Spirit rover timeline

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This is the timeline for the Spirit rover of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission.

Photograph of a Martian sunset taken by Spirit at Gusev crater, May 19th, 2005.

During the first month of operations, announcements of Mars Exploration Rover-A (MER-A or Spirit) achievements were made at daily press briefings at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, usually held at 09:00 PST (12:00 EST, 17:00 UTC). The briefings typically discussed activities during the most recently completed sol (a Mars solar day; see below) and plans for the upcoming sol.

By mid February 2004, as both Spirit and its partner rover Opportunity were in regular operation, daily announcements were usually made in the form of a short release, issued shortly after the rover's latest workday was complete. Press conferences were still held but at a rate of about two per week.

The following chronology uses the dates of announcements. References to "this morning" or "tonight" are often in reference to JPL local time (PST).

1 Sols and Local Solar Time
2 2003
3 2004
4 2005
5 2006
6 See also

[edit] Sols and Local Solar Time

First color image from MER-A Spirit

A day on Mars is called a sol, and lasts 24 hours 39 minutes 35.244 seconds. The sol on which Spirit landed is designated Sol 1. The local time of the event was in the early afternoon, or at 14:34 according to the LST-A timekeeping system used by the MER team. When referring to Opportunity, however, Sol 1 means its landing date, which is offset 20.5 sols behind Sol 1 of Spirit.

The Local Solar Time system used by both Spirit and Opportunity is a hybrid timekeeping system created by mission planners at JPL and is specific to each lander. The LST clock ticks away at a rate appropriate to the mean length of a Mars solar day, but the clock for each lander is offset from the mean solar time at the landing site and the zonal mean solar time. Instead, the clock for each lander was initialized with the goal that at the middle of the lander's nominal mission duration, the lander's Local Solar Time would roughly align with local true solar time. For Spirit, the approximate date of that alignment is February 19, 2004. Unfortunately, because of the way this LST timekeeping system was defined and initialized, the difference between LST-A for MER-A Spirit and LST-B for MER-B Opportunity is nearly but not exactly an integral hour; it is instead 12 hours plus 1 minute and 10 seconds.

[edit] 2003

Launch of Spirit

June 6 – June 8 — Two launch attempts cancelled due to weather conditions at Kennedy Space Center.
June 8 — NASA announced that Mars Exploration Rover A will henceforth be known as "Spirit". Its companion probe MER-B will be known as "Opportunity". The names were selected by means of an essay contest open to American school children; the winning essay was submitted by Sofi Collis of Arizona.
June 10 — Spirit was successfully launched aboard a Delta II rocket.

[edit] 2004

Spirit, parachute, backshell and tracks as seen by Mars Global Surveyor

Spirit rover timeline for 2004 January — Spirit lands in Gusev crater and first photography is received via relay.
Spirit rover timeline for 2004 February
Spirit rover timeline for 2004 March
Spirit rover timeline for 2004 April — Spirit completed 90 sols of surface operations since landing day marking the completion of the last of the official success criteria for Spirit's prime mission.
timelines for 2004 May to 2004 December unavailable