Aer Lingus

. The name was proposed by Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld who along with Cornelis Johannes van Houten and Tom Gehrels discovered the asteroid on September 24, 1960.
. Honoring Spirit's great contribution to the exploration of Mars, the asteroid 37452 has been named Spirit. Print. Ephemeris data generated by JPL Horizons indicates that Opportunity would have been able to observe the transit from the start until local sunset at about 19:23 UTC Earth time, while Spirit would have been able to observe it from local sunrise at about 19:38 UTC Earth time until the end of the transit. See Also. They were able to observe transits of Deimos across the Sun, but at 2' angular diameter, Deimos is about 20 times larger than Mercury's 6.1" angular diameter.

The 737-500s will be disposed of during 2005 with three further A320-200 deliveries to replace them, the last due in January 2006. Theoretically, this could have been observed by both Spirit and Opportunity, however camera resolution did not permit seeing Mercury's 6.1" angular diameter. The Aer Lingus fleet consists of the following aircraft (at August 2005):. A transit of Mercury from Mars took place on January 12, 2005 from about 14:45 UTC to 23:05 UTC. See article: Aer Lingus destinations. Some of Spirit's star gazing was designed to look for a predicted meteor shower caused by Halley's Comet but no images of meteors have been formally released. It is believed that the airline will soon be privatised. These observations included a "lunar" (or rather phobal) eclipse as Spirit watched Phobos disappear into Mars's shadow.

Other plans include the procurement of new long-haul aircraft for expansion of intercontinental services. In fall of 2005 Spirit took advantage of a favorable energy situation to make multiple nighttime observations of both of Mars' moons Phobos and Deimos. Business class travel and cargo provisions for short haul flights have both been phased out (which will require the airline to drop out of the oneworld airline alliance), and the trademark aquamarine uniforms are to be dropped in favour of casual poloneck shirts. It also took the only photo of Earth from another world in early March. They are currently positioning themselves as competition to the European no-frills airlines, such as Ryanair, easyJet, Volare and Germanwings, but plan no-frills intercontinental flights as well. Spirit pointed its cameras towards the sky and observed a transit of the Sun by Mars' moon Deimos (see Transit of Deimos from Mars). This has largely been achieved through a new strategy involving lowering the airline's cost base, updating the fleet with modern Airbus equipment and developing new routes to mainland European destinations (Aer Lingus had previously largely neglected mainland Europe in favour of US and UK destinations).
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The airline has since weathered the storm and is back in profit. Spirit's total odometry as of sol 735 (January 27, 2006) was 6,279.01 meters (3.9 miles). Staff numbers were cut, destinations were dropped and the fleet was reduced. There has been a large effort to maximize driving prior to this. Following the attacks on September 11, 2001 Aer Lingus' business was severely reduced. Spirit entered restricted sols on sol 715 and now is only able to drive every other day. In 1 February 2001, Aer Lingus Commuter was merged back into the mainline operation. Spirit is making its way to "Home Plate", where it should receive adequate sunlight during the Martian winter.

The event was taken over by Esat BT amid claims that it was part of a cost cutting plan by Aer Lingus, though the airline claimed that the exhibition no longer represented the airline's aims or goals.
. From 1965 to 1997 Aer Lingus sponsored the Aer Lingus Young Scientist Exhibition. On Sol 582, August 21, 2005, Spirit reached the summit of Husband Hill and acquired a 360 degree panorama picture. However, since then these flights have been suspended.
. Newark International Airport in New Jersey was also added as a destination. Dust devils had previously been photographed by only the Pathfinder probe.

The late 1990s saw Aer Lingus return to Belfast with a service to New York via Shannon. This also marks the first time dust devils had been spotted by either Spirit or Opportunity, easily one of the top highlights of the mission to date. By that time, over 8 million people had travelled across the Atlantic in Aer Lingus Boeing 747s. NASA scientists speculate a dust devil must have swept the solar panels clean, possibly significantly extending the duration of the mission. On October 2, 1995 the last jumbo-jet service was operated after twenty-five years of service. On 9 March 2005 (probably during the Martian night), the rover's solar panel efficiency jumped from around 60% of what it had originally been to 93%, followed on 10 March by the sighting of dust devils. This led to the phasing out of the Boeing 747 and the briefly operated Boeing 767-300ER. Squyres said of the discovery, "We're still trying to work out what this means, but clearly, with this much salt around, water had a hand here".

