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Rover to drive off lander base in different direction BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: January 11, 2004 Engineers now think they'll be ready to roll the Spirit rover off its lander and onto the martian surface early Thursday (Eastern Time), a day later than had been hoped, to accommodate rehearsals and a two-day procedure to rotate the rover into position for its long-awaited egress.
That cable will be cut overnight Monday, using the last of more than 120 explosive devices that began detonating Jan. 3 in a precisely scripted sequence beginning with the lander's separation from its cruise stage just before atmospheric entry. "We are now fully stood up and all of our six wheels are deployed in their normal configuration and they've all been released from the lander," said mission manager Arthur Amador. "So the only thing that we remain in contact with lander is through our umbical." Otherwise, "the vehicle status remains pretty darn perfect," he said. "Everybody's extremely pleased with the health and safety status of all the subsystems." Engineers initially hoped to have Spirit roll straight off its lander, almost due south as it sits on the floor of Gusev Crater. But bunched-up airbag material poses a potential threat to the rover's solar arrays and engineers instead have decided to roll off to the northwest. That will require Spirit to rotate in place about 120 degrees to its right.
But in keeping with their "brave, but not stupid" approach to Spirit's activation, the JPL engineering team has decided to carry out that rotation in two stages over two days. To make absolutely sure they understand the rotation and roll-off procedures, engineers plan to spend today testing various commands and techniques using a rover/lander mockup at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. If no problems surface, the final umbilical will be cut overnight Monday and the rover will be commanded to turn in place about 45 degrees. At that point, pictures and telemetry will be radioed back to Earth for analysis to make sure the procedure is working properly. The following night - overnight Tuesday U.S. time - Spirit will complete its rotation in two steps. First, it will rotate another 50 degrees, then stop and send back pictures. If all is well, commands will be sent to complete the rotation. That will set the stage for roll off early Thursday U.S. time.
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