Slow Going on Mars for NASA Rovers

By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 29 June 2005
1:40 p.m. ET

Now free to roam after weeks of being stuck in a sand trap, NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity is cautiously inspecting the troubling terrain at Meridiani Planum.

Rover operators on Earth are attempting to discern what caused the robot to run afoul of an area now dubbed "Purgatory Dune." Part of that assessment is using Opportunity´s robot arm to study the problem area – and to plot out an exit strategy for safely driving onward.

"It´s been slow going at Meridiani lately," noted Steve Squyres, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Rover missions at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

"We need to take a good hard look at Purgatory Dune with the instrument arm, but we´ve also got to show this dune a lot of respect... it got us once, and we don´t want it to get us again. So as we´re maneuvering into position on it, we´re using a great deal of caution," Squyres explained in an update to Cornell’s Mars web site.

[link to www.space.com]