Launched to Mars folded and crouched in its landing cocoon, NASA’s Opportunity rover has nearly completed the complex blossoming into a road-ready vehicle and could take its first drive onto the Red Planet’s surface Saturday night.
December 30th, 2003
Mars Express reaches new orbit around Red Planet Spaceflight Now
The European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft performed a major maneuver today, changing its initial “capture” orbit achieved on Chirstmas morning to a new orbit needed for the probe’s scientific investigations of the Red Planet. The main engine of Mars Express fired for four minutes to turn the spacecraft into the new direction while flying 188,000 kilometers away from the planet.
November 22nd, 2003
O’Keefe: time is right for new space vision Spaceflight Now
Now is the best time in the last 30 years for the United States to craft a new vision for its space program, NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe said this week. O’Keefe, speaking Tuesday in Washington at a Capitol Hill forum organized by the Aerospace States Association (ASA) on the need for a national space vision, said that a confluence of events made today one of the best times since the end of the Apollo program to reshape the nation’s space program.
May 29th, 2003
NASA has Mars missions planned through decade Spaceflight Now
The Mars Exploration Rovers represent the next step in an ambitious, on-going program to explore the Red Planet, to map out its structure, composition and meteorology and to determine whether it ever harbored life. “We think we have a hell of a program,” Garvin said. “It’s going to be exciting. I think we’re going to find some remarkable stuff.”
May 27th, 2003
Mars rover launch delayed Spaceflight Now
The launch of the first of two new Mars rovers has been pushed back two days to June 8 to allow more time to review testing done on the spacecraft, NASA said. The announcement Tuesday marks the second time the rover’s launch has been delayed since it was discovered in April that the rovers were vulnerable to short circuits.
April 14th, 2003
Fix ordered for possible problem on twin Mars rovers Spaceflight Now
Engineers have uncovered a potential problem with the two identical Mars Exploration Rovers that will be launched to the Red Planet in the coming months, prompting NASA to delay liftoff of the first rover by one week.
July 11th, 2002
Planetary Society hopes to launch solar sail this year Spaceflight Now
Although launch is still months away, plans to fly the world’s first solar sail are progressing closer to liftoff as the Planetary Society-led Cosmos 1 team conduct a flurry of tests to ensure a successful flight. Engineers have recently redesigned some parts of the craft to increase the mission’s capabilities and to reduce the chances for failure.
March 21st, 2002
Geologist recreates ‘life on Mars’ evidence in laboratory Spaceflight Now
As NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft begins exploring the planet, particularly looking for signs of water that once could have nourished life, a University of Dayton geologist is disproving what some pointed to as scientific evidence of past life on the Red Planet. A couple of years ago, the scientific community was rocked by evidence that pointed to possible life on Mars. A 4.5-billion-year-old Martian meteorite showed what seemed to be “a trace of biochemistry, chemical compounds from little critters decaying. Not fossils, but decomposed remnants of life,” said Andrea Koziol, associate professor of geology at the University of Dayton. In experiments in her Wohlleben Hall basement laboratory, Koziol has proved the “remnants” could have been created by natural Martian processes — lessening the credibility of the theory that Mars once hosted life.
February 14th, 2002
Surveyor images meteorite impact crater seen by Viking Spaceflight Now
The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) Extended Mission has included dozens of opportunities to point the spacecraft directly at features of interest so that pictures of things not seen during the earlier Mapping Mission can be obtained. The example shown here is a small meteorite impact crater in northern Tharsis near 17.2 deg N, 113.8 deg W. Viking Orbiter images from the late 1970’s showed at this location what appeared to be a dark patch with dark rays emanating from a brighter center. The MOC team surmised that the dark rays may be indicating the location of a fresh crater formed by impact sometime in the past few centuries (since dark ray are quickly covered by dust falling out of the martian atmosphere).
February 13th, 2002
Global Surveyor sees changes of Martian ice cap Spaceflight Now
Extended mission operations for the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) has provided thousands of opportunities to image sites previously seen by the camera. Often, these are chances to see if anything on the planet has changed. The most surprising changes were documented starting in August 2001, when the south polar cap emerged from winter darkness. In 1999 MOC found that the south polar cap exhibits an array of bizarre layers, arcuate scarps, and “swiss cheese” holes and pits. How these formed was unknown. Once MOC began to re-image theseareas in 2001, however, the team discovered that the polar scarps had changed. They had retreated approximately 3 meters (about 3 yards) in less than one Mars year (a Mars year is 687 Earth days long). In some places, small buttes completely disappeared.