Daily Updates - March 3, 2004
Spirit Status at end of sol 59

Waking up to "One More Time" by The Real McCoy, Spirit completed a successful, 2 millimeter-deep grind (.08 inches) into a target slightly left of the depression it made yestersol during its abbreviated operation. A five-minute brush to clean the hole followed.

Completing the sol, which ended at 8:31 p.m. Wednesday, March 03, Spirit's arm then switched instruments so the Moessbauer spectrometer could examine "Humphrey's" new shallow cavity.

Before this sol's four-hour grinding, the microscopic imager and the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer finished observations of yestersol's rock abrasion tool depression. To document Spirit's current position - about halfway to the "Bonneville" crater rim - the panoramic camera snapped the first of several images that, together, will provide a 360-degree view.

Engineers identified the software issue that caused the rock abrasion tool to terminate its original planned grinding on sol 58. The minor bug will be fixed when new flight software is loaded at the end of March.

In the coming sols, Spirit will complete the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer observations of the rock abrasion tool hole and get an up-close view with the microscopic imager. The final images will be obtained for the full panoramic view of Spirit's current position. After miniature thermal emission spectrometer and panoramic camera observations of the hole are conducted, Spirit will continue on toward "Bonneville" crater.

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