Opportunity visit his heat shield

December 31, 2004 - NASA's Opportunity Rover has reunited itself with the heat shield that protected its entry into the Martian atmosphere almost a year ago, when it first arrived at Mars.

After it was ejected, the shield crashed to the surface nearly 2 km away from Opportunity's landing spot. The rover will study both the heat shield, and its impact mark - now the freshest crater on Mars. Engineers will have an opportunity to understand how the heat shield performed during atmospheric entry, and scientists will get a chance to see what's beneath the surface of Mars.

After six fruitful months exploring the interior of Endurance Crater the Opportunity rover has successfully climbed out of the crater onto the surrounding flatland of Meridiani Planum.

Opportunity is now making its way toward an engineering examination of its heat shield, which is located about 200 meters from the edge of Endurance. Now that the vehicle is on the relatively flat plain rather than tilted toward the Sun on the north-facing inner slope of the crater, electrical output from its solar array has declined by about 15 percent.

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity gained the view of its own heat shield during the rover's 325th martian day. The main structure from the successfully used shield is to the far left. Additional fragments of the heat shield lie in the upper center of the image. The heat shield's impact mark is visible just above and to the right of the foreground shadow of Opportunity's camera mast. This view is a mosaic of three images taken with the rover's navigation camera.

Quick facts: Mars Exploration Rover Mission (MER)
Special feature:		2 separate Rover (Spirit and Opportunity)
Mission start:		10 June 2003
		7 July 2003
Launch vehicle:		Delta II
Entering Mars atmosphere:		January 4 (2004)
		January 25 (2004)
Mission status:		Both Rover operating under normal conditions