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February 05, 2010
Spirit's Last Moves Before Winter
JPL
Recent drives by the Spirit rover from Jan. 14 to Feb. 4, 2010 (Sols 2145 to 2165) moved the center of the rover approximately 13.4 inches (34 centimeters) backwards. Since Jan 26 (sol 2157), drive commands have concentrated on placing Spirit into a favorable tilt toward the sun as the Martian winter approaches.
February 02, 2010
Stuck Rover on Mars Can Still Do Science
NASA's beleaguered Mars rover Spirit may no longer be much of a rover, but it's not the end of the road for her yet. The semi-stuck robot still has plenty of science left to do on the red planet, mission scientists say.
"There's actually a whole class of scientific objectives that you can only address from a vehicle that doesn't move. So far we've pretty much tended to ignore those," said rover mission principal investigator Steven Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Squyres and other mission mangers announced last week that they were halting the effort to free Spirit from the sand trap it has been stuck in since May and shifting efforts to preparing the rover for the upcoming Martian winter.
The rover's handlers will try over the next week to position the rover to maximize the amount of solar radiation it receives to give it the best chance of making it through the winter.
"Energy is getting so low that we think we only have, you know, at maximum another half-dozen drives to be able to do that before we have to hunker down and get through the winter campaign," said science team member Ray Arvidson of the Washington University in St. Louis.
That winter campaign won't see the rover doing much: "In the dead of winter, it can try to survive, that's about it," Arvidson told SPACE.com.
January 27, 2010
Martian Winter Threatens NASA Rover
Information Week
NASA plans to attempt a series of tricky maneuvers to save the Spirit Mars Rover from the Red Planet's oncoming winter. Spirit is stuck in the sand on Mars' surface, and all of NASA's attempts to free it by remote control have failed to date.
Now, the space agency says the best it can do is redirect the vehicle's solar panels so it can generate enough electricity to make it through the winter and remain in contact with Earth.
January 26, 2010
Spirit of Mars
Time Lapse: Six years of exploration through the "eyes" of the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit.
Now a Stationary Research Platform, NASA's Mars Rover Spirit Starts a New Chapter in Red Planet Scientific Studies
After six years of unprecedented exploration of the Red Planet, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit no longer will be a fully mobile robot. NASA has designated the once-roving scientific explorer a stationary science platform after efforts during the past several months to free it from a sand trap have been unsuccessful.
The venerable robot's primary task in the next few weeks will be to position itself to combat the severe Martian winter. If Spirit survives, it will continue conducting significant new science from its final location. The rover's mission could continue for several months to years.
January 25, 2010
Looming Martian winter threatens Spirit rover
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
NASA Headquarters managers face an imminent decision to formally halt further extraction maneuvers by the Mars rover Spirit to conserve electricity and to save the rover's life while it remains stuck in a sand trap 61 million miles from Earth.
After six years of roving, Spirit's continued survival on Mars is now an open question as this marvel of robotics, human affection and ingenuity now risks freezing to death in the weeks ahead.
January 24, 2010
Stuck Mars Rover About to Die?
National Geographic
NASA’s Mars rover Spirit passed its six-year anniversary January 3rd, but the upcoming Mars winter may spell the end for the ‘all-terrain’ vehicle.
Last year, Spirit’s wheels broke through a crusty Mars surface layer and became trapped in the loose sand hidden underneath. Here, a NASA scale model mockup is seen trying to maneuver out of the predicament.
Latest attempts to recover the real rover have resulted in it sinking deeper in the Martian soil.
Spirit’s twin rover, Opportunity, landed on the opposite side of Mars 3 weeks after Spirit, and is still able to rove across the planet’s surface. The two rovers combined have traveled more than 16 miles, sending back photos and lots of data about the planet.
As daily sunshine on the Red Planet’s southern hemisphere declines with the approaching winter, NASA ground operators are trying to adjust the tilt of Spirit’s solar panels to compensate for the decrease in solar energy.
January 21, 2010
Stuck Rover on Mars Climbs Slightly in Escape Attempt
NASA's embattled Mars rover Spirit has managed its first successful, but ever-so-small, climb as it drives in reverse to escape a Martian sand trap that has plagued it for more than eight months.
Spirit lifted itself by nearly half an inch (just over 1 cm) during its latest two drive attempts this month, NASA announced Thursday. While that seems tiny, it's the first upward motion for the rover since escape attempts began in November, the agency added.
The rover also moved about 2.6 inches (6.5 cm) backwards in the maneuvers, which took place on Jan. 14 and Jan. 16. Spirit's left-middle wheel stalled on Tuesday during yet another drive attempt.
"The explanation here is that the rover's rear wheels are climbing, raising the back of the rover," NASA officials said in a statement. "Images from the rear hazard avoidance camera confirm this."
December 22, 2009
Mars Rover Makes Discovery While Spinning Its Wheels
For nearly six years, Spirit roamed Mars, experiencing a number of close calls. In fact, the solar-powered robot has driven backwards since its right front wheel jammed in 2006.
Spirit's most challenging ordeal yet began in April, when it got bogged down in a patch of loose soil on the edge of a small crater. As scientists plotted Spirit's escape for months, they dubbed the area Troy, after the city the ancient Greeks struggled against in myth for a decade.
As frustrating as Spirit's dilemma has proven, it has yielded an unexpected insight.
"Spirit had to get stuck to make its next discovery," said geologist Ray Arvidson of the Washington University in St. Louis. "The rover's spinning wheels have broken through a crust, and we've found something supremely interesting in the disturbed soil."
December 09, 2009
Second stalled wheel may doom Mars rover
New Scientist
A second wheel may now be broken on NASA's Spirit rover, dampening hopes for freeing the robot from a sand trap it has been trapped in for seven months. The injury will also increase the rover's risk of freezing to death in the coming winter.
Spirit has been struggling to escape from a patch of soft, sandy soil since April. Its three left wheels are almost entirely buried and have little traction, and its right-front wheel is of no use – it seized up permanently in 2006.
Now, Spirit's right-rear wheel is also having problems and may be permanently disabled.
December 03, 2009
Sandtrapped Rover Makes a Big Discovery
Homer's Iliad tells the story of Troy, a city besieged by the Greeks in the Trojan War. Today, a lone robot sits besieged in the sands of Troy while engineers and scientists plot its escape.
Welcome to "Troy" – Mars style. NASA's robotic rover Spirit is bogged down on the Red Planet in a place the rover team named after the ancient city.
So why aren't scientists lamenting?
"The rover's spinning wheels have broken through a crust, and we've found something supremely interesting in the disturbed soil," says Ray Arvidson of the Washington University in St. Louis.
Mars Had Liquid Water in Recent Past, Rover Finds
National Geographic
Even while snared in a sand trap, NASA's Mars rover Spirit has hit "wet" pay dirt: evidence of relatively recent groundwater activity on the red planet. For almost six months the rover has been precariously perched on the edge of a shallow crater in an equatorial region of Mars. The area is filled with cooled lava flows pitted by meteorite impacts. While on a routine drive, Spirit broke through a thin crust of hard soil that capped a filled-in impact crater, and its wheels became half buried in the soft sand.
December 02, 2009
Another Stall of Right-Rear Wheel Ends Drive
Spirit's right-rear wheel stalled again on Sol 2099 (Nov. 28, 2009) during the first step of a two-step extrication maneuver. This stall is different in some characteristics from the stall on Sol 2092 (Nov. 21). The Sol 2099 stall occurred more quickly and the inferred rotor resistance was elevated at the end of the stall. Investigation of past stall events along with these characteristics suggest that this stall might not be result of the terrain, but might be internal to the right-rear wheel actuator. Rover project engineers are developing a series of diagnostics to explore the actuator health and to isolate potential terrain interactions. These diagnostics are not likely to be ready before Wednesday. Plans for future driving will depend on the results of the diagnostic tests.