In 1994 Aer Lingus started direct services between Dublin and the United States using the new Airbus A330 and in May of that year Aer Lingus operated the first A330 ETOPS service on the North Atlantic route. The soil also contained a high amount of phosphorus in its composition, however not nearly as high as another rock sampled by Spirit, "Wishstone". The airline was also the first operator in the world of all 3 then versions of the 737 (the 300/400/500 series). Spirit also investigated some targets along the way, including the soil target, "Paso Robles", which contained the highest amount of salt found on the red planet. By 1992 Aer Lingus's whole original 737 fleet had been replaced by new 737s. The scientists at this time were trying to conserve as much energy as possible for the climb. In 1991, 4 Saab 340Bs arrived at the commuter division, to substitute the Shorts 360 planes. By Sol 390 (Mid-February 2005), Spirit was advancing towards "Larry's Lookout", by driving up the hill backwards in reverse.

The BAC 1-11s were retired and 5 new 737s arrived. Spirit ground it with the RAT tool on Sol 373. During 1990, after the passage of the deregulation act for the airline industry in Ireland, Aer Lingus had to reconsider its operational policies. On Sol 371, Spirit arrived at a rock named "Peace" near the top of Cumberland Ridge. Between 1987 and 1989, new Boeing 737s arrived to replace the older ones, and 6 Fokker F50s were added to the Commuter fleet. Slowly, Spirit has made its way around the summit of Husband Hill, and at Sol 344 was ready to climb over the newly designated "Cumberland Ridge" and into "Larry's Lookout" and "Tennessee Valley". Around this time Aer Lingus purchased a majority sharehold in the cargo airline Aer Turas, owner of some DC-8 freighter jets. From Sols 239 to 262, Spirit powered down for solar conjunction.

These services were operated primarily by 5 of the Belfast-built Shorts 360. Following Clovis came the targets of Ebenezer (Sols 226-235), Tetl (Sol 270), Uchben and Palinque (Sols 281-295), and Lutefisk (Sols 296-303). In 1984 a fully-owned subsidiary, Aer Lingus Commuter, was formed so that Aer Lingus could fly to larger cities in Ireland and Britain whose flying time from Dublin did not require jet planes. Clovis was ground and analyzed from Sol 210 to Sol 225. In the early 1980s the 707s were phased out. By Sol 203, Spirit had driven southward up the hill and arrived at the rock dubbed "Clovis". Patrick) from Rome to Dublin and later from Shannon to Boston. From here, Spirit took a northernly path along the base of the hill towards the target Wooly Patch, which was studied from Sol 192 to Sol 199.

The pontiff flew aboard a specially modified Boeing 747 (EI-ASI or St. Within Hank's Hollow was the strange looking rock dubbed "Pot of Gold". In September 1979 Aer Lingus became the first airline other than Alitalia to be used by Pope John Paul II. Hank's Hollow was studied for 23 sols. The livery included two different colors of blue and one green, plus the white shamrock on the tail/fin. On Sol 159, Spirit reached the first of many targets at the base of the Columbia Hills called West Spur. In 1974 a new livery was unveiled and the word International disappeared from the fuselage titles on Aer Lingus planes. A long, snaking sand dune stretches away from its southwestern side, and Spirit went around it.

A third was later added to the fleet, however, one was leased out because it wasn't profitable at first for the company to fly 747s across the Atlantic Ocean. Lahonten is about 60 yards across and about 10 yards deep. In 1970 Aer Lingus took delivery of two Boeing 747s for use on the transatlantic routes. It then reached Lahonten crater on Sol 118, and drove along the rim until Sol 120. Aer Lingus later decided to extend the 737 flights to all of their European network. The rover skirted the northern rim, and continued to the southeast. 1969 saw the introduction of Boeing 737s to the Aer Lingus fleet to cope with the high demand for flights between the cities of Dublin and London. Missoula crater was not considered a high priority target due to the older rocks it contained.

