NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter, already the longest-working spacecraft ever sent to Mars, will switch to some fresh, redundant equipment next week that has not been used since before launch in 2001.
Like many spacecraft, this orbiter carries a pair of redundant main computers, so that a backup is available if one fails. Odyssey’s “A-side” computer and “B-side” computer each have several other redundant subsystems linked to just that computer. The Odyssey team has decided to switch to the B-side computer to begin using the B-side’s inertial measurement unit. This gyroscope-containing mechanism senses changes in the spacecraft’s orientation, providing important information for control of pointing the antenna, solar arrays and instruments.
November 6th, 2012
Mars Longevity Champ Switching Computers
October 27th, 2012
NASA Oct. 30 Telecon About Mars Curiosity Progress
NASA will host a media teleconference at 11:30 a.m. PDT (2:30 p.m. EDT) on Tuesday, Oct. 30, to provide an update about the Curiosity rover’s mission to Mars’ Gale Crater.
The Mars Science Laboratory Project and its Curiosity rover are almost three months into a two-year prime mission to investigate whether conditions may have been favorable for microbial life.
October 10th, 2012
NASA Mars Curiosity Rover Prepares to Study Martian Soil
NASA’s Curiosity rover is in a position on Mars where scientists and engineers can begin preparing the rover to take its first scoop of soil for analysis.
Curiosity is the centerpiece of the two-year Mars Science Laboratory mission. The rover’s ability to put soil samples into analytical instruments is central to assessing whether its present location on Mars, called Gale Crater, ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. Mineral analysis can reveal past environmental conditions. Chemical analysis can check for ingredients necessary for life.
The rover’s preparatory operations will involve testing its robotic scooping capabilities to collect and process soil samples. Later, it also will use a hammering drill to collect powdered samples from rocks. To begin preparations for a first scoop, the rover used one of its wheels Wednesday to scuff the soil to expose fresh material.
October 4th, 2012
NASA Mars Curiosity Rover Prepares to Study Martian Soil
NASA’s Curiosity rover is in a position on Mars where scientists and engineers can begin preparing the rover to take its first scoop of soil for analysis.
Curiosity is the centerpiece of the two-year Mars Science Laboratory mission. The rover’s ability to put soil samples into analytical instruments is central to assessing whether its present location on Mars, called Gale Crater, ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. Mineral analysis can reveal past environmental conditions. Chemical analysis can check for ingredients necessary for life.
“We now have reached an important phase that will get the first solid samples into the analytical instruments in about two weeks,” said Mission Manager Michael Watkins of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Curiosity has been so well-behaved that we have made great progress during the first two months of the mission.”
September 27th, 2012
NASA Rover Finds Old Streambed on Martian Surface
NASA’s Curiosity rover mission has found evidence a stream once ran vigorously across the area on Mars where the rover is driving. There is earlier evidence for the presence of water on Mars, but this evidence — images of rocks containing ancient streambed gravels — is the first of its kind.
Scientists are studying the images of stones cemented into a layer of conglomerate rock. The sizes and shapes of stones offer clues to the speed and distance of a long-ago stream’s flow.
“From the size of gravels it carried, we can interpret the water was moving about 3 feet per second, with a depth somewhere between ankle and hip deep,” said Curiosity science co-investigator William Dietrich of the University of California, Berkeley. “Plenty of papers have been written about channels on Mars with many different hypotheses about the flows in them. This is the first time we’re actually seeing water-transported gravel on Mars. This is a transition from speculation about the size of streambed material to direct observation of it.”
September 27th, 2012
Remnants of Ancient Streambed on Mars
NASA’s Curiosity rover found evidence for an ancient, flowing stream on Mars at a few sites, including the rock outcrop pictured here, which the science team has named “Hottah” after Hottah Lake in Canada’s Northwest Territories. It may look like a broken sidewalk, but this geological feature on Mars is actually exposed bedrock made up of smaller fragments cemented together, or what geologists call a sedimentary conglomerate. Scientists theorize that the bedrock was disrupted in the past, giving it the titled angle, most likely via impacts from meteorites.
The key evidence for the ancient stream comes from the size and rounded shape of the gravel in and around the bedrock. Hottah has pieces of gravel embedded in it, called clasts, up to a couple inches (few centimeters) in size and located within a matrix of sand-sized material. Some of the clasts are round in shape, leading the science team to conclude they were transported by a vigorous flow of water. The grains are too large to have been moved by wind.
September 24th, 2012
Curiosity Finishes Close Inspection of Rock Target
NASA’s rover Curiosity touched a Martian rock with its robotic arm for the first time on Sept. 22, assessing what chemical elements are in the rock called “Jake Matijevic.”
After a short drive the preceding day to get within arm’s reach of the football-size rock, Curiosity put its Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument in contact with the rock during the rover’s 46th Martian day, or sol. The APXS is on a turret at the end of the rover’s 7-foot (2.1-meter) arm. The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), on the same turret, was used for close-up inspection of the rock. Both instruments were also used on Jake Matijevic on Sol 47 (Sept. 23).
The Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument, which shoots laser pulses at a target from the top of Curiosity’s mast, also assessed what chemical elements are in the rock Jake Matijevic. Using both APXS and ChemCam on this rock provides a cross calibration of the two instruments.
August 31st, 2012
Orbiter View of Curiosity From Nearly Straight Overhead
Details such as the shadow of the mast on NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity appear in an image taken Aug. 17, 2012, by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, from more directly overhead than previous HiRISE images of Curiosity.
In this product, cutouts showing the rover and other hardware or ground markings from the landing of the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft are presented across the top of a larger, quarter-resolution overview keyed to the full-resolution cutouts. North is up. The scale bar is 200 meters (one-eighth of a mile).
August 29th, 2012
NASA Curiosity Rover Begins Eastbound Trek on Martian Surface
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has set off from its landing vicinity on a trek to a science destination about a quarter mile (400 meters) away, where it may begin using its drill.
The rover drove eastward about 52 feet (16 meters) on Tuesday, its 22nd Martian day after landing. This third drive was longer than Curiosity’s first two drives combined. The previous drives tested the mobility system and positioned the rover to examine an area scoured by exhaust from one of the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft engines that placed the rover on the ground.
“This drive really begins our journey toward the first major driving destination, Glenelg, and it’s nice to see some Martian soil on our wheels,” said mission manager Arthur Amador of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “The drive went beautifully, just as our rover planners designed it.”
August 21st, 2012
New Insight on Mars Expected from New NASA Mission
On Aug. 20, NASA announced the selection of InSight, a new Discovery-class mission that will probe Mars at new depths by looking into the deep interior of Mars.
“We are certainly excited, but our veterans on this team know the drill,” said Tom Hoffman, project manager for InSight from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Which is fortunate, because one of the great things we’ll get to do on Mars is drill below the surface.”
Drilling underneath the red Martian topsoil will be courtesy of InSight’s HP3, or Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package – one of the four instruments the Mars lander will carry. Made by the German Aerospace Center, or DLR, HP3 will get below Mars’ skin by literally pounding it into submission with a 14-inch (35-centimeter), hollowed-out, electromechanically-festooned stake called the Tractor Mole.