Like some phenomenal high school quarterback drafted into the NFL,
University of Arizona undergraduate Nicole Spanovich has made it as a pro.
But her skill is in helping run rovers, named Spirit and Opportunity, on
Mars.

Spanovich, a UA astronomy senior, is running a remote operations center for
NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission in Tucson. She set it up at the
UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory’s Phoenix Project building, 1415 N. Sixth
Ave., last month.

The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., announced
yesterday that NASA has extended the Mars rover mission for another six
months, as long as the rovers continue to roll.

Spanovich began working at the JPL in December, when UA planetary scientist
Peter H. Smith offered her the chance to work with his group on the Mars
rover mission.

“When I went to JPL last December, I figured I’d be home in April,”
Spanovich said. “I had no idea there would be an option for me to stay.”

“Nicole has found her calling in life as a spacecraft operator,” Smith said.
“Despite the long hours and tight schedules, she’s persevered for more than
eight months, tackling each challenge with intelligence and good spirit.

“Now, with remote operations, we are devoting more time to the scientific
analysis aspect of the mission,” Smith added. “Nicole will help us navigate
through the huge database that has been created by the two rovers. The
potential for new discoveries has never been greater, as the rovers are
finally positioned in exciting locations miles from where they landed.”

NASA’s nominal 90-day rover mission was to have ended last April, but the
U.S. space agency funded it for an extra $15 million to continue through
September.

Over the summer, mission scientists scrutinized rover power models, assessed
how the robot vehicles handled the martian environment as winter approached,
and “realized the rovers weren’t dying anytime soon,” Spanovich said. “They
really pushed for a plan for remote operations,” she said. NASA agreed.

NASA will extend the already extended Mars rover mission as of Oct. 1.
About 50 selected team members from around the country and the world are
involved in the remote operations network, according to JPL information
people.

UA’s remote MER operations center is furnished with a “MER board.” This
versatile, giant screen can display live Internet pages, mission data and
schedules, a digital clock on Mars time, laptop screens projected on other
MER boards in the network, or interactive Webcamcasts of science operations
working group meetings held at JPL.

The MER board is the medium Spanovich uses to share information during daily
science team meetings, end-of-Sol (Mars day) discussions, rover activity
planning sessions, or other sessions that she attends by audio conference
and Web cam.

But the Linux box is the real brains of remote MER operations. “It’s exactly
like the machine I worked with at JPL, except that it’s been reconfigured
with software needed for remote operations,” she said.

Spanovich uses the Linux box to view rover operations plans developed at
JPL. She also uses the Linux computer to add science observations to be
built into sequences that will run future rover activities. Working her
assigned, scheduled shifts, Spanovich will enter software commands for the
atmospheric sciences group, the microscopic imager and the engineering
cameras.

Sending uplink commands that run the rovers requires a bit more courage than
keeping track of data during download operations, she noted.

In collaboration with two scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey in
Flagstaff and another at NASA Ames, Spanovich will handle microscope imager
and engineering camera uplink duties for Opportunity throughout October. She
is training UA post-doctoral researcher Pete Lanagan as UA’s MER operations
center back-up.

Opportunity is presently near the bottom of what scientists call “Endurance
Crater.” Researchers plan to send the rover along the inside of the crater,
then climb to explore layered rocks, eventually exiting up and over the
crater rim near the spacecraft’s heat shield.

Spirit, meanwhile, commanded by JPL researchers, will continue climbing
what’s known as the “Columbia Hills,” working its way up for another view of
Gusev Crater.