spacetoday.net: Opportunity moves towards rock outcropping

Posted: Fri, Feb 6, 2004, 1:54 PM ET (1854 GMT)
Mars Exploration Rover (NASA/JPL)

NASA's Mars rover Opportunity moved towards an outcropping of rocks that may contain the mineral hematite on Thursday, while controllers made plans to send the twin rover Spirit towards a crater. Early Thursday Opportunity moved 3.5 meters towards the rock outcropping, located at the edge of the small crater where the rover landed. Controllers planned to command the rover to move the rest of the way to the outcropping by Friday. On the other side of the planet Spirit was continuing its study of a small rock dubbed "Adirondack", brushing away dust from an area of the rock so that the rover could use a tool Friday to grind away the outside layers. By the weekend Spirit could begin a 250-meter journey to a crater northeast of the landing site that scientists had identified as an area of interest. The rover is in good health, and engineers issued commands on Wednesday to format the flash memory on the rover; an excessive number of files there caused problems for the rover's computer two weeks ago.