Spirit remains healthy and is making good progress on the rover's winter campaign of scientific experiments. This week Spirit continued collecting a full-color, high-resolution, 360-degree panorama called the "McMurdo pan." When complete, the panorama will be a mosaic of 27 columns of images. The product could be finished in about six weeks, given power and data limitations.
Spirit also conducted scientific analysis of a soil target nicknamed "Progress" using the instruments on the rover's robotic arm.
Sol-by-sol highlights:
Sol 820 (April 24, 2006): Spirit worked on acquiring column 4 of the McMurdo pan and made ground observations using the miniature thermal emission spectrometer.
Sol 821: Spirit continued work on acquiring column 4 of the McMurdo pan and making ground observations using the miniature thermal emission spectrometer.
Sol 822: Spirit began characterization of the undisturbed soil surface of Progress using the microscopic imager and the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer. The rover also began acquiring column 5 of the McMurdo pan and made observations with the miniature thermal X-ray spectrometer.
Sol 823: Spirit continued work on characterizing the undisturbed soil surface of Progress using the microscopic imager and the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer. The rover also continued acquiring column 5 of the McMurdo pan and making observations with the miniature thermal X-ray spectrometer.
Sol 824: Spirit continued work on characterizing the undisturbed soil surface of Progress using the microscopic imager and the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer. The rover also continued acquiring column 5 of the McMurdo pan and making observations with the miniature thermal X-ray spectrometer.
Sols 825-827 (April 29 to May 1, 2006): Plans called for analyzing Progress with the Moessbauer spectrometer and acquiring columns 6 and 7 of the McMurdo pan.
Odometry:
As of sol 824 (Apil 28, 2006), Spirit's total odometry remained at
6,876.18 meters (4.27 miles).