December 01, 2009
Mars rover Spirit may back track its way out of being stuck
Alabama Live
NASA Mars exploration managers at the Jet Propulsion Lab, in California, are pondering whether or not to command the Spirit rover to back out over its own tracks in an attempt to free the bogged rover.
The compacted soil could be stronger and allow the Spirit rover to free itself. NASA managers say it will take weeks to free the rover, and cautioned the attempt may not work at all.
November 23, 2009
Stuck Mars Rover Finally Budges, a Little
NASA's stuck Mars rover Spirit took a tiny step Thursday, its first progress in months, during the latest attempt to extricate the robot from deep Martian sand.
On Thursday, Spirit inched forward slightly after its second attempt to drive out of the patch of sandy soil called Troy, in which it has been mired since April.
The rover successfully completed the first of two commands to spin its wheels for a period equivalent to driving 8.2 feet (2.5 meters). The attempt moved Spirit's center forward by about half an inch (1.2 cm), left by about 0.3 inches (7 mm), and about 0.2 inches (4 mm) down.
November 13, 2009
NASA Unveils Plan To Unstick A Mars Rover
NPR
NASA has announced a plan to extricate its rover Spirit, which has been stuck in a Martian sand trap since April. The space agency will begin transmitting commands to the exploration robot on Monday. Based on tests conducted on Earth this spring that simulated conditions at the Martian site, researchers do not expect the effort to be quick or easy. "This is going to be a lengthy process, and there's a high probability attempts to free Spirit will not be successful," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program. "Mobility on Mars is challenging, and whatever the outcome, lessons from the work to free Spirit will enhance our knowledge about how to analyze Martian terrain and drive future Mars rovers," McCuistion said. "Spirit has provided outstanding scientific discoveries and shown us astounding vistas during its long life on Mars, which is more than 22 times longer than its designed life."
November 12, 2009
Skirting an Obstacle
This view from the navigation camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows tracks left by backing out of a wind-formed ripple after the rover's wheels had started to dig too deeply into the dust and sand of the ripple.
NASA Unveils Plan to Free Stuck Mars Rover Spirit
Months of planning are finally coming to fruition: NASA engineers are ready to begin trying to maneuver the plucky rover Spirit out of its sandy trap on Mars.
Mission managers are sober about the prospects for freeing Spirit. They will send the first commands to the rover to try to move on Monday, "but this process could take quite awhile if it's possible at all," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The new plan will command Spirit to try to backtrack and use the tracks it left before getting stuck to make the escape attempt.
Spirit has been stuck in a spot of soft, sandy dirt (called "Troy") on the Martian surface since April when it broke through what mission scientists call a "dirt crust" — a hard top layer of dirt disguising a layer of soft, talcum powder-like material below.
"Spirit did the equivalent of falling through the ice over a frozen pond," McCuistion said.
November 11, 2009
Mars rover battles for its life
New Scientist
NASA's twin Mars rovers have outlasted their planned three-month missions for so long that they seem indestructible. Nearly six years on, their presence on the Red Planet is taken for granted, as if they are immutable parts of the Martian landscape.
But we may soon have to confront a new reality. Spirit, which has always suffered more hardships than Opportunity, is facing its toughest challenge yet. When New Scientist went to press, the rover was set to begin a risky push to free itself from a sand trap it has been mired in for six months. Mission engineers say it may not survive the attempt. "She's in a very precarious situation, and we don't know for sure if we're going to get her out," says rover driver Scott Maxwell of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
November 02, 2009
Spirit Embedded in Soft Soil on Mars as Engineers Devise Methods to 'Free Spirit'
This view from the panoramic camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit shows the terrain surrounding the location called "Troy," where Spirit became embedded in soft soil during the spring of 2009. The hundreds of images combined into this view were taken beginning on the 1,906th Martian day (or sol) of Spirit's mission on Mars (May 14, 2009) and ending on Sol 1943 (June 20, 2009).
Near the center of the image, in the distance, lies Husband Hill, where Spirit recorded views from the summit in 2005. For scale, the parallel tracks are about 1 meter (39 inches) apart. The track on the right is more evident because Spirit was driving backwards, dragging its right-front wheel, which no longer rotates.
October 31, 2009
Amnesia-Like Behavior Returns on Spirit
Until Oct. 24, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover had gone more than six months without an episode of amnesia-like symptoms like those that appeared on four occasions earlier this year.
In these amnesia events, Spirit fails to record data from the day's activities onto the type of computer memory -- non-volatile "flash" memory -- that can retain the data when the rover powers down for its energy-conserving periods of "sleep." The reappearance of this behavior in recent days might delay the start of planned drives by Spirit geared toward extricating the rover from a patch of soft soil where its wheels have been embedded since April.
Spirit sent data Oct. 24 through Oct. 27 indicating that the rover was not using its flash memory. The rover also has alternate memory (volatile, random-access memory) where data can be saved for communicating to Earth if the communication session comes before the next sleep period. Spirit remains in communication with Earth, maintaining good power and temperatures.
October 02, 2009
Opportunity Finds Another Meteorite
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found a rock that apparently is another meteorite, less than three weeks after driving away from a larger meteorite that the rover examined for six weeks.
Opportunity used its navigation camera during the mission's 2,022nd Martian day, or sol, (Oct. 1, 2009) to take this image of the apparent meteorite dubbed "Shelter Island." The pitted rock is about 47 centimeters (18.5 inches) long. Opportunity had driven 28.5 meters (94 feet) that sol to approach the rock after it had been detected in images taken after a drive two sols earlier.
Opportunity has driven about 700 meters (about 2,300 feet) since it finished studying the meteorite called "Block Island" on Sept. 11, 2009.
September 27, 2009
Fading Rover Tracks Near Victoria Crater
/JPL/University of Arizona
This image has an interesting perspective because of the oblique viewing geometry. In addition, the tracks of the Opportunity rover are visible just north of Victoria.
September 21, 2009
Opportunity Departs Block Island
MarsDaily
Opportunity completed the circumnavigation and full-circle imaging of the large meteorite "Block Island" and has resumed the long drive to Endeavour crater. On Sol 2001 (Sept. 9, 2009), the rover moved 9 meters (30 feet) around the meteorite to the fourth and fifth out of six planned positions. On the next sol Opportunity reached the sixth and final position around Block Island with a 3-meter (10-foot) bump.
August 01, 2009
Opportunity Spies Unusual Rock — Large Meteorite?
Universe Today
The Opportunity rover has come across an odd-shaped, large, dark rock, about 0.6 meters (2 feet) across on the surface of Mars, which may be a meteorite. The rover team spotted the rock called "Block Island," on July 18, 2009, in the opposite direction from which it was driving. The team then had the rover do a hard right (not really, but you know what I mean) and backtrack some 250 meters (820 feet) to study it closer. Oppy has been studying the rock with its alpha particle X-ray spectrometer to get composition measurements and to confirm if indeed it is a meteorite.
June 04, 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 12, 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 21, 2009
Mars Spacecraft Teams on Alert for Dust-Storm Season
Heading into a period of the Martian year prone to major dust storms, the team operating NASA's twin Mars rovers is taking advantage of eye-in-the-sky weather reports.
On April 21, Mars will be at the closest point to the sun in the planet's 23-month, elliptical orbit. One month later, the planet's equinox will mark the start of summer in Mars' southern hemisphere. This atmospheric-warming combination makes the coming weeks the most likely time of the Martian year for dust storms severe enough to minimize activities of the rovers.
"Since the rovers are solar powered, the dust in the atmosphere is extremely important to us," said Bill Nelson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., chief of the engineering team for Spirit and Opportunity.
April 20, 2009
NASA worries why Spirit has rebooted twice
The U.S. space agency says its Mars exploration rover Spirit inexplicably rebooted its computer at least twice last weekend.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists said they were examining data received from Spirit to diagnose why the rover apparently rebooted its computer.
