NASA’s rover Spirit has turned its gaze away from the Martian rocks at its wheels and looks skyward in an attempt to spot a meteor shower. Mars is currently passing through debris left by Halley
April 19th, 2005
Mars rover Opportunity has wheel trouble New Scientist
The Mars rover Opportunity has lost the ability to steer one of its wheels. While the vehicle can still move, the failure may make it harder to study rocks up close. The rover has six wheels aligned in two rows and each of the four corner wheels has its own steering mechanism. The problem is with the front right wheel, which can still roll but is now stuck at a 7
March 22nd, 2005
Crater count led Mars historians astray New Scientist
The method used by planetary scientists to estimate the ages of various regions of Mars is flawed. “This really changes things,” says Nadine Barlow of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. For instance, the findings will significantly change our understanding of when Mars may have been volcanically active. To estimate the age of any region on Mars, geologists count the number of meteor craters they can see in images of the area. The idea is that the older a surface, the more craters should have accumulated over time. Crater counts give an indication of the relative age of different Martian regions.
March 2nd, 2005
Twin Mars rovers in instrument mix-up New Scientist
NASA’s Mars rovers Opportunity and Spirit are identical twins – so alike that they even fooled NASA. Researchers have discovered that they sent the robots to Mars with an instrument meant for Opportunity inside Spirit and vice versa. While the bungle does not undermine the main scientific conclusions drawn from the data collected by the rovers, it is an embarrassing slip-up for a space agency that once lost a Mars spacecraft because engineers mixed up metric and imperial units.
February 21st, 2005
‘Pack ice’ suggests frozen sea on Mars New Scientist
A frozen sea, surviving as blocks of pack ice, may lie just beneath the surface of Mars, suggest observations from Europe’s Mars Express spacecraft. The sea is just 5
January 28th, 2005
Spherical robot provides rolling security cover New Scientist
A spherical roving robot designed to detect and report intruders has been developed by a Swedish start-up company. The design was first developed with planetary exploration in mind, at the
January 28th, 2005
Solar super-sail could reach Mars in a month New Scientist
A LICK of paint could help a spacecraft powered by a solar sail get from Earth to Mars in just one month, seven times faster than the craft that took the rovers Spirit and Opportunity to the Red Planet. Gregory Benford of the University of California, Irvine, and his brother James, who runs aerospace research firm Microwave Sciences in Lafayette, California, envisage beaming microwave energy up from Earth to boil off volatile molecules from a specially formulated paint applied to the sail. The recoil of the molecules as they streamed off the sail would give it a significant kick that would help the craft on its way. “It’s a different way of thinking about propulsion,” Gregory Benford says. “We leave the engine on the ground.”
January 17th, 2005
Mars special: Celebrating a year of exploration New Scientist
IN SPACE, a year can be a long time. Back at the beginning of 2004, the idea that the Red Planet had once been covered with rivers, lakes and seas was just a theory. Now abundant evidence on the ground has turned it into established fact. A year ago it was scientific heresy even to talk of the possibility of life existing today on Mars. But with the proof of past water, plus evidence that there was methane in the air not so long ago, it is now a subject for serious discussion.
November 5th, 2004
Mars rover overcomes uphill struggle New Scientist
The Mars rover Opportunity has emerged safely from days of struggling through loose sand and is set to analyse its most tantalising targets yet.
Spinning wheels nearly thwarted the rover’s six-wheeled climb inside the stadium-sized Endurance crater. But it is expected to arrive within a robotic-arm’s length of a rock exposure dubbed Burns Cliff on Friday, where deep exposures of heavily layered bedrock are visible.
October 22nd, 2004
Mars rover enjoys mysterious power boost New Scientist
Not only are NASA’s seemingly unstoppable Mars rovers continuing their progress half a year beyond their design lifetimes, but Opportunity has recently shown an unexplained increase in its solar-cell power output, NASA has revealed. Spirit is faring less well, however, with intermittent wheel problems.
Opportunity