The Russian space agency, Roskosmos, has decided to postpone the launch of a mission to the Martian moon Phobos from 2009 to 2011, according to a U.S. scientist involved in the first Russian-led interplanetary mission in more than a decade.
The Phobos-Grunt mission had been slated to lift off aboard a Zenit rocket in October on a three-year mission to study Phobos and return rock and soil samples to Earth. The rocket also was to carry a Mars orbiter contributed by China.
September 26th, 2009
Russia Delays Phobos-Grunt Mars Mission Until 2011
September 21st, 2009
How Mars Turned Red: Surprising New Theory
Mars was not always red, according to a new theory for how the planet took on its characteristic ruddy hue.
Until recently, Mars’ color was thought to be a product of liquid water, which scientists think flowed over the planet’s surface billions of years ago, rusting rocks. But after the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity landed on the planet in 2004, they found evidence of certain minerals that would have been destroyed by water, suggesting that the red dust on Mars never came into contact with flowing water.
“That was a surprise to everybody,” said Jonathan Merrison of the Aarhus Mars Simulation Laboratory in Denmark.
July 21st, 2009
Space Wheat Could Feed Astronauts on Mars
Does a sandwich on Mars taste different?
The answer could be no, according to new research that found long-term spaceflight exposure doesn’t change later generations of wheat seeds.
Molecular biologist Robert Ferl of the University of Florida and colleagues studied wheat seeds descended from plants that flew on the Russian Mir space station. The progenitor plants were in space for 167 days in 1991. When they were brought back to Earth, the plants gave rise to viable offspring seeds.
June 10th, 2009
Lawmakers Slash $670 Million From NASA Budget Request
In a move that reflects the uncertainty surrounding NASA’s current strategy for replacing the space shuttle and returning astronauts to the Moon by 2020, House appropriators slashed by 16 percent the space agency’s $4 billion request for manned space exploration in 2010.
The proposed legislation, marked up June 4 by the House Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee, trims $483 million overall from U.S. President Barack Obama’s $18.7 billion budget request for NASA next year. The $670 million cut to the 2010 manned exploration request would leave $3.21 billion, which is less than is available for the effort this year.
June 4th, 2009
Stuck Spirit Rover Images Its Belly
NASA’s Spirit rover, stuck in the Martian sand since May 6, has taken a picture of its underbelly to help mission engineers get a handle on the rover’s predicament.
Early last month, Spirit was continuing its journey around a low plateau called “Home Plate,” when it hit what one rover team member called an “insidious invisible rover trap.”
Since then, Spirit has been mired in the sandy soil up to its hubcaps, and rover engineers have been working to try to free the rover so that it can continue its now more than 5-year stint on the Martian surface.
May 12th, 2009
Spirit Rover Stuck in Martian Dirt
NASA’s Spirit rover has encountered a problem on Mars that is familiar to most drivers on Earth: it is stuck in dirt and spinning its wheels.
The five wheels that still rotate on the robot have been slipping severely in soft dirt during recent driving attempts, sinking the wheels about halfway into the ground.
The rover team of engineers and scientists has suspended driving Spirit temporarily while studying the ground around the rover and planning simulation tests of driving options with a test rover at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
“Spirit is in a very difficult situation,” said JPL’s John Callas, project manager for Spirit and its twin rover, Opportunity. “We are proceeding methodically and cautiously. It may be weeks before we try moving Spirit again. Meanwhile, we are using Spirit’s scientific instruments to learn more about the physical properties of the soil that is giving us trouble.”
Both Spirit and Opportunity have been trundling across the Martian surface for more than five years now, far surpassing their original three-month missions. Opportunity is currently on the opposite side of the planet from Spirit, making its way to its next target, Endeavour Crater.
April 9th, 2009
Volunteers Locked Away in Mock Mars Mission
Six volunteers locked themselves away in a network of metal tubes for the next 105 days on Tuesday in an experiment to study the human stresses of a manned mission to Mars.
Four Russians and two Europeans — a mix of cosmonauts, doctors, an engineer and an airline pilot — shut the metal hatch behind them, sealing themselves inside a habitat at Russia’s Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) in Moscow.
The three-month endurance test is a trial run for a planned 520-day mock Mars mission by the European and Russian space agencies later this year to study the effects of prolonged isolation on the human body and mind.
March 18th, 2009
Mars Rover Glimpses Far-Off Crater Destination
The panoramic camera on NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity has caught a first glimpse on the horizon of the uplifted rim of the big crater that has been Opportunity’s long-term destination for six months.
Opportunity’s twin, Spirit, also has a challenging destination, and last week switched to a different route for making progress to it.
Endeavour Crater, 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter, is still 7 miles (12 kilometers) away from Opportunity as the crow flies, and at least 30 percent farther away on routes mapped for evading hazards on the plain.
“We can now see our landfall on the horizon. It’s far away, but we can anticipate seeing it gradually look larger and larger as we get closer to Endeavour,” said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, and the principal investigator for the rovers’ science instruments. “We had a similar experience during the early months of the mission watching the Columbia Hills get bigger in the images from Spirit as Spirit drove toward them.”
Opportunity has already driven about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) since it climbed out of Victoria Crater last August after two years of studying Victoria, which is less than one-twentieth the size of Endeavour.
February 18th, 2009
Asteroid-Bound Probe Zooms Past Mars
NASA’s Dawn asteroid probe zoomed past the planet Mars late Tuesday to grab a speed boost aimed at flinging it on toward the largest space rocks in the solar system.
The ion-powered spacecraft used the gravitational pull of Mars to slingshot around the planet and hurtle outward toward its next stop, the asteroid Vesta. The maneuver was expected to boost Dawn’s speed by more than 5,800 mph (9,330 kph) and set the asteroid probe on track to reach Vesta in August 2011.
“Without the gravity assist, our mission would not have been affordable, even with the extraordinary capability of the ion propulsion system,” said Marc Rayman, chief engineer for Dawn’s mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.