April 01, 2009
Spirit sees phenomenal Martian vista
Discover
I’ve been so taken with HiRISE lately that I haven’t written much about the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. They’ve been traversing Mars for almost six years now, taking tons of images and great in situ data. And now I feel remiss, because Spirit has stumbled on something very cool.
These images were taken on Sol 1858, just a few days ago (a Sol is a day on Mars, about a half hour longer than an Earth day). Spirit has been tooling around a high plateau called Home Plate, because it’s shaped like, well, a home plate in baseball. There’s evidence that water flowed in this area a long time ago, and as I looked over the images it was pretty obvious.
March 18, 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.
January 29, 2009
Spirit Phone Home
It is spring at Gusev Crater on Mars, which would be good news for NASA's Spirit Rover--except that Spirit, moving around after a long, hard winter, seems sporadically to have lost its mind.
Last Sunday, NASA says, the rover sent a signal confirming it had received its driving instructions for the day from earth, but when it next reported in, it had not moved.
That can happen for many reasons -- it often has, in fact -- but there was more going on. The rover had no recollection, if you will, of what it had been doing; it hadn't recorded its main functions in its computer memory.
Mars Rover's Unexpected Behavior Puzzles NASA
NASA engineers are scratching their heads over some unexpected behavior from the long-lived Spirit rover, which began its sixth year exploring Mars this month.
Spirit failed to report in to engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., last weekend, prompting a series of diagnostic tests this week to hunt the glitch's source. The aging Mars rover did not beam home a record of its weekend activities and, more puzzlingly, apparently failed to even record any of its actions on Sunday, mission managers said.
January 05, 2009
Mars Rovers Hit 5-Year Mark
NASA's Mars rovers were designed to last for at least 90 days on the Red Planet, and from the start, mission scientists hoped that they'd keep working well after their "warranty" expired. But few dared to predict that both Spirit and Opportunity would still be on the move five Earth years after they bounced to the surface.
To celebrate Spirit's five-year anniversary, mission managers have released a sweeping new panorama of the rover's winter refuge in Gusev Crater.
Spirit touched down, cushioned by airbags, on Jan. 3, 2004 (or Jan. 4, depending on your time zone). Since then it has traveled almost 4.7 miles (7.5 kilometers). It spent the last few months waiting out the Martian winter near an intriguing light-colored formation nicknamed Home Plate.
"This last winter was a squeaker for Spirit," John Callas, the rover mission's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a news release issued Monday. "We just made it through."
November 30, 2008
Visions of Mars
National Geographic
Robot explorers transform a distant object of wonder into intimate terrain.
November 12, 2008
Spirit Mars Rover May Be Dead Too Now
Gizmodo
More bad bad news. Just two days ago Phoenix Mars Lander sent his last words, and NASA announced the end of the mission because of a storm that covered its solar panels with Martian dust. Today, we have learnt that the Mars Spirit rover may be dying too because exactly the same problem. In fact, according to Bruce Banerdt—the mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and part-time Hulk impersonator—he may be dead already:
This is a very dangerous time. If we don't hear from it on Thursday, we'll be extremely concerned.
The culprit, again: A sudden dust storm over the Martian equatorial plains. This storm has covered the solar panels during the last days and, as a result, the Mars Spirit only produced 89 watt-hours last weekend. This is half the amount it needs to keep functioning. Scientists at the JPL have turned off heating for many instruments in the hope that the rover's batteries won't be completely depleted.
November 09, 2008
Plucky Mars rovers on the move again
New Scientist
The arrival of spring in southern Mars is reviving NASA's two venerable Mars rovers as deepening autumn in the arctic north slowly freezes the Phoenix lander.
After hibernating for the winter on the northern edge of a plateau called Home Plate, the Spirit rover moved uphill in October to collect more sunlight.
On the other side of the planet, the Opportunity rover, which climbed out of a large crater called Victoria at the end of August, has completed the first month of a 12-kilometre trek towards an even bigger crater called Endeavour. That journey is expected to take more than two years.
Designed to last only 90 days, the two rovers have survived for nearly five years on the Red Planet. Both are showing their age, but Jake Matijevic, chief of rover engineering at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, says they still are doing fine.
August 27, 2008
Mars rover works its way out of crater
NASA's Opportunity rover is slowly but surely hauling itself out of a vast Martian crater after nearly a year plumbing the interior for secrets of the Red Planet's ancient past.
Opportunity will take the same route it used to enter Victoria Crater on Sept. 11, 2007, after a year of scouting from the rim. Engineers want the rover to make a graceful exit after seeing an electric current spike in its left front wheel — a reminder of a similar spike that occurred when its robotic twin Spirit lost use of a front right wheel in 2006.
"If Opportunity were driving with only five wheels, like Spirit, it probably would never get out of Victoria Crater," said Bill Nelson, a rover mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We also know from experience with Spirit that if Opportunity were to lose the use of a wheel after it is out on the level ground, mobility should not be a problem."
June 26, 2008
Martian air once had moisture, new soil analysis says
UC Berkeley
A new analysis of Martian soil data led by University of California, Berkeley, geoscientists suggests that there was once enough water in the planet's atmosphere for a light drizzle or dew to hit the ground, leaving tell-tale signs of its interaction with the planet's surface. The study's conclusion breaks from the more dominant view that the liquid water that once existed during the red planet's infancy came mainly in the form of upwelling groundwater rather than rain. To come up with their conclusions, the UC Berkeley-led researchers used published measurements of soil from Mars that were taken by various NASA missions: Viking 1, Viking 2, Pathfinder, Spirit and Opportunity. These five missions provided information on soil from widely distant sites surveyed between 1976 and 2006.
December 21, 2007
Mars Impactor: Rovers at the Ready
Live Science
That possible impact of an asteroid on Mars at the end of January would be quite a show for the orbiters and rovers now on duty at the red planet.
I asked Steve Squyres - lead scientist of the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers at Cornell — what he thought might be observable by the robots - at that time, in their fourth year of operations.
“If an impact takes place, the most likely thing for us to observe would be dust that has been lofted into the atmosphere by the impact event and then carried over the rover sites by wind,” Squyres said. “So if there is an impact, we’ll increase our monitoring of dust in the atmosphere to see if we can observe any effects.”
November 16, 2007
Mars rover crippled and blinded as instruments fail
New Scientist
NASA's Opportunity rover has been crippled and blinded by problems with two of its most important instruments. The agency has suspended work involving the rover's rock grinding tool and its infrared spectrometer while engineers try to work out a fix.
The problems are the latest in a long line of failures that have begun to plague both rovers as they age.
Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, were designed to last just 90 days. But they have been driving around the Red Planet for nearly 4 years, having landed in January 2004.
October 12, 2007
NASA Scopes Winter Homes for Mars Rovers
The Mars Exploration Rovers have weathered two drab winters on the Martian surface, and mission managers are already looking ahead to yet a third chilly season. All this from a mission that was only designed to last 90 days.
The Spirit rover is searching for a spot to stick it out during the upcoming Martian winter, which will last from March 2008 through October 2008, according to a statement from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
Although Mars has a tilt similar to Earth's, Martian seasons last longer because the planet takes almost twice as long to circle the Sun—almost 687 Earth days.
September 09, 2007
After Dust Storms, Mars Rover Set to Enter Giant Crater
After surviving near fatal dust storms on Mars, NASA's Opportunity rover is gearing up for its long-awaited trek inside an expansive crater on the red planet's surface.
Opportunity could begin descending down into Mars' giant Victoria Crater by Sept. 11 after spending two months hunkered down to wait out sunlight-blotting storms that nearly starved the solar-powered rover and its robotic twin, Spirit. The rover spent this week rolling ever closer to entry point into Victoria Crater.
"Opportunity might be ready for that first 'toe dip' into the crater as early as next week," said John Callas, project manager for the Mars rover mission at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in a Friday statement.
August 02, 2007
Mars Exploration Rover Status Report: Concern Increasing About Opportunity
Rover engineers are growing increasingly concerned about the temperature of vital electronics on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity while the rover stays nearly inactive due to a series of dust storms that has lasted for more than a month.
