When NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity left Victoria Crater two years ago this month, the rover science team chose Endeavour Crater as the rover’s next long-term destination. With a drive of 111 meters (364 feet) on Monday, Sept. 8, Opportunity reached the estimated halfway point of the approximately 19-kilometer (11.8-mile) journey from Victoria to the western rim of Endeavour.
July 31st, 2010
NASA hopeful, but not confident, about ailing Mars rover cnet
NASA’s aging Spirit Mars rover, stuck in loose soil and forced to endure the harsh Martian winter with reduced solar power, has not phoned home since March 22. Officials warned Friday that “a miracle” may be needed to restore the rover to limited operation.
No longer mobile, Spirit was unable to orient itself to maximize solar-power levels before the onset of its fourth winter on Mars. Engineers expected the rover to put itself into electronic hibernation, suspending communications and conserving power to warm and recharge its batteries and to run an internal clock.
July 20th, 2010
Red Planet rover could emerge from slumber soon Spaceflight Now
NASA officials say the best chance to hear from the napping Spirit rover again will be in September or October, but the timing of the robot’s revival from winter hibernation is an engineering guessing game. Spirit was forced to sleep by the cold winter in the Martian southern hemisphere, where low sun angles were not sufficient to power the rover through solar panels.
The stranded rover last communicated with Earth on March 22. Spirit has been stuck in a sand pit known as Troy since April 2009, leaving the rover tilted away from the sun and limiting its ability to produce electricity.
The winter solstice at Spirit’s location was May 13, and conditions should now be improving. But the rover’s batteries likely won’t be collecting enough sunlight to begin communicating again until September or October.
June 29th, 2010
NASA Mars Rover Seeing Destination in More Detail
Mars rover team members have begun informally naming features around the rim of Endeavour Crater, as they develop plans to investigate that destination when NASA’s Opportunity rover arrives there after many more months of driving.
A new, super-resolution view of a portion of Endeavour’s rim reveals details that were not discernible in earlier images from the rover. Several high points along the rim can be correlated with points discernible from orbit.
Super-resolution is an imaging technique combining information from multiple pictures of the same target to generate an image with a higher resolution than any of the individual images.
June 19th, 2010
Seventh Graders Find a Cave on Mars
California middle school students using the camera on NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter have found lava tubes with one pit that appears to be a skylight to a cave.
The students in science teacher Dennis Mitchell’s class at Evergreen Middle School in Cottonwood, Calif., were examining Martian lava tubes as their project in the Mars Student Imaging Program offered by NASA and Arizona State University. Students in this program develop a geological question, then target a Mars-orbiting camera to take an image that helps answer the question.
Mars Odyssey has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2001, returning data and images of the Martian surface and providing relay communications service for the twin Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.
June 4th, 2010
NASA Rover Finds Clue to Mars’ Past And Environment for Life
Rocks examined by NASA’s Spirit Mars Rover hold evidence of a wet, non-acidic ancient environment that may have been favorable for life. Confirming this mineral clue took four years of analysis by several scientists.
An outcrop that Spirit examined in late 2005 revealed high concentrations of carbonate, which originates in wet, near-neutral conditions, but dissolves in acid. The ancient water indicated by this find was not acidic.
NASA’s rovers have found other evidence of formerly wet Martian environments. However the data for those environments indicate conditions that may have been acidic. In other cases, the conditions were definitely acidic, and therefore less favorable as habitats for life.
Laboratory tests helped confirm the carbonate identification. The findings were published online Thursday, June 3 by the journal Science.
May 28th, 2010
Mars rover on the move, another yet to come cnet
The life of a Mars rover is probably bit like that of Wall-E at the start of the Pixar movie: a lot of lonely treks in dutiful fulfillment of a mission through the remains of a planet’s earlier days.
The rovers Spirit and Opportunity may not be Hollywood icons, but they have done NASA proud. And in just the last day or so, Opportunity hit yet another milestone–it now holds the record for the longest active service on the surface of Mars, surpassing the mark of six years, 116 days (in Earth time) set by the Viking 1 lander, which arrived on the Red Planet in the summer of 1976.
May 20th, 2010
NASA Rovers Set New Record for Longest Mission on Mars
NASA’s long-lived twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have set a new endurance record on Mars, with Opportunity hot on the heels of its sister robot for the title of longest-running mission on the Martian surface.
Opportunity today matched the Mars mission lifespan of NASA’s iconic Viking 1 lander, which spent six years and 116 days (for a total of 2,245 days) working on the red planet in the mid 1970s and early 80s.
If Opportunity survives three weeks longer than its older robotic twin Spirit, which has been silent for weeks but may actually be hibernating, the rover will take the all-time record for the longest mission on Mars. The two solar-powered rovers recently experienced their fourth Martian winter solstice – the day with the least amount of sunlight at their respective spots on Mars – on May 12.
May 20th, 2010
Mars Rover surpasses Viking -1 record Jason Rhian
There is a new champion on the red planet, in terms of longevity that is, the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has surpassed the endurance record of Viking 1. The lander held the record for decades, (the lander was accidentally turned off in 1982 and contact could not be reestablished) until this week when Opportunity surpassed it. The Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity have been on Mars since 2004 and have provided countless new discoveries about our next door, (celestially speaking) neighbor.
The rovers were only expected to last 90 days – and have gone on to last some six years, (Spirit has not communicated with ground controllers and is thought to be in hibernation mode). Spirit may yet wake up and yank the duration-prize from her sister – but until then the prize goes to Opportunity. Much of the twin rovers’ missions successes have gone to this particular rover.
April 27th, 2010
Earth From Mars
This is the first image ever taken of Earth from the surface of a planet beyond the Moon. It was taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit one hour before sunrise on the 63rd Martian day, or sol, of its mission. (March 8, 2004)
The image is a mosaic of images taken by the rover’s navigation camera showing a broad view of the sky, and an image taken by the rover’s panoramic camera of Earth. The contrast in the panoramic camera image was increased two times to make Earth easier to see.The inset shows a combination of four panoramic camera images zoomed in on Earth. The arrow points to Earth. Earth was too faint to be detected in images taken with the panoramic camera’s color filters.