An unmanned $125 million spacecraft, intended to be the first interplanetary weather station, went missing Thursday and NASA scientists said they feared it had broken up just as it was starting to circle Mars.
Researchers Work On Fast New Space Propulsion
Researchers said Monday they hope to be able to launch a spacecraft that will pass other probes to be the first spacecraft out of the solar system. Using a new propulsion system known as M2P2, it would be 10 times faster than the space shuttle and could zip by Voyager I, launched in 1977 and currently 6.8 billion miles away, at the very edge of the solar system.
School Children Will Help Drive Next Mars Rover
A new U.S. mission to Mars will let school children help operate a robotic rover as it rolls over the red Martian surface, former astronaut John Glenn announced Thursday. The Mars Surveyor 2001 mission, set to launch in 2001, will allow student “astronauts,” living in a simulated Mars base on Earth, to assist in manipulating the rover on Mars, according to Glenn, a former senator.