Dust in the atmosphere and dust settling onto Opportunity's solar panels challenges the ability of the solar panels to convert sunlight into enough electricity to supply the rover's needs. The most recent communication from Opportunity, received Monday, July 30, indicates that sunlight over the rover's Meridiani Planum location remains only slightly less obscured than during the dustiest days Opportunity survived in mid-July. With dust now accumulating on the solar panels, the rover is producing barely as much energy as it is using in a very-low-power regimen it has been following since July 18, 2007.
July 23, 2007
Mars Rovers Weather Worst of Dust Storms
The twin rovers on Mars are in good shape today despite widespread dust storms that worsened last week and threatened to cut off solar power to the robotic explorers.
Steve Squyres of Cornell University, the lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) project, said that both Spirit and Opportunity are in "excellent shape" based on a radio transmission received this morning.
"Both came through the weekend beautifully," Squyres said in a telephone interview. "They were both power positive over the weekend, meaning they were generating more power than they were consuming."
The amount of sunlight penetrating the dust-choked martian atmosphere has increased slightly in recent days, and the batteries of both rovers are fully charged, said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Explorations Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
July 05, 2007
Mars Rovers Lose Power as Massive Dust Storm Grows
A major dust storm on Mars has worsened and is causing the Mars Exploration Rovers to lose power.
Opportunity's highly anticipated and risky entry into Victoria Crater is delayed for at least several days, NASA announced.
The regional storm, first reported by SPACE.com, is the most severe to hit the rovers since they began exploring Mars in January 2004. Already last week it was thousands of miles wide. At first, scientists did not expect it to affect rover operations.
But dust from the storm is partly blocking sunlight, which the rovers need in order to recharge their batteries via their solar panels. Opportunity's operations were scaled back June 30 to conserve power, according to the statement.
"The storm is affecting both rovers and reducing the power levels on Opportunity," said John Callas, Mars Exploration Rover project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We are keeping an eye on this as we go forward, but our entry into Victoria Crater will be delayed until no sooner than July 13."
May 22, 2007
NASA Rover Finds Surprising Evidence for Mars' Watery Past
The strongest evidence yet that ancient Mars was much wetter than it is now has been unearthed by NASA's Spirit rover.
A patch of Martian soil kicked up and analyzed by Spirit appears to be rich in silica, which suggests it would have required water to produce.
Chemical analysis performed by the rover's robotic arm-mounted science instruments measured a composition of about 90 percent pure silica -- a material commonly found in quartz on Earth -- for the bit of Martian dirt, said mission scientists, who first heard of the find during a teleconference.
"You could hear people gasp in astonishment," said Steve Squyres, principal investigator for NASA's twin Spirit and Opportunity rovers at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. "This is a remarkable discovery."
October 28, 2006
One Long Trip: NASA’s Spirit Rover Hits 1,000th Martian Day
NASA’s Spirit rover hit the 1,000-Martian day of its mission on the red planet Thursday, but the mission continues for the hardy robot.
To celebrate the Martian milestone, rover mission managers released the McMurdo panorama [image], a mosaic of some 1,449 individual images taken by Spirit’s panoramic camera.
“It has been a surprise and delight to see the vehicle survive as long as it has,” Jake Mapijevic, engineering team chief for NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission. “We had anticipated a much shorter mission.”
More than 10 times shorter, in fact.
Mars Rover Beginning To Hate Mars
The Onion
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists overseeing the ongoing Mars Exploration Rover Mission said Monday that the Spirit's latest transmissions could indicate a growing resentment of the Red Planet. "Spirit has been displaying some anomalous behavior," said Project Manager John Callas, who noted the rover's unsuccessful attempts to flip itself over and otherwise damage its scientific instruments. "And the thousand or so daily messages of 'STILL NO WATER' really point to a crisis of purpose." The "robot geologist," as NASA describes Spirit, has been operating independently for over 990 Martian sols—nearly the equivalent of three Earth years. However, scientists estimate that, in recent weeks, Spirit has been functioning on the level of a rover who has been on Mars for approximately 6,160 sols.
October 09, 2006
Red Planet Double Team: NASA Orbiter Spies Mars Rover at Victoria Crater
NASA’s newest Mars orbiter has spied the plucky rover Opportunity perched at the rim of the red planet’s massive Victoria Crater as both vehicles explore the fourth planet from the Sun.
Appearing almost as a shiny boulder, Opportunity’s lumpy outline and its camera mast shadow can easily be seen in a high-resolution image of Victoria Crater taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and released by the space agency on Friday.
“It is so good to see that rover again,” said Steve Squyres, the lead Mars Exploration Rover scientist from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, during a press briefing. “I’ve got to say that image with that little rover 200 million miles away, parked at the top of that cliff, that’s just one of the most evocative images I’ve ever seen in the planetary program…it’s just beautiful.”
August 30, 2006
Traffic Jam on Mars
When NASA launched a pair of rovers to Mars more than three years ago, no one ever thought the darn things would still be working by now, says Cornell astronomer Steve Squyres, the top scientist for the Red Planet rover missions. The proof of that lies in the fix that the Mars program finds itself in today, with two separate missions transmitting on exactly the same frequency.
The data traffic jam isn't insurmountable, Squyres says, but it just goes to show that even a smashing success can carry complications.
May 19, 2006
Mars rover closes in on biggest crater yet
Those “never say die” robots on Mars — NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity — continue to chalk up science at their respective exploration sites.
Looming large for the Opportunity rover at Meridiani Planum is Victoria Crater — a grand bit of territory that’s roughly half a mile (800 meters) in diameter. That’s about six times wider than Endurance Crater, a feature that the rover previously surveyed for several months in 2004, gathering data on rock layers there that were affected by water of long, long ago.
April 12, 2006
Mars Rover Spirit Heads to Alternate Home
The Mars rover Spirit, hampered by a broken wheel, has failed to reach its destination and will spend the Martian winter at an alternate site, scientists said Monday.
The solar-powered Spirit was rolling toward the north-facing side of McCool Hill last month to recharge on some sunshine during the winter when its right front wheel stopped working.
Spirit rover takes detour for winter
News.com
NASA's Spirit rover is being forced to winter in an alternate location because a broken wheel has slowed the Martian vehicle down so much that it can't reach its intended spot before winter hits, according to NASA. The rover needs to spend the planet's dark, cold winter months on a north-facing slope so its solar panels can get enough energy to power it. And with the Martian winter approaching, getting the rover to a safe location has taken precedence over scientific research, principal investigator and Cornell University geologist Steve Squyres said in a statement.
NASA'S Mars Rovers Head for New Sites After Studying Layers of Terrain
AScribe
NASA's Mars rover Spirit has reached a safe site for the Martian winter, while its twin, Opportunity, is making fast progress toward a destination of its own. The two rovers recently set out on important -- but very different -- drives after earlier weeks inspecting sites with layers of Mars history. Opportunity finished examining sedimentary evidence of ancient water at a crater called "Erebus," and is now rapidly crossing flat ground toward the scientific lure of a much larger crater, "Victoria."
April 04, 2006
Mars rover's broken wheel is beyond repair
The New Scientist
Mission managers have given up hope of fixing a broken wheel on NASA's Spirit rover and will simply have to drag the wheel on future drives. The glitch means NASA must avoid terrain with loose soil as it maps out a route to a safe winter haven for the rover.
The rover's right-front wheel stopped turning about two weeks ago - apparently because of a broken circuit in the motor that powers the wheel. The same wheel had experienced a surge in current in 2004 but later returned to normal.
March 19, 2006
Spirit Mars Rover In 'Drive Or Die' Situation
NASA’s Spirit Mars rover has wrapped up exploration of a baffling feature called "Home Plate" but now faces the onset of martian winter while dealing with dropping power levels and fighting a balky right front wheel.
