edl continued

(I may have some of the measurements of altitude and speed wrong. I was having a lot of trouble with the realplayer feed of NASA TV and I'm a horrible typist. It should be mostly good but don't go quoting it as gospel. My recording of the stream also failed so I can't easily correct it.)

Strong signal from right and left polarizations. bounce and roll for anther 8.5 minutes. Still got signal!
Seeing it on LCP. Much applause
Bouncing signal!!!!
We should be bouncing on the ground.
Radar has ground. retro-rockets fired.
175 mph. 8,000 feet in altitude. Airbags in 20 seconds
Heat shield dropped.
185 mph. 15 seconds from radar lock on ground.
18000 feet.
Parachute deploy detected (applause.)
Parachute should have deployed.
Altitude of 39000 feet. moving 1219 mph.
Accell 3 tones. Onboard computer determining deployment time. about 31 seconds from now. Vehicle wobbling increasing.
Parachute deploy in 30 seconds.
Parachute deploy logic becoming active. decelerating 2.5 Gs. Tones still coming in. 12.7 miles altitude.
16 miles alt. 4,468 mph.
Accell 6 tones. Decelerating between 6-7 Gs.
Accell 2 tones coming in. Decelerating at 5 Gs. Maximum deceleration at 6.5 Gs 7,900 mph.
(9:00) Wayne: vehicle slowing down. Altitude of 44 miles. 12,193 mph. 28.4 times the speed of sound. Over next minute should start to receive tones. Deceleration of 1 G.
(8:59) Wayne: Entry plus 30 seconds, altitude 60 miles.
(8:59) Atmospheric entry. Velocity will continue to increase for the next minute. Alt of 73 miles. 12,700 mph.
(8:58) Wayne: 30 seconds. 150 miles alt.
(8:58) Wayne: 13? miles altitude. 1 minute 12,170 mph
(8:57) Wayne: 90 seconds. 156 miles altitude
(8:57) Wayne: 2 minutes to go. 186 miles altitude, 11,976 mph.
(8:56) Wayne: At 258 miles altitude. 3 minutes to top of atmosphere (80 miles altitude)
(8:55) Wayne: 4 minutes.
(8:53) Wayne: 5:53 seconds from landing. All subsystems are go for EDL. Speed is 11,402 mph. Sit back and enjoy the landing. Now 4:36 seconds from entry. 1,250 miles from Meridiani.
(8:49-8:52) Jason Willis calls for pre-entry polling and gets good/nominal results from everyone.
(8:49) Wayne: Moments away from sub-station polling.
(8:48) Wayne: Accell 1 tone indicates vehicle not yet decelerating. As expected. 11 minutes until entry into Martian atmosphere
(8:47) Wayne: Telecom subsystem reported that we reacquired signal, are in lock and tracking.
(8:47) Wayne: Cruise stage pushed away with springs at 35 cm/sec. It will burn up as it follows Opportunity to entry. Current altitude of 1,264 miles, speed of 10,329 mph and a distance from Meridiani of 2,100 miles.
(8:45) "On behalf of the entire avionics team I'd like to thank you for flying with us and hope you had a pleasant journey" (applause)
(8:45) Wayne: Navigation reporting cruise separation jettison completed successfully.
(8:44) Wayne: Jettison. Calibration tone came in momentarily. Will lose comm momentarily during jettison.
(8:43) Wayne: 1 minute to cruise stage separation.
(8:42) Wayne: 2 minutes to cruise stage separation. 0.79° attitude error, a good number.
(8:41) Wayne: Bister family gave good luck peanuts which are being eaten now.
(8:41) Wayne: Thermal has reported that all freon has been vented into space.
(8:40) Wayne: We are 3 minutes from calibration tone. This one allows us to calibrate and verify tone system that will be used during descent.
(8:38) Wayne: Power anomaly you heard referred to was just a telemetry dropout. At this time the data indicates that the current draw from lander battery is as expected. 5 minutes from cruise stage jettison, altitude of 2183 miles and a speed of 9490 mph.
(8:36) Flight ACS is reporting HRS venting added to pointing error bring it to 1.8°.
(8:36) Power subsystem reports abnormal reading from lander battery was not confirmed with the next reading (some applause).
(8:31) Wayne: We are now half way through cleanup from HRS venting.
(8:30) Power subsystems reports abnormal readings from the lander battery.
(8:30) Wayne: Flight control engineers reported that the gas generators have turned on as expected and Power sub-system report nominal. Opportunity is at an altitude of 3,334 miles and a speed 8,817 mph. Jettison of cruise stage will happen in 13 minutes.
(8:24) Wayne: Jettison of cruise stage will happen in 19 minutes. Opportunity is 34 minutes from entry into Martian atmosphere.
(8:23) Jason Willis looking for confirmation of HRS vent completion.
(8:22) Wayne: HRS vent cleanup in progress. Should be completed in 19 minutes.
(8:19) Wayne: Venting freon into space should have occurred. Venting causes a slight wobble and telecom engineers will be looking for that signature. Spacecraft should be firing small control thrusters to stabilize that wobble.
(8:15-8:18) Jason Willis begins full sub-station polling and all substations reported in with nominal/good reports.
(8:15) Wayne: 45 minutes from entry, altitude of 5,522 miles, speed of 8,094 mph. Sub-system polling about to begin.
(8:13) Wayne: Gas generator heaters should be active.
(8:12) Wayne: That pointing error has been reduced to 0.37°, so even better.
(8:11) Wayne: Nav reports a 0.8° pointing error after the turn which is good news because it can be up to 10° and the craft still enter the atmosphere safely.
(8:10) Wayne: laughter you're hearing is reaction from flight crew looking at before and after pictures of their expressions when Spirit landed.
(8:02) Wayne: In approximately 10 minutes, we'll have the activation of gas generator heaters which bring the gas generators up to temp.
(8:00) Wayne: Opportunity is exactly 1 hour from hitting the top of Martian atmosphere.
(7:57) Jason Willis requests and receives general status from flight subsystems.
(7:56) Wayne: In 10 minutes, flight director Jason Willis will be polling subsystems.
(7:55) Wayne: We are 1 hour and 5 minutes from atmospheric entry,. We're currently at an elevation of 8,267 miles, and moving at 7,758 mph .
(7:54) Wayne: Turn to entry completed 30 seconds ago.
(7:45) Wayne: The turn to entry has nearly complete.

(man, I sure wish they had two channels, one for actual mission status and the other for this general purpose information that's filling so much of the time here)