The Mars gremlins have struck again. In the midst of a mapping mission already plagued by near-disastrous problems, NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor now is cruising around the Red Planet with a jammed communications antenna.
May 8th, 1999
Jammed antenna limits Mars Global Surveyor’s ability to send data to Earth Florida Today
May 1st, 1999
Future of space: Bigger discoveries by smaller, smarter machines Florida Today
Powerful cameras the size of postage stamps. Probes soaring around space on solar sails blown by the sun’s winds. People living on the moon and Mars. Robots mining asteroids for minerals. Sound like science fiction? It’s not to researchers working on new technologies to expand and accelerate space exploration in the next century, according to speakers Friday who wrapped up the 36th Space Congress.
April 28th, 1999
NASA scientist: We will find living forms on Mars Florida Today
The NASA scientist who claims to have found evidence of past life in three Martian meteorites made a bold prediction Tuesday: Real living creatures – not ancient microfossils – are buried deep beneath the windswept surface of Mars and eventually will be rooted out by robotic or human explorers.
April 21st, 1999
Troubleshooting continues with Mars Global Surveyor’s stuck communications antenna Florida Today
Flight controllers for NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor mission are continuing to work toward isolating what caused a hinge on the spacecraft’s high-gain telecommunications antenna to stop moving last week.
March 31st, 1999
Mission to Mars set to revolutionize ESA’s working methods Florida Today
The European Space Agency (ESA) has signed a contract with Matra Marconi Space (MMS), that pioneers a more flexible way of building space science missions and is, in this way, the first trial as an element of a new and ambitious implementation concept which is currently under development for the ESA’s Scientific Programme. The contract, worth about 60 million Euro, is to design and build the Mars Express spacecraft in time for launch in June 2003. Mars Express will allow European space scientists to investigate whether there is, or ever was, life on the Red Planet.
March 29th, 1999
Deployed antenna sending streams of new Mars images Florida Today
A steady stream of new data from Mars, including high-resolution images, will begin arriving next week at Earth receiving stations following yesterday’s deployment of the Mars Global Surveyor’s high-power communications antenna.
March 22nd, 1999
Twenty years after Viking, new probe scrutinizes Mars as never before Florida Today
Two decades after the twin Viking orbiters wowed scientists with images of Mars’ gargantuan volcanoes and canyons, a new robotic envoy is ready to lift the veil on the red planet’s mysterious past.
March 4th, 1999
This is the Year of Mars as probes target Red Planet Florida Today
If intelligent creatures inhabit Mars, they’re probably wondering where all the UFOs are coming from. In the summer of 1997, a probe smashed into the Red Planet, bounced a few times and disgorged a small robot vehicle that ran around sniffing rocks for several weeks – much to the delight of countless schoolchildren and millions of others back on Earth.
February 11th, 1999
Mars’ hostile environment, possibility of life could block planet’s transformation Florida Today
Loretta Hidalgo’s tools are simple: 10 buckets of dirt from a Hawaiian volcano, seeds, water, sun, and time. Make that about 100,000-years worth of time.
February 10th, 1999
Laying the groundwork: Space buffs push idea for Mars-like base on Earth Florida Today
A giant space rock, maybe as big as a 30-story building, fell from the sky more than 20 million years ago and created a place that reminds Pascal Lee of Mars. The asteroid or comet, no one is sure which, punched a 15-mile wide hole called Haughton Crater in the Canadian Arctic. Still scarred by the ancient impact, today the land is dry and barren.