"Our current focus is to drive like hell … and try to get [Spirit] to safe winter havens before the power situation gets really bad," said Steve Squyres, lead Mars Rover Exploration scientist at Cornell University.
February 21, 2006
Roving The Red Planet
Space Daily
NASA's Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have been working overtime to help scientists better understand ancient environmental conditions on the red planet. The rovers are also generating excitement about the exploration of Mars outlined in NASA's Vision for Space Exploration.
February 16, 2006
Mars rover to seek safe winter haven
The New Scientist
While Spirit busily studies a finely layered outcrop dubbed Home Plate, mission planners say the rover's daily power supply is steadily dropping. And with the Martian winter looming and dust accumulating on Spirit's solar arrays, the team is preparing to drive Spirit to a safe haven.
The Martian winter does not officially begin until August, but Byron Jones, rover mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, US, says the team would like to get Spirit situated on a slope called McCool Hill, with its solar arrays tilted northward, in plenty of time.
That tilt maximises the sunlight falling on the arrays and worked well for the rovers during their first Martian winter, which peaked in September 2004.
February 13, 2006
Spirit Mars Rover Reaches 'Home Plate': Formation Has Researchers Puzzled
NASAs Spirit Mars rover has arrived at a site dubbed "Home Plate" within Gusev crater. But what the robot found has left scientists puzzled. As the Mars machinery relays images of the area, the sightseeing has sparked healthy debate within the team running the mission. "Well, so far it has been great," said Steve Squyres, lead Mars Rover Exploration scientist at Cornell University. "It's the most spectacular layered rock weve ever seen at Gusev," he told SPACE.com.
January 19, 2006
NASAs Mars Rovers to Hit the Silver Screen
NASAs hardy twin robots Spirit and Opportunity currently roving across the surface of Mars will be immortalized in a fresh documentary about their wildly successful mission.
Disneys new IMAX film Roving Mars, set to open nationwide on Jan. 27, chronicles the exploits of NASAs Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission that entered its third year exploring the surface of the red planet this month. Originally slated for a 90-Martian day mission, Spirit and Opportunity have consistently surpassed the expectations of their handlers and filmmakers throughout their mission.
January 02, 2006
Mars rovers keep exploring Red Planet
The warranty expired long ago on NASA's twin robots motoring around Mars. In two years, they have traveled a total of seven miles. Not impressed? Try keeping your car running in a climate where the average temperature is well below zero and where dust devils can reach 100 mph. These two golf cart-sized vehicles were only expected to last three months. "These rovers are living on borrowed time. We're so past warranty on them," says Steven Squyres of Cornell University, the Mars mission's principal researcher. "You try to push them hard every day because we're living day to day."
December 28, 2005
Most Spectacular Mars Photo Yet!
Addict 3D
Scientists and engineers celebrated when they saw the first pictures NASA's Opportunity sent from the rim of a stadium-sized crater that the rover reached after a six-week trek across martian flatlands.
December 06, 2005
Rovers Find Evidence Mars Was Once Hostile
Nearly two years after NASA's twin rovers parachuted to Mars, a Jekyll-and-Hyde picture is emerging about the planet's past and whether it could have supported life. Both Spirit and Opportunity uncovered geologic evidence of a wet past, a sign that ancient Mars may have been hospitable to life. But new findings reveal the Red Planet was also once such a hostile place that the environment may have prevented life from developing. "For much of its history, it was a very forbidding place," said mission principal investigator Steven Squyres of Cornell University.
November 22, 2005
Spirits Martian Birthday
If the Spirit rover were your typical 1-year-old, there'd be lots of pictures of the happy tot, perhaps even with a frosting-smeared face. Of course, Spirit is a bot, not a tot, and this is definitely not your typical birthday. In fact, Sunday's big day actually marked 687 Earth days of operations on the Red Planet not exactly a nice round number on the Gregorian calendar. But by Martian reckoning, it was exactly a year ago that Spirit landed in Gusev Crater, and that's a cause for celebration at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
October 25, 2005
Mars rover begins descent from summit
Spirit, the robot on wheels that reached the top of a Martian hill this summer after an epic climb, is heading back down toward its next target for exploration. After two months at the summit of Husband Hill, the six-wheeled rover is descending to a basin where the scientific instruments it carries will examine an outcrop dubbed "home plate" because from orbit it looks like home on a baseball field.
October 10, 2005
"Spirit" and "Opportunity"
By the time Spirit and Opportunity made Time's "What's Next" list in 2003, the pair were already millions of miles into their journey to Mars. Earth's grounded citizens already had been dazzled by the journey of Sojourner, a much smaller rover that ventured to Mars in 1997. But Sojourner was a test run for its larger siblings. Spirit and Opportunity were well equipped to bring back a plethora of scientific information about the planet that once inspired popular visions of little green people.
September 29, 2005
WUSTL Mars team describes water detection at Gusev crater
The Record
Led by WUSTL earth and planetary scientists, a large team of NASA scientists has detailed the first solid set of evidence for water having existed on Mars at the Gusev crater, the exploration site of the rover Spirit. Alian Wang, Ph.D., senior research scientist in earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, and Larry A. Haskin, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences, who died March 24, used an array of sophisticated equipment on Spirit to find that the volcanic rocks at Gusev crater near the rover's landing site were much like the olivine-rich basaltic rocks on Earth. The researchers also found that some of the rocks possessed a coating rich in sulfur, bromine, chlorine and hematite, or oxidized iron.
September 11, 2005
Spirit Rover Captures Animation of Martian Moons
The Spirit Mars rover perched high atop Husband Hill at Gusev Crater is stargazing. Imagery released September 9 by the NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California show the two moons of Mars Phobos and Deimos cutting across the martian night sky. The unique pictures come courtesy of the Spirit robot, using its onboard camera system to take longing looks at the parade of celestial objects as they flew overhead. An animation has been produced showing both martian moons: Deimos on the left and Phobos on the right as they travel across the night sky in front of the constellation Sagittarius. Part of Sagittarius resembles an upside-down teapot. Phobos is the brighter object on the right; Deimos is on the left.
August 23, 2005
Mars Rover Reaches Summit, and the View is Spectacular
The Spirit Mars robot is closing in on a milestone moment in its roving history wheeling up into position atop Husband Hill. Images being transmitted by Spirit show a breathtaking view from its vantage point. "We are within sight of the summit," said Larry Crumpler, a member of the Mars rover science team. He is also research curator in volcanology and space sciences at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque.
August 17, 2005
Summit in Sight for Mars Rover Spirit
At its Gusev crater exploration site, the Spirit Mars rover is wheeling to the summit of Husband Hill and likely to complete its climb this week. "I think were going to make it," said the Mars Exploration Rover programs lead scientist, Steve Squyres of Cornell University. New imagery from the robot shows a feature that is either the summit or something very close to it, he noted in a newly issued rover update on a Cornell University-based website.
July 20, 2005
It's one small step for a bug, a giant red face for NASA
The Sunday Times
Far from discovering life on Mars, Nasa may have put it there. The American space agency believes the two rover spacecraft scuttling across the red planet are carrying bacteria from Earth, writes John Harlow. The bacteria, bacillus safensis, were found in a chamber in California that had been used to test the rovers. Officials believe it is likely some of the microbes, possibly from scientists skin, were on board when the mission left.
July 05, 2005
Mars rovers continue explorations
NASAs dual Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity are wheeling about in their respective zones of exploration: Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum.
The Opportunity Mars rover is headed north right now, but only for a little while, said Cornell Universitys Steve Squyres, lead scientist on the Mars Exploration Rover program.
Scientists and engineers are delighted to see the golf cart-sized robot free to move about after being ensnared in sand for some five weeks.
June 30, 2005
Lifting the Iron Curtain on Mars
Free from the "iron curtain" that separated Americans and Russians during the Cold War, the Russian Space Agency and NASA are working together to penetrate the real iron curtain of dust covering Mars.
