop roughly 10 feet (3 meters) away from its platform.
The initial duty for Opportunity is to take microscopic images and spectrometer readings of the soil from that location.
Unless problems arise, controllers here at JPL anticipate putting the rover in drive mode, trekking to the outcrop of bedrock about 26 feet (8 meters) northwest of the lander in a weeks time.
Opportunity currently sits near the center of a crater 72 feet (22 meters) across and 10 feet (3 meters) deep. The landscape within the crater is darker than at any previous Mars landing site and has the first accessible bedrock outcropping ever seen on the red planet.
In time, the rover will be commanded to wheel itself up and out of the crater and begin new rounds of scurrying across the flatlands of Meridiani Planum.
One nagging issue
Opportunity is suffering one nagging issue, manifesting itself shortly after it landed on January 24.
Engineers have been keeping an eye on an unplanned drawdown of battery power each night on the robot. The power drain is due to a heater on the rover's robotic arm. A switch designed to overrule the heater's thermostatic control has not been working.
While this problem is not a near term concern, the power drain could impact the overall longevity of the rover given accumulation over time of dust particles on the robots solar arrays. This build-up of dust progressively affects the amount of energy churned out by Sun-soaking solar cells.
Spirit: up and running too
Halfway around the planet, the Spirit rover is recuperating after software problems curtailed its work at Gusev Crater. Over the last several days, software specialists have helped alleviate the computer bug in the robot. It appears that a workaround computer patch will permit Spirit to restart active roving and science gathering at various sites.
With Spirit being put back in working order, NASA has two operational rovers on Mars.
The main task for the twin rovers is to explore their respective landing regions for evidence in rocks and soils about whether those areas ever had environments that were watery and possibly suitable for sustaining life.
"This is the culmination of so many years of work by so many people. Its a wonderful moment," said Steve Squyres, Principal Investigator of the MER program from Cornell University. "We finally got both rovers where we always meant them to be. So now we just do it," he told SPACE.com .
Mars Rovers: Complete Coverage
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