NASA scientists controlling the Spirit rover, which landed on Mars on Sunday, have chosen its first destination: a 10-metre-wide (30ft) crater they have nicknamed “Sleepy Hollow”.
The circular depression, which can be seen clearly in panoramic pictures sent to Earth yesterday, has been singled out as the best place for Spirit to begin its search for evidence that Mars was once wet and habitable. The rover is likely to set off for the crater, named after an American horror story, as soon as it leaves its landing module early next week.
Steve Squyres, the mission’s chief scientist, said the images suggested that a meteor strike had probably created the crater. The impact is likely to have cut through layers of rock, excavating the planetary surface for the rover to explore.
“The science so far has been extremely focused on where to go after the egress,” Dr Squyres said. “It’s a circular depression, 30ft in diameter and about 40ft to 50ft away from the rover.
“It’s a hole in the ground, a window into the interior of Mars. It may have been an impact crater, largely filled with dust. You can see the rock is exposed on the far side.
“It’s a very exciting feature for us. It’s probably where we will go unless we see something better.
“The feature now has a name. We have all not been getting as much sleep as we’d like, so this feature is now named Sleepy Hollow.”
Spirit, which has a daily range of 20m (65ft), will use its rock abrasion tool to grind down the surface of boulders, before testing them with scientific instruments. It aims to establish whether Mars holds sedimentary rocks, which would offer evidence that the planet once flowed with water – a prerequisite for life.
Scientists believe that Gusev Crater, the region in which Spirit landed, might have held an ancient lake, making it a promising site for finding sediments.
Dr Squyres said yesterday that tests on four of the craft’s six key instruments had shown that they had survived Spirit’s hard landing on Mars, in which it bounced up to 14 times before coming to a halt.
His team was relieved that the sensitive Mossbauer spectrometer, which identifies iron isotopes in rocks, was working. Tests on the remaining instruments will begin today. Scientists were hoping last night to receive a colour high-resolution panoramic picture from the rover, which would be by far the best image of Mars ever captured.
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.”
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.
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