June 05, 2005
Mars rover freed from sand dune
The Mars rover Opportunity resumed rolling freely across the Martian surface Saturday after scientists freed it from a sand dune where it had been mired for nearly five weeks, NASA officials said. Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the mission, cheered when images beamed back to Earth showed the rover's wheels were free.
June 03, 2005
Postcards from Mars
NASA's Opportunity rover is still struggling to break free from a Martian sand dune, and half a world away, the Spirit rover is delving deeply into the geology of Gusev Crater. As a result, the Mars mission teams seem to be in a head-down, nose-to-the-grindstone mode. Nevertheless, NASA is releasing Red Planet imagery that ranks high on the coolness scale.
May 24, 2005
NASA's Rovers Continue Martian Missions
NASA's Mars rover Opportunity is trying to escape from a sand trap, while its twin, Spirit, has been busy finding new clues to a wet and violent early Martian history. "Spirit has finally found the kind of geology you can really sink your teeth into," said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. He is principal investigator for the Mars rovers' science instruments. According to Squyres, multiple layers of rock in the hills Spirit is exploring suggest successive deposits of water-altered explosive debris.
Spirit Rover Traces Mars' Explosive Past, Opportunity Slowly Digs Out
Explosions and falling rock once peppered the Martian hills that NASAs Mars rover Spirit currently calls home, astronomers said Tuesday. Spirit, currently scaling Husband Hill above its Gusev Crater landing site, has found evidence of an explosive period in the regions history, in which volcanoes or a massive impact showered the land with debris and possibly unearthed magma. Whether they were volcanic or impact explosions, however, is not yet known.
May 09, 2005
Mars Rover: Digging Out Of Tough Terrain
When the Opportunity rover landed on Mars last year, scientists were thrilled that it made a cosmic hole-in-one by rolling into a crater. But now the robot is struggling to drive itself out of a sand trap. Time will tell whether its up to par for the task. Progress is being made on trying to remove Opportunity from a soft-sand dune that the sporty, six-wheeled utility rover has run itself into at its exploration site: Meridiani Planum.
April 29, 2005
Opportunity Mars Rover Stuck in Sand
NASAs Opportunity Mars rover has run into a sandy snag. All of its six wheels have sunk in deep into a large ripple of soil. Rover operators are optimistic they can extricate the robot from its jam, having gotten dug in before. But ground controllers will need time to wheel back on top of the soil again. Time will also be spent figuring out whats different about the soil that has bogged down Opportunity, hoping to keep this problem from occurring down the road.
April 27, 2005
Hard-Working Mars Rovers: On the Scent Of Science
There is never a dull moment for a robot on Mars. A fleeting dust devil comes into view -- just right for picture taking. An outcrop of rock is found that yields insight into the planets past. And then theres need to trudge over and around ever-larger sand fields to reach primetime science. Those spunky, full of life rovers -- Spirit and Opportunity -- continue to hit the dusty exploration trail on Mars.
April 26, 2005
Has Spirit Found Bedrock in Columbia Hills?
Universe Today
Since arriving at the Columbia Hills, Spirit, one of the Mars Exploration Rovers, has encountered some mysterious phenomena. The rovers right front arthritic wheel that plagued Spirits 2-mile trek across the plains is now suddenly working perfectly and the once dust-covered solar panels whose power output was cut in half have now been miraculously wiped clean. But the biggest mystery of the Columbia Hills may lie in the angled rock outcrops that Spirit has found in the vicinity of Larrys Lookout on Husband Hill.
April 24, 2005
Movie Clip Shows Whirlwinds Carrying Dust on Mars
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is taking movies of dust devils -- whirlwinds carrying dust -- scooting across a plain on Mars. "This is the best look we've ever gotten of the wind effects on the martian surface as they are happening," said Dr. Mark Lemmon, a rover team member and atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University, College Station.
April 19, 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 inward angle. NASA rover project manager Jim Erickson says it is like a car losing its power steering.
April 06, 2005
Durable Mars Rovers Sent Into Third Overtime Period
NASA has approved up to 18 more months of operations for Spirit and Opportunity, the twin Mars rovers that have already surprised engineers and scientists by continuing active exploration for more than 14 months. "The rovers have proven their value with major discoveries about ancient watery environments on Mars that might have harbored life," said Dr. Ghassem Asrar, deputy associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "We are extending their mission through September 2006 to take advantage of having such capable resources still healthy and in an excellent position to continue their adventures."
April 03, 2005
Hindi, Bengali on sundial aboard Mars Exploration Rovers
IndiaExpress.com
Indian languages Hindi and Bengali find a respectable mention alongside 24 others from across the world on a sundial aboard NASA's Mars Surveyor that landed on the red planet in January 2004. The first sundial ever on a planet other than earth, the three-inch square structure in black and gold, has 'mangal', meaning mars, written on its face in both these languages.
March 30, 2005
Make your own Mars rover
The Martian Soil blog points the way to Web sites that show you how to assemble a downsized paper version of the NASA Mars rovers, as well as a true-scale paper "MarsDial" like the one on each rover (PDF file). All you have to do is print out a copy of the pattern, then painstakingly cut out the pieces and glue them together.
March 24, 2005
Tire tracks and dust devils on Mars
CNET
A recent view across the Martian landscape from the rover Opportunity, which--along with its compatriot Spirit--are still exploring the red planet months after they were expected to shut down.
March 22, 2005
Moon-Watching Mars Rover Catches Deimos Crossing the Sun
That dynamic duo on Mars, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, are satellite watchers too. Turning their respective camera systems up into the martian sky, the robots have caught sight of the moons of Mars Phobos and Deimos scooting across the face of the Sun. We got four of the possible six Phobos and Deimos transits during this years eclipse season from the rover sites, said Jim Bell of the Mars Exploration Rover Project at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
March 16, 2005
Mars Rover Suffers Instrument Glitch
NASA said Tuesday it has suspended use of one of the mineral-identifying tools on the Opportunity Mars rover due to a problem. The robots thermal emission spectrometer was acting up, and engineers are obtaining data from it while troubleshooting. The problem might be related to a malfunctioning optical switch that tells a mirror in the instrument when to begin moving. Or the mirror might not be properly moving at a constant velocity.
March 12, 2005
Spirit Gets A Dust Devil Once-Over
Mars scientists and engineers are elated about a dust-busting blast that has struck the Spirit rover at its Gusev crater exploration site. Turns out that a martian whirlwind dubbed a dust devil likely zoomed over the robot high up in the Columbia Hills. That fleeting flyby effectively cleaned Spirits solar arrays, giving the robot a new lease on life. Engineers report that the rovers power reading quickly shot up to almost as high as when the rover landed on Mars over a year ago.
NASA Mars Program Under Scrutiny
NASAs Mars program could undergo major alternation, driven by budgetary and technical issues, as well as science goals. Weve been getting inputs, advice, actions itemsfrom the road mapping teams, said Doug McCuistion, Mars Exploration Program Director at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Nothing is finalized at this point. There have been no final decisions made or, frankly, any interim decisions made as yet.
March 02, 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 24, 2005
Rover Finds New Signs of Water
The Cornell Daily Sun
Nearly three weeks after the Mars rover Opportunity encountered the first meteorite ever discovered on the surface of a foreign planet, its sibling, the Mars rover Spirit, stumbled upon a native Martian rock that scientists claim provides strong evidence of the existence of liquid water during the Martian past. The rover spent nearly 13 earth days drilling into the rock, analyzing its interior and taking pictures, despite reduced energy due to dust storms. The investigation of the rock, nicknamed Peace, revealed a large quantity of sulfate salt in the rock's interior -- a substance that may have been deposited by liquid water.
February 16, 2005
New Rock Type Found at Mars
NASA's Spirit rover found a new class of rock on Mars that provides additional clues to the planet's watery past. The rock, named "Peace," is an exposure of bedrock in the Columbia Hills within the Gusev Crater, where Spirit landed 13 months ago. Though appearing mundane in a black-and-white image, the rock is significant to scientists for what they've learned by digging into it and analyzing it with a suite of instruments. Peace contains more sulfate salt than any other rock Spirit has examined.
