Spirit is healthy. The rover is out of restricted sols and has been making excellent progress. On sol 655, Spirit drove 94.5 meters (310 feet)! The total drive distance from sol 655 to sol 659 was 126 meters (413 feet). Spirit also took a large panoramic camera mosaic looking back at the "East Basin" for a long-baseline stereo observation. Spirit made other observations with the panoramic camera for coordinated science with the Hubble Space Telescope.
Sol-by-sol summaries:
Sol 655 (Nov. 5, 2005): Spirit drove 94.5 meters (310 feet) southeast down onto "Lower Haskin Ridge." The maximum uphill slip was 10 percent at the beginning of the drive. The maximum downhill slip was three percent.
Sol 656: Spirit performed untargeted remote sensing and began observations in coordination with Hubble Space Telescope. The observations included a sky survey, an atmospheric opacity reading, calibration target readings and a horizon survey.
Sol 657: Spirit took a targeted panoramic camera mosaic back at East Basin for the second observation of the long-baseline stereo view. Spirit also performed targeted stares with the miniature thermal emission spectrometer.
Sol 658: Spirit drove 24 meters (79 feet) at a heading of 180 degrees, with an average slip of three percent.
Sol 659: Spirit drove back 8 meters (26 feet) to an outcrop of interest for inspecting with tools on the robotic arm.
As of the end of sol 659, (Nov. 10, 2005), Spirit has driven 5,273 meters (3.28 miles).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Observing the Outcrops - sol 633-640, Nov 11, 2005:
Opportunity is healthy and is observing outcrops of "Erebus Crater." The rover used the tools on its robotic arm to examine an outcrop area named "Olympia."
Sol Summaries:
Sol 633 (Nov. 4, 2005): Opportunity took microscopic images of target "Kalavrita" before using the rock abrasion tool to grind the surface off of the target. After the grind, the rover took microscopic images of the exposed interior and began using the Moessbauer spectrometer on the target.
Sol 634: The rover examined Kalavrita with the Moesssbauer spectrometer during the day and with the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer at night.
Sol 635: The Moessbauer spectrometer resumed an integration at Kalavrita.
Sol 636: Opportunity successfully used the miniature thermal emission spectrometer for the first time since sol 609. Extra precautions were taken by the operations team to allow quick recovery in the case of a reset.
Sol 637: Tasks were integration with the Moessbauer spectrometer and remote sensing with the panoramic camera.
Sol 638: Opportunity used the microscopic imager, the rock abrasion tool's brush, and the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer at a target dubbed "Ziakas."
Sol 639: Opportunity drove approximately 6 meters (about 20 feet) to a cluster of cobbles.
Sol 640 (Nov. 11, 2005): The rover conducted untargeted remote sensing.
Looking ahead: Sols 641 to 643 are planned as a robotic-arm campaign on a cobble target called "Agrafa."
As of sol 639 (Nov. 10, 2005), Opportunity had driven 6,424 meters (3.99 miles).