Catalog Page for PIA12109

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PIA12109: Assessing Movement of Test Rover

After commanding five of a test rover's six wheels to drive forward, rover driver Paolo Bellutta (left) measures how much the rover moved sideways, downslope, during the maneuver.

Mission:	Mars Exploration Rover (MER)
Spacecraft:	Spirit
Product Size:	3008 x 2000 pixels (w x h)
Produced By:	JPL
Full-Res TIFF:	PIA12109.tif (18.05 MB)
Full-Res JPEG:	PIA12109.jpg (759.4 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

After commanding five of a test rover's six wheels to drive forward, rover driver Paolo Bellutta (left) measures how much the rover moved sideways, downslope, during the maneuver. Rover mission manager Alfonso Herrera (standing) checks computer entry of the data. This testing on July 6, 2009, was part of work at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., to determine the best maneuvers for NASA's Mars Explortaion Rover Spirit to use for getting out of a patch of soft soil where it is embedded on Mars. One of Spirit's six wheels, the right-front one, has not been operable since early 2006. The test setup simulates Spirit's challenging situation.

To see updates on the efforts to free the Spirit rover, visit the JPL Free Spirit website.

Image Credit:

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:

2009-07-06