The Hindu : NASA corrects probe trajectory

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 22, 2003

International

International - Globescan

NASA corrects probe trajectory

PASADENA (California): The National Aeronautical and Space Administration successfully trimmed the course of a Mars-bound rover, putting the spacecraft on track for an early January arrival at the Red Planet. The first of as many as six trajectory correction manoeuvres ``worked perfectly,'' the mission manager, Jim Erickson, said on Friday from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The manoeuvre involved a series of rocket firings that increased the spacecraft's velocity relative to the sun by nearly 52 kmph — enough to fine-tune its path for a Jan. 3 arrival on the Red Planet. NASA initially aimed the rover, called Spirit, slightly away from Mars to ensure the third stage of the rocket used to launch it did not trail it to the planet. NASA aims to launch a second rover, Opportunity, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, early on Thursday next. The goal of the $800-million double mission is to send the twin-wheeled robots roaming across the surface of Mars to prospect for minerals that could indicate whether the planet was once a warmer, wetter place hospitable to life. The rovers are to land on opposite sides of the planet. (This NASA Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) view obtained on Tuesday shows the frost-covered sand dunes in the early northern spring season.)

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