February 12, 2005
The Martian Dust Bowl
Astrobiology Magazine
After a year on Mars, the rovers have been covered with dust. Scientists believe one cannot understand today's changes on Mars--its weather, temperature or water--without also accounting for dust. But the engineers trying to extend the lifetime of the rovers' solar power are as concerned about the first year of dust.
February 08, 2005
Panoramas show rovers surroundings in full color
It's been weeks since the Mars rovers marked their anniversaries on the Red Planet, but the happy returns are still being processed back on Earth. Over the past few days, the rover team has released jaw-dropping, true-color panoramas from Spirit as well as Opportunity. The Opportunity rover's panorama shows the place where its heat shield crashed during the probe's descent a little more than a year ago, making a light reddish mark on the brick-red plain called Meridiani Planum.
January 28, 2005
NASA Rovers' Adventures on Mars Continue
NASA lit a birthday candle today for its twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. The Spirit rover begins its second year on Mars investigating puzzling rocks unlike any found earlier. The rovers successfully completed their three-month primary missions in April. They astound even their designers with how well they continue operating. The unanticipated longevity is allowing both rovers to reach additional destinations and to keep making discoveries. Spirit landed on Jan. 3 and Opportunity Jan. 24, 2004, respectively.
January 24, 2005
Opportunity Rover As Seen From Orbit
Malin Space Science Systems
The Mars Exploration Rover (MER-B), Opportunity, landed on the red planet a year ago. This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) cPROTO image (0.5 cm/pixel) is the only picture obtained thus far that shows the tracks made by the Opportunity rover. This is a sub-frame of MOC image R16-02188. It was acquired on 26 April 2004, during Opportunity's 91st sol--the first day of the MER-B Extended Mission. At that time, Opportunity had recently completed exploration of nearby Fram Crater, and was enroute toward Endurance Crater, where it would eventually spend most of the rest of 2004. The rover itself can be seen in this image-- an amazing accomplishment, considering that the MGS spacecraft was nearly 400 kilometers (nearly 250 miles) away at the time!
January 20, 2005
Mars Rover's Meteorite Discovery Triggers Questions
The discovery of an iron meteorite sitting on Mars by NASAs Opportunity rover has kick-started a wide-ranging discussion as to what the find may be telling us about the planet itself, past water conditions there, and just how peppered the red planet might be with the fallen objects. Roughly the size of a basketball, the object is mostly made of iron and nickel, and is the first meteorite of any type ever identified on another planet.
January 19, 2005
NASA Rover Finds Meteorite on Mars Surface
In a stroke of luck, the NASA rover Opportunity has discovered a basketball-size metal meteorite sitting on the surface of Mars, the mission's main scientist said Tuesday. Scientists believe the meteorite might lead to clues about how martian winds are reshaping the planet's surface. Opportunity came upon the meteorite last week while performing other tasks. Tests confirmed it was a nickel-iron meteorite, said Steve Squyres, a Cornell University scientist who is the principal investigator for NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers mission.
January 17, 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.
Mars Rover Inspects Intriguing Rock A Meteorite?
Scientists controlling the Opportunity Mars rover are taking an up-close look at an intriguing pitted rock on Mars, now dubbed "Heat Shield Rock". A speculative view about the object is that the Mars robot has come across a meteorite. A detailed investigation of the rock is underway, work that should reveal the true nature of the object.
January 13, 2005
Opportunity Spots Curious Object On Mars
NASAs Opportunity Mars rover has come across an interesting object -- perhaps a meteorite sitting out in the open at Meridiani Planum. Initial data taken by the robots Mini-Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES) is suggestive that the odd-looking rock is made of metal.
January 04, 2005
NOVA - Welcome to Mars
PBS
NASA's twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have yielded volumes of new data about the red planet in the last year - the least of which involves the planet's history of water. But the rovers have also amazed their human handlers with their longevity, lasting nearly four times their initial 90-day mission despite some early glitches that popped up after landing. A new one-hour documentary NOVA: Welcome to Mars (Public Broadcasting System, Jan. 4 at 8:00 p.m.) chronicles the rover mission from the early days after Spirit's landing through the arrival of Opportunity and some following months.
January 03, 2005
NASA Rover Hits the One Year Mark on Mars
Sitting on the hill of an alien world millions of miles from home, a hardy NASA robot celebrates an anniversary today - one year on the planet Mars. The Mars rover Spirit has come a long way since it hurtled down through the planet's atmosphere and came to a bouncy, airbag-protected stop at Gusev Crater on Jan. 3, 2004. It has survived more than four times its initial 90-day mission, driven miles across the Martian landscape and weathered a red planet winter only to scale hills for its human handlers
January 01, 2005
Mars Rover Wanders Through Littered Landscape
Like the adage here on Earth, so goes it for Mars: One persons junk is anothers gold mine -- in this case, charred and busted up pieces of a heat shield. NASAs Opportunity Mars rover is circling leftovers from its entry, descent and landing system that fell to the planet nearly a year ago. Both scientists and engineers are finding value in an up-close inspection of spent entry shield hardware that was shed at high altitude above Mars and fell with a thump onto the expanse of terrain that is Meridiani Planum.
December 30, 2004
'NOVA' Welcomes Viewers to Mars on PBS
When scientists wanted to explore what kind of life might exist on Mars, public television's "NOVA" recorded the building and launch of the rovers sent to the planet. Now, a year later, the "NOVA" team is back with "Welcome to Mars," featuring data collected by the robots as they searched for signs that the planet may once have harbored tiny forms of life. The program airs Tuesday at 8 p.m. EST on PBS (check local listings).
December 28, 2004
Mars Rover Inspects Its Own Debris
NASAs Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover is wheeling about a field of spacecraft litter -- the remains of heat shield hardware that protected the robot from its plunge through the martian atmosphere last January. Bits and pieces of flotsam scattered across Meridiani Planum -- including a spring and other junked components -- can be clearly seen in new rover images. The heat shield was shed during Opportunitys descent and landing sequence, falling several miles to the surface.
December 21, 2004
Mystery Martian car wash helps rover
A phenomenon akin to a space-borne car wash has boosted the performance of one of the two NASA rovers probing the surface of Mars. Layers of dust have been swept from the solar panels of the Mars Opportunity vehicle while it was closed down during the Martian night. The cleaning boosted the panels' power output close to their maximum 900 watt-hours per day, after at one stage dropping to 500 watt-hours because of the heavy Martian dirt.
Opportunity Rover to Prowl its Entry Debris for Mars Secrets
The Opportunity Mars rover has turned into a junkyard dog, prowling ever closer to a hunk of space litter at Meridiani Planum -- a discarded heat shield. During its January 25, 2004 plunge toward the red planet, the Opportunity rover was encapsulated in a protective aeroshell comprised of two key parts: a heat shield and a backshell that contained essential landing gear.
Mars Rovers Head for New Ground
Discovery News
As the robotic explorers Spirit and Opportunity approached their first anniversaries on Mars, the rovers, working on opposite sides of the planet, were on the move, heading to their next targets. Opportunity, which has been crawling around for six months inside a stadium-sized hole in the ground called Endurance Crater, climbed out this week to begin a new round of studies. Its final task inside Endurance Crater was to make a close inspection of exposed rock layers on a crater wall called Burns Cliff, according to NASA scientists.
December 17, 2004
Science names Cornell-led Mars rover mission science program as Breakthrough of the Year
Cornell
Science magazine has chosen the discoveries of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission as Breakthrough of the Year in its Dec. 17 edition, published today. The principal scientific investigator for the mission's twin-rover science program is Steve Squyres, professor of astronomy at Cornell University, assisted by a large team of researchers, 28 of them at Cornell, including 15 students. The mission is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The journal, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says that its annual top honor is awarded for the mission's discovery of evidence for the prolonged presence of potentially life-supporting, salty, acidic water on the planet's surface.
