Road trip! Destination: Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum.
March 18th, 2004
Rovers to Speed Across Mars as Support Staff Shrinks
With NASA’s Mars rover Spirit nearing the end of its primary mission profile and its twin, Opportunity, more than halfway through its own, mission planners preparing to give the two robots a longer leash while scaling back the amount of people on the project. Mission managers are looking ahead to an extended mission for both Spirit and Opportunity, which will kick in once the robots complete their first 90 days — or sols on Mars.
March 18th, 2004
Follow the Hematite Sky & Telescope
When planetary scientists reviewed potential landing sites for the Mars Exploration Rovers, Meridiani Planum rose to the top of the list. Opportunity’s future destination was known from orbital studies to be covered by hematite
March 18th, 2004
Mystery Spheres on Mars Finally Identified
Scientists have learned the composition of the mysterious sphere-shaped objects scattered across the crater floor at Meridiani Planum, the landing site of the Opportunity Mars rover.
By using a M
March 17th, 2004
Spirit Digs with a Jig
Sol 72, which ended at 5:06 a.m. PST on March 17, was a day full of digging for NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. Spirit began the day taking panoramic camera and miniature thermal emission spectrometer observations of the drift dubbed “Serpent” before creating the “scuff” that would reveal the inside material at this location.
March 16th, 2004
Panorama shows Mars crater in living color
The Spirit rover worked through its busiest Martian day yet, completing a record 43 observations, NASA said Monday. Among the pictures sent back was a breathtaking color panorama of the 650-foot-wide Bonneville crater as seen from its rim.
March 12th, 2004
Linux brings Mars Rover images to earth vnunet.com
Linux is powering the infrastructure behind a distributed global network hosting images of the current Mars Rover and the European Space Agency’s recent Rosetta comet chaser mission.
March 12th, 2004
Mars rover finds crater a little depressing New Scientist
The Mars rover Spirit has finally reached its destination, a 200-metre wide impact basin called Bonneville crater, after a month-long odyssey across the rock strewn plain of Gusev.
NASA scientists hoped the crater would provide a “window” into the rocks below the surface, but initial views suggest a big disappointment. Spirit may instead quickly head off to the hills.
March 12th, 2004
Mars rover finds little new at destination Baltimore Sun
After traveling over the Martian surface for more than 30 days to reach the Bonneville crater, NASA’s Spirit rover peeked over the rim and found that the crater floor looks very much like the terrain it has already passed over, researchers said yesterday.
Notably absent in the 220-yard-diameter crater were rock outcroppings like those found by Spirit’s twin, Opportunity, halfway around Mars in a much smaller crater at Meridiani Planum.
March 12th, 2004
NASA weighs risks of sending Spirit rover into Mars crater Florida Today
NASA’s Spirit rover inched toward the edge of a gaping crater on Mars Thursday as mission managers weighed the risks of driving into it.
A trip into the 660-foot-wide crater could yield an unprecedented look at subsurface Mars, one that might provide a window into the planet’s geologic history.
But the robotic field geologist could get stuck in the crater, nicknamed “Bonneville,” fouling plans to eventually head off and explore rolling hills east of the rover’s landing site.