NASA
January 4th, 2005
NOVA – Welcome to Mars PBS
NASA’s twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have yielded volumes of new data about the red planet in the last year – the least of which involves the planet’s history of water. But the rovers have also amazed their human handlers with their longevity, lasting nearly four times their initial 90-day mission despite some early glitches that popped up after landing. A new one-hour documentary NOVA: Welcome to Mars (Public Broadcasting System, Jan. 4 at 8:00 p.m.) chronicles the rover mission from the early days after Spirit’s landing through the arrival of Opportunity and some following months.
January 3rd, 2005
NASA Rover Hits the One Year Mark on Mars
Sitting on the hill of an alien world millions of miles from home, a hardy NASA robot celebrates an anniversary today – one year on the planet Mars. The Mars rover Spirit has come a long way since it hurtled down through the planet’s atmosphere and came to a bouncy, airbag-protected stop at Gusev Crater on Jan. 3, 2004. It has survived more than four times its initial 90-day mission, driven miles across the Martian landscape and weathered a red planet winter only to scale hills for its human handlers
January 1st, 2005
Mars Rover Wanders Through Littered Landscape
Like the adage here on Earth, so goes it for Mars: One person
December 30th, 2004
‘NOVA’ Welcomes Viewers to Mars on PBS
When scientists wanted to explore what kind of life might exist on Mars, public television’s “NOVA” recorded the building and launch of the rovers sent to the planet. Now, a year later, the “NOVA” team is back with “Welcome to Mars,” featuring data collected by the robots as they searched for signs that the planet may once have harbored tiny forms of life. The program airs Tuesday at 8 p.m. EST on PBS (check local listings).
December 21st, 2004
Mystery Martian
A phenomenon akin to a space-borne car wash has boosted the performance of one of the two NASA rovers probing the surface of Mars. Layers of dust have been swept from the solar panels of the Mars Opportunity vehicle while it was closed down during the Martian night. The cleaning boosted the panels’ power output close to their maximum 900 watt-hours per day, after at one stage dropping to 500 watt-hours because of the heavy Martian dirt.
December 21st, 2004
Opportunity Rover to Prowl its Entry Debris for Mars Secrets
The Opportunity Mars rover has turned into a junkyard dog, prowling ever closer to a hunk of space litter at Meridiani Planum — a discarded heat shield. During its January 25, 2004 plunge toward the red planet, the Opportunity rover was encapsulated in a protective aeroshell comprised of two key parts: a heat shield and a backshell that contained essential landing gear.
December 21st, 2004
Mars Rovers Head for New Ground Discovery News
As the robotic explorers Spirit and Opportunity approached their first anniversaries on Mars, the rovers, working on opposite sides of the planet, were on the move, heading to their next targets. Opportunity, which has been crawling around for six months inside a stadium-sized hole in the ground called Endurance Crater, climbed out this week to begin a new round of studies. Its final task inside Endurance Crater was to make a close inspection of exposed rock layers on a crater wall called Burns Cliff, according to NASA scientists.
December 17th, 2004
Science names Cornell-led Mars rover mission science program as Breakthrough of the Year Cornell
Science magazine has chosen the discoveries of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission as Breakthrough of the Year in its Dec. 17 edition, published today. The principal scientific investigator for the mission’s twin-rover science program is Steve Squyres, professor of astronomy at Cornell University, assisted by a large team of researchers, 28 of them at Cornell, including 15 students. The mission is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The journal, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says that its annual top honor is awarded for the mission’s discovery of evidence for the prolonged presence of potentially life-supporting, salty, acidic water on the planet’s surface.