16 January
2004: On 16 January 2004, ESA’s Mars Express orbiter flew almost directly over the NASA Spirit rover at Gusev Crater at an altitude of about 300 kilometres.
Mars Express looked down with its High Resolution Stereo Camera and three spectrometers: OMEGA for identifying minerals in infrared and visible wavelengths, and the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) and SPICAM for studying atmospheric circulation and composition. Spirit looked up with its panoramic camera and an infrared spectrometer.
Spirit’s science team took advantage of the special possibilities presented by this pass of the European orbiter. The aim was to get observations from above and below at the same time to determine the dynamics of the atmosphere as accurately as possible.
