MER Spirit Is Alive And Well On Martian Surface

It was a celebration reminiscent of the scene in Mission Control when Apollo 11 landed. Controllers whooped and waved and hugged each other like long-lost relatives. The Spirit has landed.

The Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is the first of two robotic vehicles NASA sent to the Red Planet. The other, Opportunity, is scheduled to land later this month.

Spirit's bouncy landing came after the European Space Agency lost contact with its own lander, Beagle 2. In fact, Spirit's touchdown in the Gusev Crater is the first successful Mars landing since 1997.

"It's a place almost... tailor-made for our vehicle," Mars Exploration Rover chief mission investigator Steve Squyres said. "It's a glorious crater. We have hit what the science team believes is the scientific sweet spot."

The reason: water. Spirit and Opportunity are exploring geographical formations that NASA and JPL scientists believe might have been formed under a long-vanished Martian sea.

The first pictures from Spirit were breathtaking. And they're in stereoscope, giving a depth of field never before seen from Mars.

"The images are outstanding," Mars Exploration Rover science manager John Callas said as the pictures from Spirit began to appear on a giant screen at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "The quality (is) the best that have been taken. This is incredible."

So, how's Spirit doing now?

"The state of the vehicle is clearly very good ... the batteries are fully charged and ready to go," Jennifer Trosper, Spirit mission manager for surface operations said. If there could be any problem, it's a big boulder against which Spirit was leaning as it emerged from its air-bag cocoon. It could prove a roadblock when Spirit starts to roam.

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, long beleaguered by the shuttle disaster, problems with the return to flight and ongoing budget concerns, was clearly elated. "This is a big night for NASA -- we're back.... We're on Mars."

Indeed, NASA is on a roll. Not only has the Spirit succeeded in landing on Mars -- a feat which eluded a number of probes that went before it -- but NASA's comet-catching Stardust probe successfully navigated a hair-raising close encounter with Wild 2, passing within 149 miles of the celestial body and collecting what NASA hopes are microscopic samples of the stuff from which the solar system was made.

FMI: www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer