NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft is in excellent health as engineers continue to check out and evaluate the performance of its systems and science instruments during its early cruise phase.
June 14th, 2001
Send Your Name to Mars!
NASA invites you to send your name to Mars on the next Mars Exploration Rover-2003 mission! This project is open to people of ALL ages and is FREE!!! NASA’s goal is to collect several million names!
June 13th, 2001
Brighter, Redder Mars to Illuminate Summer Nights
Hold on to your hats and keep a pair of binoculars handy: After a 26-month sprint around the track of the solar system, we are about to lap Mars again. Today, the red planet is in “opposition,” an event that puts Earth between Mars and the Sun. On June 21, Mars will be at its closest distance from Earth since 1988, a mere 67.3 million kilometers (approximately 42 million miles). All summer long, Mars will be brighter than usual, particularly for sky-watchers in the southern United States and those in the Southern Hemisphere.
June 13th, 2001
NASA Selects First Mars Scout Concepts for Further Study
NASA has selected 10 mission ideas for the exploration of Mars that are to be studied for a possible launch to the red planet in 2007, the agency said Wednesday. Potential missions would return samples of Mars’ dust and gas to Earth, employ a fleet of gliders to explore a Martian canyon, position small satellites to analyze the planet’s atmosphere and weather, and rely on a surface rover to determine the age of rocks and soils.
June 13th, 2001
Not Vegetation! Defrosting Sand Dunes in Late Southern Winter
As winter gives way to spring in the martian southern hemisphere, the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) is observing the retreat of the south polar frost cap as sunlight falls upon it for the first time in several months. One of the most aesthetically-pleasing aspects of the spring defrosting process is the pattern that is created on the martian sand dune fields.
June 1st, 2001
Wanted: Questions for Mars Webcast
Mars scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, will give the latest report about the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission, now en route to the mysterious red planet, in a webcast available for viewing starting June 7 at 11 a.m. Pacific Time. JPL scientist Dr. Claudia Alexander will host the webcast, which will feature answers to questions submitted in advance, along with interesting images and cool animations of Mars.
May 29th, 2001
New Streaks Revealed on Martian Surface
Now in its Extended Mission, Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) is into its second Mars year of systematic observations of the Red Planet. With the Extended Mission slated to run through April 2002, the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) is being used, among other things, to look for changes that have occurred in the past Martian year. (Because Mars is farther from the Sun than Earth, its year is longer — about 687 Earth days.)
April 27th, 2001
Summer School for Planetary Sciences
NASA’s Planetary Science Summer School offers a “crash course” in what it takes to develop a mission concept into a proposable mission design. Described by advisor Dr. Jim Head of Brown University as a “boot camp for future principal investigators,” the school presents an overview of instrumentation (both in-situ and remote sensing), systems engineering, and the NASA proposal process. Students will participate in a team activity to develop a mission proposal, using the Project Design Center at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This year’s Planetary Science Summer School will focus on the development of micro or nano probes.
April 23rd, 2001
Earth Day Portrait Is First One Snapped By Mars Odyssey
NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft turned its multipurpose camera homeward last week and took its first picture — a shot of a faint crescent Earth — as the spacecraft heads off toward its destination, the planet Mars. The image was taken as part of the calibration process for the thermal emission imaging system, the camera system that is one of three science instrument packages on the spacecraft. The imaging system will study the Martian surface in both visible and infrared light and will help determine what minerals are present. It also will map landscapes on Mars at resolutions comparable to that of NASA’s Landsat Earth observing satellite.
April 19th, 2001
Mars Odyssey: looking good
This morning flight controllers turned the Mars Odyssey spacecraft and pointed the thermal emission imaging system (THEMIS) instrument at the Earth and Moon to calibrate the instrument. All calibration objectives were met. Engineers are in the process of redesigning the spacecraft’s cruise attitude after they noted temperature readings that were higher than expected on a high-gain antenna gimbal earlier this week. The cruise attitude points the high-gain antenna toward Earth as the spacecraft travels toward Mars.