PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Spirit rover has fully unfolded itself and stretched up to its full 4-foot, 9-inch height, making it ready to drive off the lander that delivered it to Mars, the space agency said Saturday.
The rover could reach the martian surface as early as Wednesday morning.
''It now stands at full height and all six wheels are in their final position,'' mission manager Jennifer Trosper said during a news conference at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The unfolding was one of the most complex deployments ever performed by a robotic spacecraft, mechanical systems engineer Chris Voorhees said. NASA had to fold up the rover to make it fit inside the lander, which opened up like a four-petal flower.
When Spirit does leave the lander, it will take a different route than scientists had hoped. Air bags used to cushion the rover's landing are now blocking the ramp NASA had planned to use. Instead, Spirit will turn 120 degrees to its right and take a second, more risky ramp to the ground, mission manager Matt Wallace said.
Even though it remains on its lander, 16 inches above the martian surface, Spirit already has found traces of minerals that could have formed in what might have been an ancient lake at the landing site.
That geologic observation could support theories that liquid water persisted on the surface of the planet during Mars' ancient past and provided an environment conducive to life.
However, scientists stressed that finding the minerals, called carbonates, does not immediately prove the lake theory. The carbonate dust also could have formed by reactions with the tiny amounts of water vapor found in the martian atmosphere.
Spirit also was measuring the temperature and makeup of the rocks and soil around it with its thermal emission spectrometer.
NASA sent the robotic geologists to prospect for evidence that Mars may once have been a wet world conducive to life.
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Sunday, January 11, 2004.
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