Spirit rover landed successfully within the impact crater Gusev on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC on January 4,2004, three weeks before its twin, Opportunity, which landed on the other side of the planet.
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37 Facts About Spirit rover
2.
The Spirit rover got stuck in a "sand trap" in late 2009 at an angle that hampered recharging of its batteries; its last communication with Earth was on March 22,2010.
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3.
On March 22,2010, Spirit rover sent its last communication, thus falling just over a month short of surpassing Viking 1's operational record.
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5.
On January 21,2004, Spirit rover abruptly ceased communicating with mission control.
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6.
The Spirit rover was programmed to reboot if there was a fault aboard.
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7.
The flash hardware was believed to be working correctly but the file management module in the software was "not robust enough" for the operations the Spirit rover was engaged in when the problem occurred, indicating that the problem was caused by a software bug as opposed to faulty hardware.
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9.
Spirit rover drove along the southern rim and continued to the southwest towards the Columbia Hills.
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10.
The Spirit rover skirted the northern rim, and continued to the southeast.
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11.
Spirit rover drove from Bonneville crater in a direct line to the Columbia Hills.
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12.
On sol 159, Spirit rover reached the first of many targets at the base of the Columbia Hills called West Spur.
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13.
The route was selected so that the Spirit rover's panels were tilted as much as possible towards the winter sunlight.
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14.
From here, Spirit rover took a northerly path along the base of the hill towards the target Wooly Patch, which was studied from sol 192 to sol 199.
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15.
From Sols 239 to 262, Spirit rover powered down for solar conjunction, when communications with the Earth are blocked.
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16.
Spirit rover did some communication tests with the ESA orbiter Mars Express though most of the communication was usually done with the NASA orbiters Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor.
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17.
Spirit rover had now been on Mars for one Earth year and was driving slowly uphill towards the top of Husband Hill.
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18.
On sol 371, Spirit rover arrived at a rock named "Peace" near the top of Cumberland Ridge.
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19.
Spirit rover investigated some targets along the way, including the soil target, "Paso Robles", which contained the highest amount of salt found on the red planet.
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20.
The Spirit rover was the first spacecraft to climb atop a mountain on another planet.
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21.
Spirit rover took a 360 degree panorama in real color, which included the whole Gusev crater.
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22.
At night the Spirit rover observed the moons Phobos and Deimos in order to determine their orbits better.
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24.
In 2006 Spirit rover drove towards an area dubbed Home Plate, and reached it in February.
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25.
Spirit rover's next stop was originally planned to be the north face of McCool Hill, where Spirit rover would receive adequate sunlight during the Martian winter.
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26.
Spirit rover arrived at the north west corner of Home Plate, a raised and layered outcrop on sol 744 after an effort to maximize driving.
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27.
The Spirit rover made its first drive, a short turn to position targets of interest within reach of the robotic arm, in early November 2006, following the shortest days of winter and solar conjunction when communications with Earth were severely limited.
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28.
NASA officials were hopeful that Spirit rover would survive the storm, and that the energy level would rise once the storm had passed and the skies started clearing.
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29.
On November 13,2008, the Spirit rover awoke and communicated with mission control as scheduled.
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30.
On May 1,2009, the Spirit rover became stuck in soft sand, the machine resting upon a cache of iron sulfate hidden under a veneer of normal-looking soil.
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31.
On January 26,2010, after several months attempting to free the Spirit rover, NASA decided to redefine the mobile robot mission by calling it a stationary research platform.
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32.
On March 30,2010, Spirit rover skipped a planned communication session and as anticipated from recent power-supply projections, had probably entered a low-power hibernation mode.
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33.
Spirit rover remains silent at its location, called "Troy, " on the west side of Home Plate.
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34.
In summary, Spirit rover found evidence of slight weathering on the plains of Gusev, but no evidence that a lake was there.
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35.
Spirit rover pointed its cameras towards the sky and observed a transit of the Sun by Mars' moon Deimos.
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36.
In late 2005, Spirit rover took advantage of a favorable energy situation to make multiple nighttime observations of both of Mars' moons Phobos and Deimos.
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37.
Ephemeris data generated by JPL Horizons indicates that Opportunity would have been able to observe the transit from the start until local sunset at about 19:23 UTC Earth time, while Spirit rover would have been able to observe it from local sunrise at about 19:38 UTC until the end of the transit.
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