Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Features: "In a perfect world, or in this case two perfect worlds -- Earth and Mars, the first of NASA's two robot geologists will bounce over rocks and roll to a safe stop on the martian surface shortly after 8:35 p.m. PST this Saturday, January 3, 2004.
NASA's twin rovers, named Spirit and Opportunity, have been cruising through the frigid temperatures of space toward Mars for seven months, traveling about 300 million miles. Spirits of the engineers and scientists who have worked on this mission for the last three years will likely heat up around 7:04 p.m. PST when the Spirit spacecraft rotates to face its heat shield forward for final approach. The first step the rover will take in shedding more than half of the spacecraft it has been traveling in should occur at 8:14 p.m. PST, when the entry vehicle is scheduled to separate from the cruise stage. The rover should come screaming into the Martian atmosphere going 12,000 mph at 8:29 p.m. PST. "
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