The service proved successful in the beginning but it was soon suspended due to the beginning of the troubles in the area. The crater is roughly 100 yards across and 20 yards deep. In 1968, flights from Belfast in Northern Ireland to New York were started. Spirit reached Missoula crater on Sol 105. The cause of the crash is still unknown, with some suggesting that British missile tests were to blame. Spirit drove along the southern rim, tore up some sand dunes, and continued to the southwest towards the Columbia Hills. The crash is generally known as the Tuskar Rock Air Disaster in Ireland. JPL decided that it would be a bad idea to send the rover down into the crater, as they saw no targets of interest inside.

All 57 passengers and four crew perished. This crater is 150 yards across and about 30 yards deep. Aer Lingus suffered its only air crash in 1968 when a Vickers Viscount aircraft en route from Cork to London crashed near Tuskar Rock in the waters off the south east coast of Ireland. On 11 March 2004, the Spirit rover reached Bonneville crater after a 400 yard journey. In 1966 the remainder of the companies shares held by Aer Rianta were tranferred to the Minister for Finance. (Press release). A new livery was adopted in the same year, with a large white shamrock on the fin and titles of Aer Lingus-International just above the plane's windows. If this interpretation holds true, the minerals were most likely dissolved in water, which was either carried inside the rock or interacted with it at a later stage, after it formed.

Conversion of the European fleet to jet equipment began in 1965 when the BAC 1-11 began services from Dublin and Cork to Paris. Louis, reported during a NASA press conference: "If we found this rock on Earth, we would say it is a volcanic rock that had a little fluid moving through it." In contrast to the rocks found by the twin rover Opportunity, this one was formed from magma and then acquired bright material in small crevices, which look like crystallized minerals. The Boeing 720s proved to be a success for the airline on the transatlantic routes, however, in 1964 Aer Lingus took delivery of the larger Boeing 707. Ray Arvidson of Washington University, St. However, the Carvair proved to be an economic disaster for the airline, partly due to the rise of car ferry services. Dr. With this aircraft, five cars could be transported by loading them into the fuselage through the nose of the plane. On March 5, 2004, NASA announced that Spirit had found hints of water history on Mars in a rock dubbed "Humphrey".

In 1963, Aer Lingus brought some Carvairs to the fleet. Mimi could have been subjected to pressure either through burial or impact, or may have once been a dune that was cemented into flaky layers, a process that sometimes involves the action of water. Aer Lingus entered the jet-age on December 14, 1960 when three Boeing 720s were delivered for use on the New York route, as well as for the newest Aer Lingus destination, Boston. Mimi's flaky appearance leads scientists to a number of hypotheses. This arrangement continued until January 1, 1960 when Aerlínte Éireann was renamed Aer Lingus - Irish International Airlines. Mimi is only one of many features in the area known as "Stone Council", but looks very different from any rock that scientists have seen at the Gusev crater site so far. The aircraft were wet-leased from the American airline Seaboard And Western while Irish cabin crews were used. This color image taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit's panoramic camera on Sol 40 is centered on an unusually flaky rock called Mimi.

Three Lockheed Constellations were used for the thrice-weekly service. Following up that glorious circular brushing — it's like back-to-back homers.". On April 28, 1958 Aerlínte Éireann operated the first transatlantic service from Shannon to New York. In fact, when we saw virtually a complete circle, I was thrilled beyond anything I could have ever dreamed. In 1956 Aer Lingus introduced a new, green top livery with a white lighting flash down the windows and the Irish flag displayed on each plane's fin. "With the docile cutting parameters we set, I didn't think that it would cut this deep. Because of the expanding route structure the airline became one of the first to order Vickers Viscount 707s in 1951. "The RAT performed beyond our expectations," beamed Steve Gorevan, of Honeybee Robotics, New York, lead scientist for the rock abrasion tools on both rovers.

During the late 1940s and early 1950s Aer Lingus introduced new routes to Brussels, Amsterdam and Rome. The rock abrasion tools on both Mars Exploration Rovers were supplied by Honeybee Robotics, New York, N.Y. The Constellations were then sold to BOAC and the transatlantic service was put on hold. This image was taken by Spirit's panoramic camera, providing a quick visual check of the success of the grinding. Three new Lockheed Constellations were ordered but a financial crisis prevented the service from starting. The hole is 2.65 millimeters (0.1 inch) deep, exposing fresh interior material of the rock for close inspection with the rover's microscopic imager and two spectrometers on the robotic arm. In 1947 Aerlínte Éireann came into existence with the purpose of operating transatlantic flights to New York from Ireland. 6, 2004.

