Looking Over a Rover Driver's Shoulder (5 Years later)

Mars and Me – The unofficial diary of a Mars rover driver
“Spirit Sol 18
Oops. Due to some overly aggressive sequencing, yesterday’s master sequence had a command to wait until a time that was about 18 seconds too late. So the spacecraft, following the rules, rejected it. The ops team noticed and fixed this during the day, so they missed the morning science but got our IDD sequences kicked off.
Another oops, this one mine: I was supposed to be available for some phone interview at 6 AM or so — a live interview on WITI-6 TV, a Fox affiliate in Milwaukee (save your Mary Tyler Moore jokes). I thought the interview was later in the day. But I called the guy back and got it set up for tomorrow.
But even if everything here on Earth is screwed up, at least Spirit is doing well. Specifically, the MI is healthy and is sending back beautiful data (which everyone immediately crowds around in the science downlink assessment meeting). Arvidson gives everyone a little time to admire the images, then says, “OK, can we get back to work now?” And someone says, “No!”
Editor’s note: Although the author is blogging day-by-day activities from 2004, the insight they often is still very relevant.