Mars Exploration Rover "Spirit" has had a remarkably good week, but engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory here are already using Spirit data to improve the chances of the other rover, "Opportunity," slated to land on the opposite side of the planet on Jan. 24. These activities are part of a formal entry, descent and landing reconstruction team that started work immediately after Spirit's Jan. 3 landing. Program officials were going to decide late last week whether to add an unplanned trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) on Jan. 10 to alter Opportunity's approach path. This and other tactics based on Spirit data and analysis are being considered because of a December Martian dust storm that has changed the atmosphere from the predicted assumptions. One day before Spirit's landing, commands were sent to deploy its parachute 4 sec. earlier because of the same dust storm.
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