Mars and Me

The longer we stay at a rock target, the easier exploring it becomes. In part this is because we can reuse successful commands from previous...

This morning is one of those mornings that makes me appreciate all the mornings that aren't like this morning. But there's good news...

"Let me tell you, this target sucks," Chris exclaims. Truly, this target is in a very odd spot. The flight software will happily...

Amazingly, it worked. I don't know if we're better than I think we are or if we just dodged a bullet this time, but it worked. The...

I'm the only rover driver who hasn't worked on both rovers. Brian and Jeff did most of Spirit's first drive before moving to Op...

So I'm RP-1, bright and shiny at 8 AM. And Art's here, so it's almost like the old days. "How ya doing, Art?" I ask,...

I've been scheduled for the last few sols, but there's been no rover motion. We're taking advantage of our good power situation...

I'm RP-1 again. I come in at 8:30, expecting the SOWG meeting at 9:00. But 9:00 rolls around, and no SOWG meeting. In fact, from list...

This is my first RP-1 sol since I-don't-know-when, and moreover I'm doing it solo -- the scheduling snafu left us no RP-2, though Ch...

This is new: Ashitey's RP-1 thisol. This is also new: there's no RP-1 scheduled for nextersol. But that's a scheduling snafu, o...

But of course I didn't go. Too much moving to do. "You should have gone," says Chris. He's nursing a hangover, and he...

The switchback drive worked -- we've reached the outcrop, and the scientists are awfully excited about it. John and I get to be the fir...

The news starts off good, at least. No errors on the drive, and we turned as expected for comm. But where the hell are we? It looks like w...

Oh, damn it. I'm there when the downlink starts, and one of the first things we see is an indication of another goal error. So at leas...

We didn't make it work. I come in a little early and sit down at my workstation with Richard Kornfeld, who's now working on MSL and...

TiVo thinks we're cool. The TiVo user's guide has a screen shot of TiVo being used to display digital photos, and the digital photo...

Sol 200. Sol two hundred. Sol TWO HUNDRED. Nope, I still can't believe it. Neither, I think, can John Wright. "We're on sol ...

Yestersol's RAT operation went perfectly, drilling a hole almost 4mm deep. So thisol we're poking at the hole, of course. Since mos...

Today is all about food. It begins with Larry Soderblom's game of Hide-the-Pizza. John goes to the cafeteria to get a pizza, brings it...

Yestersol's drive was a bullseye -- we ended up just where we'd aimed for. "Welcome to the outcrop," says an excited Larr...