Because of Aer Lingus' rate of growth the airline bought seven new Vickers Viking planes in 1947, however, these proved to be uneconomical and were soon sold. The Rock Abrasion Tool on NASA's Spirit rover ground off the surface of a patch 45.5 millimeters (1.8 inches) in diameter on a rock called Adirondack during Spirit's 34th sol on Mars, Feb. In 1946 a new Anglo-Irish agreement gave Aer Lingus exclusive UK traffic rights in exchange for a 40% holding by British Overseas Airways Corporation and British European Airways (BEA). The round, shallow depression in this image resulted from history's first grinding of a rock on Mars. From this point on Aer Lingus planes were painted in a silver and green livery, and the airline's first flight attendants were introduced. On 6 February (Sol 33), the rover was restored to its original working condition, and science activities resumed. On November 9, 1945 regular services were resumed with an inaugural post-war flight to London. After realizing what the problem was, the engineers deleted some files, and eventually reformatted the entire flash memory system.

Apart from a new DC-3 service to Liverpool and an internal service to Shannon the airline's services were curtailed during World War II. Most of these files contained unneeded in-flight data. In January 1940 a new airport was completed in the Dublin suburb of Collinstown and Aer Lingus moved their operations to the new aviation centre. NASA engineers finally came to the conclusion that there were too many files on the filesystem, which was a relatively minor problem. In 1937 the Irish government created Aer Rianta (now called Dublin Airport Authority), a company to assume financial responsibility for the new airline and the entire country's civil aviation infrastructure. The engineers indicated that they had initially believed that this was a serious problem, and as a result, performed operations that only exacerbated the minor situation. Later that year, the airline acquired its second aircraft, a De Havilland 84B Dragon with a capacity of 14 passengers. The flash hardware was in fact believed to be working correctly but the file management module in the software was "not robust enough" for the operations the Spirit was engaged in when the problem occurred, indicating that the problem was caused by a software bug as opposed to faulty hardware.

Five days after being founded the airline opened its first service between Baldonnel Airfield in Dublin and Bristol, England, using a six-seater De Havilland 84 Dragon biplane. Spirit communicated successfully at 120 bits per second for nearly an hour. The name, Aer Lingus is an anglicisation of the Irish form Aer Loingeas which means Air Fleet (as does Aeroflot). In this mode, the rover obeyed commands about communicating and going into sleep mode. Aer Lingus Teoranta was registered as an airline on May 22, 1936. Spirit was placed in "crippled mode," operating using RAM instead of flash. . On 24 January the rover repair team announced that the problem was with Spirit's flash memory and the software that wrote to it.

Its slogan is Low Fares, Way Better. Indications were that the cause of the reset was not always perceived by the rover's diagnostics to be the same each time. The company employes 4,000 people and has revenue of €906.8 million as of 2004. The processor was not resetting immediately, however, with a delay of up to an hour. Aer Lingus is a member of the Oneworld airline alliance. The rover had also been in a processor reset loop of some type since Wednesday, in which the processor would repeatedly wake, load the flight software, and uncover a condition that would cause it to reset. The airline is owned by the Irish government, however plans are being made for the privatisation of the company. This suggested difficulties with the rover's high-gain antenna.

Based in Dublin, Ireland it operates over 30 aircraft serving Europe and the United States. Spirit was commanded to transmit engineering data, and on 23 January sent several short low-bitrate messages before finally transmitting 73 megabits via X band to Mars Odyssey. Aer Lingus (IATA: EI, ICAO: EIN, and Callsign: Shamrock) is the national airline of Ireland. This was described as a very serious anomaly, but potentially recoverable if it was a software or memory corruption issue rather than a serious hardware failure. Pioneers in Flight: Aer Lingus and the Story of Aviation in Ireland (The Liffey Press, 2002) ISBN 1-904148-21-2. The next day the rover radioed a 7.8 bit/s beep, confirming that it had received a transmission from Earth but indicating that the spacecraft believed it was in a fault mode. Weldon. On 21 January (Sol 18), Spirit abruptly ceased communicating with mission control.

