The Beagle 2 mission team has released its own report about what went wrong with the ill-fated Mars lander. The European Space Agency (ESA) reviewed the mission earlier this year and blamed poor management of funds for the failure. But the UK team concludes that the most likely cause of Beagle 2’s demise was the fact that the planet’s atmosphere turned out to be thinner than expected, so the craft was unable to brake hard enough to land safely.
August 17th, 2004
The eroded valleys of Dao and Niger Valles
These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, show the Dao Valles and Niger Valles, a system of outflow channels on Mars. The images were taken during orbit 528 in June 2004, and show the Dao Valles and Niger Valles areas at a point where the north-eastern Hellas impact crater basin and the Hesperia Planum volcanic region meet.
August 11th, 2004
Relays from Mars Show International Interplanetary Networking
One of NASA’s Mars rovers has sent pictures relayed by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter for the first time, demonstrating that the orbiter could serve as a communications link if needed. The link-up was part of a set of interplanetary networking demonstrations paving the way for future Mars missions to rely on these networking capabilities. The American and European agencies planned them as part of continuing efforts to cooperate in space exploration.
August 6th, 2004
Winter Cramping Rover’s Output Discovery News
It may be odd to talk about the wintertime blues in the height of summer, but Spirit has a pretty good case of them, sitting as it is on a Martian hill, dimly lit by the pale sun. For weeks, engineers and scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., have been coaching the rover up and over and around rocks and ledges and slopes in an attempt to position Spirit on top of a relatively flat slice of bedrock that faces north
August 5th, 2004
Red Planet had ‘recent’ volcanism
Mars appears to have been volcanically active more recently than previously supposed, according to growing evidence from Europe’s Mars Express orbiter.
New estimates suggest volcanoes could have been active between one million years ago and 20 million years ago, but more work is needed to refine the dates. Previous spacecraft data suggested that volcanism on Mars ceased some time around 600-500 million years ago. Some researchers even speculate Mars could be volcanically active today.
August 3rd, 2004
Perspective view of deposits in Melas Chasma
This image of the southern part of Valles Marineris, called Melas Chasma, was obtained by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board the ESA Mars Express spacecraft. This image was taken at a resolution of approximately 30 metres per pixel. The displayed region is located at the southern rim of the Melas Chasma, centred at Mars latitude 11
July 26th, 2004
Probe maps water vapour on Mars
Mars Express has detected an area of high water vapour over a region of the Red Planet called Arabia Terra. The finding seems to confirm earlier data from the Mars Odyssey spacecraft that the region was “wet”. Vapour was also found to be enhanced in the Tharsis region of Mars. High water vapour areas seem to match bright patches, when Mars is seen from space.
July 16th, 2004
NASA Preps Mars Underground Mole Slashdot
People at NASA never cease to surprise me. Searching for water or presence of past life of Mars obviously needs drilling beneath the surface. So NASA is developing the Mars Underground Mole (MUM), based on a previous device used for the European Beagle 2 mission. But here is the twist. MUM will include sensors which were previously used to collect spectral imagery of Earth from pilotless aircrafts, especially Hawaii, according to NASA. While the Mole will stay on the surface on Mars and drill up to 5 meters deep, it will transmit data via a fiber optic cable to a digital array scanning interferometer (DASI). And the spectral images produced by the DASI will enable researchers to identify possible water, ice, organics and minerals under the surface on Mars.
June 28th, 2004
MARSIS deployment on hold
The deployment of the MARSIS antenna on ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft has been delayed until later this year. The Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) will seek evidence of underground water, either frozen or liquid, up to five kilometres beneath the surface of the Red Planet.
June 27th, 2004
More delay for Mars water search
The deployment of a radar on Europe’s Mars Express probe which is to look for water and ice under the Red Planet has been delayed until later this year.
The 40m-long Marsis antenna was due to open out of the spacecraft on 20 April. The delay is linked to concerns that the antenna might swing back with a greater range of motion than expected after opening, hitting the spacecraft.