The California Institute of Technology is making a little green off the red planet. Caltech, which runs the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA, patented the twin rovers it sent to investigate the surface of Mars and is licensing their images for commercial use. Models of the six-wheeled Spirit rover are already on store shelves. Caltech has inked three deals so far and expects perhaps three more. Officials of the private university didn’t say how much money they hope to make, but pledged to donate half to educational outreach programs and the rest for Caltech research.
January 15th, 2004
NASA Commands Rover to Roll Onto Mars
NASA commanded its Spirit rover early Thursday to move off its lander and onto the surface of Mars for the first time since the six-wheeled robot bounced down on the Red Planet nearly two weeks ago. Mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory radioed the command to the unmanned robot shortly after 3 AM EST. NASA said it expected to hear whether the risky maneuver was a success about one to two hours later.
January 14th, 2004
Good Nappers
The black bear may be unique in the animal world with it’s extraordinary ability to emerge from months of hibernation with bones that are about as strong as when it went into its den for the long winter. A shorter period of bed confinement leaves humans with bones so weak they can snap like a dry potato chip, and an aging population has left millions of Americans suffering from osteoporosis.
December 30th, 2003
Mission Controllers Prepare for Maneuver
Mission controllers were preparing Tuesday for a crucial maneuver to redirect Europe’s Mars orbiter nearer to the Red Planet’s poles the first step in pushing it into a lower orbit where it can listen for its missing Beagle 2 surface probe. The British-built Beagle 2 is believed to have reached the Martian surface early on Christmas Day, its impact softened by gas bags and parachutes. But several attempts to hear its signal have not been successful.
December 29th, 2003
PBS Show Has Rover Zooming Toward Mars
The final minutes of “Mars Dead or Alive” promise to be as gripping as a movie cliffhanger and the best reality TV going. The PBS “NOVA” special details the building and launch of a Mars-bound rover set to land on the red planet Saturday one day before the program airs. The ending, at this moment, is literally a blank. The film’s final 2 1/2-minute sequence will be hastily added when the fate of Spirit is known. The title is no exaggeration: Mars is a “graveyard” for half the spacecraft sent there, we are told.
December 26th, 2003
Scientists Hold Out Hope for Mars Lander
European scientists, hoping for a sign their Mars lander Beagle 2 arrived safely, anxiously awaited Friday’s attempt by a U.S. orbiter to pick up a communication after more than 36 hours of silence from the surface of the Red Planet. “It’s like sending somebody a love letter, and you know they got it and you’re waiting for a response,” said Professor Colin Pillinger, the day after the tiny craft was supposed to have landed on the surface of Mars, opened its solar panels and called home.
December 24th, 2003
Out of This World
The solar system’s largest wireless network just got a face-lift. With $54 million of improvements
December 15th, 2003
Phoning Home
The first thing controllers hope to hear as the earliest of three Mars probes touches down on the Red Planet on Christmas day is a nine-tone ditty by the British rock band, Blur. From that point on, Mars will only get noisier. If all goes to plan, three probes will be exploring Mars’ surface by the end of January and relaying everything they learn back to Earth directly or by way of two orbiters that are now zipping around the planet. NASA is bracing for the communications crunch.
December 1st, 2003
Scientists Speed Up Tree Growth in N.C.
Scientists say they have found a way to boost tree growth but so far there they haven’t found a practical use for the fast-growing plants. A tree species at N.C. State’s Upper Piedmont Research Station in Reidsville grew up to 20 feet in a single year, about double its usual rate. A typical tree in the area grows about 18 inches in a good year.
October 21st, 2003
Chinese Astronaut an ‘Instant Hero’
Astronaut Yang Liwei, the icon, is everywhere in China, lionized in the state-run press not only as the country’s first man in space, but also as an elite pilot, a star student and Communist Party member, a devoted family man a “national treasure,” as one colleage is quoted saying. But Yang himself is nowhere to be seen. The center of Beijing’s biggest “role model” campaign in years hasn’t appeared in public in the more than five days since he returned from orbit.