PASADENA, Calif., Jan. 3 -- The U.S. spacecraft Spirit survived a hazardous passage through the Martian skies Saturday and bounced successfully into Mars's Gusev Crater shortly after 11:35 p.m. EST. The lander was the first emissary from Earth to survive the notoriously treacherous approach to the Martian surface since NASA (news - web sites)'s 1997 Pathfinder wowed earthlings.
The Spirit lander carried a 384-pound rover that scientists described as a PhD field geologist -- in contrast with its relatively childlike predecessor, the Sojourner. The new model was designed to explore a larger patch of terrain and perform more sophisticated studies of the rocks and soil in what may be an ancient lake bed, searching for signs that Mars might once have been capable of supporting life.
At a little before 11:15 p.m. EST Saturday, mission control here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory received the first of several encouraging radio tones, called semaphores, from the lander -- simple tones coded to indicate the condition of the spacecraft at various key stages of the landing sequence. During the six-minute descent through the atmosphere, which began at 11:29 p.m. EST, a series of the tones were selected from a "dictionary" of about 100 possible tones, but the one that counted was one that indicated the craft had survived its riskiest moment, when it hit the surface.
At slightly past 11:35, after tense moments of waiting, the control room erupted in a series of cheers, and people who had spent up to four years on the project hugged each other, as control room engineer Wayne Lee, doing the commentary, reported: "We have signs that the spacecraft is bouncing. . . . The signal indicates we are bouncing on the surface of Mars."
more, including pictures already!, is here...
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1802&ncid=1802&e=1&u=/washpost/20040104/ts_washpost/a52852_2004jan3
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