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PASSPORT TO KNOWLEDGE - To MARS with MER
Daily Updates - February 6, 2004
Spirit Status at end of sol 33
NASA's Spirit was back and accomplishing another "first" in interplanetary science on Thursday: It brushed the dust off a rock to clean its surface for inspection.
On the first day of operations after they reformatted Spirit's flash memory, engineers confirmed that the flash memory was stable and available for data storage. Spirit was cleared to conduct the sol's science activities. The rock abrasion tool on the rover's robotic arm brushed a portion of the surface of the rock called Adirondack for five minutes. Spirit's panoramic camera and microscopic imager took pictures to show the effect of the brushing. The Mossbauer spectrometer and alpha particle X-ray spectrometer were used overnight on the brushed area.
The plan for Spirit for sol 34 is to use the rock abrasion tool again, this time to grind away the brushed portion of Adirondack's surface for examination of the rock's interior.