Niall G. This, however, is only the tip of the iceberg, as this image, received on 6 January 2004, is about one eighth of a single pancam panorama and isn't stereo. The Flight Of The Iolar : The Aer Lingus Experience 1936-1986 (Gill And Macmillan, 1986) ISBN 0-71711-457-0. There are actually 12 million pixels in this image, it's 4,000 high by 3,000 wide. Share, Bernard. "We're seeing a panoramic mosaic of four pancam images high by three wide," said camera designer Jim Bell of Cornell. List of Irish companies. It is the highest resolution image ever taken on the surface of another planet.

Aer Lingus Passenger Opinions. To the right is the first color image of Mars taken by the panoramic camera on the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. Aer Lingus Fleet and Orders. "Just as the ancient mariners used sextants for 'shooting the Sun,' as they called it, we were successfully able to shoot the Sun with our panorama camera, then use that information to point the antenna," said JPL's Matt Wallace, mission manger. Aer Lingus Fleet Detail. It is 9 meters (30 feet) across and about 12 meters (40 feet) north of the lander. Aer Lingus. NASA scientists were very interested in this crater.

de Havilland DH.84 Dragon EI-ABI 1936-19xx. "Sleepy Hollow," a shallow depression in the Mars ground near NASA's Spirit rover, was targeted as an early destination when the rover drove off its lander platform. de Havilland DH.89 Dragon Rapide 1938-19xx. An archive of approximately weekly updates on the rover's status can be found at Spirit Update Archive (NASA/JPL site). Lockheed L-14 1939-1940. The following paragraphs discuss the more notable findings. Douglas DC-3 1940-1960s. A detailed but incomplete chronology of events and discoveries may be found in the Spirit rover timeline entry.

Vickers Viking 1947. The mission received several extensions and by January, 2006 had passed 720 sols. Vickers Viscount 700 Ei-AFV 1954-1966. The primary surface mission for Spirit was planned to last 90 sols. Fokker 27 EI-AKG 1958-1966.
. BAC 1-11 EI-ANG 1965-1990. (NASA has submitted these geographical feature names to the IAU for approval.).

Vickers Viscount 800 EI-AOH 1966-19xx. On February 2, the astronauts on Columbia's final mission were further memorialized when NASA named a set of hills to the east of the landing site the Columbia Hills Complex, denoting seven peaks in that area Anderson, Brown, Chawla, Clark, Husband, McCool and Ramon. Boeing 737-200 EI-ASL 1969-1992. On January 27 NASA memorialized the crew of Apollo 1 by naming three hills to the north of "Columbia Memorial Station" as the Apollo 1 Hills. Shorts 330 EI-BEG 1983. The MER team named the landing site "Columbia Memorial Station," in honor of the seven astronauts killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Shorts 360 EI-BSP 1984-1991. A panorama [2] shows a slightly rolling surface, littered with small rocks, with hills on the horizon up to 27 km away.

Boeing 737-300 EI-BUD 1987-1993. The rover, parachute, heat shield and several bounce marks are visible in a picture taken by Mars Global Surveyor. Boeing 737-400 EI-BXI 1989-2005. Spirit landed in Gusev crater about 10 km from the center of the target ellipse at latitude 14.5718° S ± 30 meters, longitude 175.4785° E ± 0.5 meters [1]. Fokker 50 EI-FKE 1989-2001. . Saab 340 EI-CFC 1991-1995. Spirit was named by a winning entry in a student essay competiton—see Naming of Spirit and Opportunity.

BAe 146-300 EI-CLG 1995-2003. Her twin Opportunity landed successfully on Mars on January 24, 2004. Lockheed Constellation 1948 (Aerlinte Eireann). She successfully landed on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC on January 4, 2004 and has operated successfully for over one full Martian year and two Earth years. Lockheed Super Constellation 1958-1960. Spirit (official designation: MER-A) is the first of the two Mars Exploration Rover missions. Boeing 720 EI-ALC 1960-1971.

Boeing 707-320 EI-ANO 1964-1986. Boeing 747-100 EI-BED 1971-1995. Boeing 767-300ER EI-CAL1991-1994. McDonnell Douglas MD-11 N272WA 1998-2001, leased several times from World Airways.

3 Boeing 737-500 Photograph of EI-CDG. 4 Airbus A330-300 Photograph of EI-ORD. 3 Airbus A330-200 Photograph of EI-EWR. 6 Airbus A321-200 Photograph of EI-CPG.

18 Airbus A320-200 Photograph of EI-DEN.