The post-landing press conference is happening now.
Sean O'Keefe, NASA Administrator, pours some champagne for the rest of the panel and proposes a toast that I couldn't quite hear. He mentioned yesterday's Stardust sample collection and today's "extraordinary achievement" by a "remarkable team" followed by general praise for the NASA organization and a the project leadership.
Ed Weiler, Associate Administrator for Space Science, NASA Headquarters: "I'm not usually speechless but I feel speechless tonight." Praise for the team, their devotion to the goal, their teamwork and communications. "It was 'six minutes from hell'".
Charles Elachi, director of the JPL: "The finest and the best team of young women and men that this country could put together."
Pete Theisinger: "We got a good system and we're alive on the surface." Praise for the team. Praise for the Deep Space Network people, especially Mars Global Surveyor for getting data back to us so quickly. Thanks to the families of everyone involved for their support. Thanks for support from above. "We got everything we asked for. We got
Richard Cook: "I really, really like doing it when it works like this". Discussed 7 years ago in the "highs" when they pulled off Pathfinder and 4 years ago at the "lows". Thanks for some of the leaders that aren't on the stage.
Rob Manning: Praise for all of the "very cool people" he gets to work with. "It's such a pleasure working with such awesome people. It's so awesome to be a part of that crowd." EDL team still in the war room looking at the data. Quick overview of the "very, very normal" EDL. "Everything worked perfectly". The cool new backshell rockets were actually used to correct the descent, "those little rockets did their job". He described the amazing number of components that all worked perfectly to bring Spirit safely to the surface. We actually got 7 minutes of UHF data from MER to MGS during the bouncing. The DSN almost immediately locked onto the signal on the Martian surface which was surprising. "Maybe we'll here something more tonight so stay tuned. Thank you."
O'Keefe: "This is a big night." He goes on to praise a lot of the deputies and others "you don't hear much about."
Odyssey flyby in 30 minutes.
(below are all paraphrases, I don't type fast enough to actually put together a full transcript, sorry)
Questions 1. What are the chances that Odyssey might have some pictures from us tonight.
Pete: We know that the UHF works and we are base petal down but the chances are pretty good that we'll get pictures tonight. 11:15-11:30 if there's anything there.
Question 2. Walk us through tomorrow.
Pete: UHF from Odyssey tonight. 8am engineering data from MGS. Team will do assessment of engineering system and picture examination (rover and surroundings for damage) and then a high-gain antenna deploy in the afternoon with maybe more pictures tomorrow night.
Question 3. Would you have been near danger without the lateral correction from the backshell rocket system.
Pete: These were late additions. We added them after studies and modeling suggested wind and self-induced gusts could cause problems. They were done early enough that we got compete testing and development.
Rob: I don't think I can say that we were really, really close to the edge but it was "up there". The winds as we expected at Gusev, exist. Probably not close to disaster but it was on the edge.
Q4. what does a bounce look like in the data. can you tell how high it bounced.
Rob. Yes. We have the data. We may have bounced for quite a while. We'll be able to come up with a pretty rough motion of how it moved and maybe even animate it in the next day or week give you a movie. Can't promise. Have to look at data first.
Q5. Might you stand up earlier than 9 days planned and walk around.
Pete:There's a lot of different challenges still and I would not expect to get off the lander early.
Q6. Could I have some personal thoughts comparing this to last time man was on the moon and any scientific or commercial value.
crosstalk. Who is old enough to answer. Ed Weiler "Apollo had to be like this. It doesn't get better than this. "I started believing when that parachute went out."
Elachi: With Apollo, you could look up there at the Moon and say 'we landed there'. When you walk outside today you can see Mars and you know we landed there.
Q7. 10 minutes of silence gave you pause. tell us about your feelings.
Rob: "Near tension for the last 3 and a half years. We practiced so many times that the brain can't help but think that you're in a practice. When the signal faded I started to realize "'uh oh, this isn't a practice'". Talked about the tension in the room and how surprised he was that he was so calm.
Cook: "Did we really see something there" and the agony built rapidly. Then "surreal when Rob said we saw the second signal".
Q8. any information about where you are in the ellipse. Also, you mentioned you might be able to learn something from the bouncing data. Would that tell you about the land you bounced over?
Rob: I don't know. Excited about images taken from descent camera. We don't know where in the ellipse where we landed. Pool has already begun :-) Lots of ways to figure out where we landed. People will race each other to figure it out. We're in that ellipse and very likely we're near the middle, an area where there aren't a lot of craters with one big one to the south and bumpy cliff-like mesas to the south. Not clear we'll see them from the landing site but they're not that far away"
Q9. Did you learn anything in this EDL that you might change for Opportunity.
Pete: We've got a team for doing EDL reconstruction and they'll be pouring over the data. "The one thing we know is that the design was solid... a risk reducer and a confidence builder."
Q10. Are there any slight differences between the rovers.
Pete: They are as identical as we could make them except for the radio frequencies. they were built at the same time. One fuse difference between the vehicles.
Q11. Parachute deployment timing change, was it important.
Rob: I don't think it made a critical difference. We won't know until we do the data processing. This is among the key questions that this reconstruction team will be asking. We can reduce overall risk to Opportunity here.
Q12. What does it mean for us to have another craft on Mars.
Pete: a 4th place we've visited on Mars. imagine you came to earth and you had only visited 3 places and now you get a fourth. This is a great site.
Richard: hopefully we've inspired people as well.
Rob: Mars is not that far away and though we don't visit very often and it's not cheap, it is achievable and as a people if we choose to dare to go visit our neighbor we can and it's achievable. It's our neighbor and it's right next door.
Ed Weiler: in terms of science we're in a place water existed for a long time and we're there with the instruments to investigate this.
Q13. some question about the technique and system for landing. will you continue doing this?
Rob: we are still in the infancy of how to do this. this is not the best way to do it. our inexperience means there's a lot of uncertainty. we have to keep practicing.
Mission team members returning to operations area.
(I'll spell check this and make further updates)