December 14, 2004
On Mars: Earth-Like Clouds and a New Type of Rock
NASA's Mars rovers have returned new evidence for past water, pictures of Earth-like clouds seen for the first time from the planet's surface, and a rock that doesn't look like anything scientists have ever seen. Meanwhile, officials say both robots are in surprisingly good health and could continue their science investigations for months more, despite nagging health problems.
December 03, 2004
Conditions on vast plain on Mars could have been suitable for life, Cornell rover scientist Squyres states in special Science issue
Cornell
Scientists have long been tantalized by the question of whether life once existed on Mars. Although present conditions on the planet would seem to be inhospitable to life, the data sent back over the past 10 months by NASA's two exploration rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, showed a world that might once have been warmer and wetter -- perhaps friendly enough to support microbial organisms. Now a Cornell University-led Mars rover science team reports on the historic journey by the rover Opportunity, which is exploring a vast plain, Meridiani Planum, and concludes with this observation: "Liquid water was once present intermittently at the martian surface at Meridiani, and at times it saturated the subsurface. Because liquid water is a key prerequisite for life, we infer that conditions at Meridiani may have been habitable for some period of time in martian history."
November 12, 2004
Opportunity Rover to Pack Up and Leave Crater
NASA's Mars rover Opportunity will back its way out of a crater it has spent four months exploring after reaching terrain that appears too treacherous to tread. Sitting at an incline inside "Endurance Crater" in Meridiani Planum, Opportunity has apparently reached in impasse. To the rover's right, slopes are too steep to pass, while on the left the terrain appears to contain sandy patches where Opportunity could bog down.
November 11, 2004
Mars answers spur questions
Rocky Mountain News
Five spacecraft are circling Mars and creeping across its ruddy surface, looking for traces of long-gone waters and signs that the cold, arid planet may once have been hospitable to life. The robotic martian invasion - three orbiters and two six-wheeled rovers - has already uncovered strong evidence that water once flowed on Mars and is now locked in subsurface ice. But big questions about water on Mars remain. When did it flow? How long did it last? How much was there? Where did it come from? Where did it go? Perhaps the most tantalizing question: Were there long-lived watery environments where microbial life could have gained a foothold?
November 05, 2004
Rover control shifts to Ithaca
The Ithaca Journal
Getting to drive two rovers on Mars all the way from Ithaca is a dream come true for Cornell University's Steven Squyres. "It's home," Squyres said of Ithaca. Principal investigator and lead scientist for the NASA-funded Mars Exploration Rover project, Squyres moved back to Ithaca in September after spending about eight months steering the mission from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. -- the mission's headquarters.
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 31, 2004
NASA's Mars Rovers Pass the 50,000-Picture Mark
A view of the sundial-like calibration target on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, with a bit of martian terrain in the background, is the 50,000th image from the twin rovers that have been exploring Mars since January. The images stock a treasury of scientific information on scales from microscopic detail to features on the horizon scores of kilometers or miles away, and even include glimpses of Mars' moons, Earth and the Sun. They also provide an always-current understanding of the surrounding terrain for use by the team of rover wranglers planning each day's activities on Mars.
October 27, 2004
Mars Rovers: Still Squeezing Out Science
Those work-a-day robots Spirit and Opportunity remain steadfast in their Mars research duties. But scientists must face the day when each rover surrenders to electronic or mechanical breakdown, or falls victim to Mars itself. Both rovers long ago finished their three-month primary missions and even their first mission extensions. The twin robots began their second extra-inning sessions earlier this month.
October 22, 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.
Opportunitys 1.3 metres of solar cells provided about 900 watt-hours per day when the mission began in January 2004, but that level had dropped to between 500 and 600 by June as dust slowly accumulated on the horizontal panels and as winter advanced.
October 21, 2004
Getting the scoop on Mars
U of Buffalo Reporter
Steven Squyres, principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover Project, is actually a teen-age boy speaking to audiences in the guise of a fully grown scientist. Or so it seems after hearing him talk excitedlyand nearly nonstopfor more than an hour last week about his work as the face and voice of the NASA Mars missions as part of the UB Distinguished Speakers Series in Alumni Arena.
Mars Exploration Rover Mission Status
A problem that affects the steering on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has recurred after disappearing for nearly two weeks.
Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are working to fully understand the intermittent problem and then implement operational work-arounds. Meanwhile, Spirit successfully steered and drove 3.67 meters (12 feet) on Oct. 17.
Rover engineers are also analyzing a positive development on Spirit's twin, Opportunity: a sustained boost in power generation by Opportunity's solar panels.
October 20, 2004
Spirit investigating ancient rocks
Spirit had a productive week investigating the rock "Tetl." On sol 277, Spirit attempted a drive to the next rock target, "Uchben," which means "ancient" in the old Mayan language. Halfway into that drive, Spirit experienced a repeat problem in the steering motor control system that engineers first saw on sol 265. Engineers repeated diagnostic tests for the problem on sol 278. Those tests showed that the electronics relay in question is still functional, but appears to operate intermittently. Spirit is otherwise healthy and is in a safe location.
October 18, 2004
Mission to Mars: Risky Business
Astrobiology Magazine
The Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission has sent back groundbreaking information about the history of Mars. The most important result is the discovery of salt deposits that indicate that some regions of the planet were once "drenched" in water. These findings bolster the notion that, at least in its distant past, Mars was a habitable world. But preparing the rovers for launch was an arduous and exhausting marathon. In a recent talk given at a NASA symposium on risk management in Monterey, California, MER Principal Investigator Steve Squyres explained how the mission team made it to the finish line.
Aging Mars Rovers stay alert and able
Los Angeles Times
Winter on Mars is a cruel season.
Nights are long. The sun is a shrunken orb, half its size on Earth. With temperatures plunging to a heart-stopping minus 175 degrees, there is little relief from the alien chill.
What lies ahead is even worse: dust storm season, when howling, planet-wide siroccos can claw at the surface and choke the atmosphere.
NASA's twin rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have been operating in this brutal environment since they landed on Mars in January.
And it shows.
October 14, 2004
Astronomer traces Mars mission highlights
Buffalo News
Steven Squyres, the face and voice of the Mars Exploration Rover mission, took thousands of University at Buffalo students on a walk Wednesday through the search for traces of water in the wastelands and craters of Mars.
"I don't get out much," admitted Squyres, who even 17 months after the launch of the modules Spirit and Opportunity is steering the $400 million wheeled robots by remote control around rocks and up hills as they gather more and more evidence that water - the mother of life - once flowed extravagantly over the red planet.
October 13, 2004
With robots on Mars, NASA hits a home run
Richmond Times Dispatch
Many people think that the planet Mars is cursed. Scientists don't believe in curses, but it is true that two-thirds of all missions to Mars have failed. Doing laboratory work on Mars is very hard.
We cannot send humans there (yet). We send robots instead, to look for water and signs of life.
Today there are two six-wheeled robots cruising on the surface of Mars. To be there, after a six-month trip through space, is a miracle of modern technology.
October 11, 2004
Father of Spirit and Opportunity
Scientific American
With the success of twin rovers on the Red Planet, Steven W. Squyres and his team are showing how to conduct robotic missions--and setting the stage for human exploration. A professor of astronomy at Cornell University, Squyres, 48, is the principal investigator for the Mars Exploration Team, which consists of 170 members. He is responsible for all the scientific activities of both the Opportunity and Spirit rovers, leading colleague John Grotzinger to liken him to a "flea on a hot griddle," with his hands in everything.
October 08, 2004
Mars Rovers Probing Water History At Two Sites
NASA's Spirit and Opportunity have been exploring Mars about three times as long as originally scheduled. The more they look, the more evidence of past liquid water on Mars these robots discover. Team members reported the new findings at a news briefing today. About six months ago, Opportunity established that its exploration area was wet a long time ago. The area was wet before it dried and eroded into a wide plain. The team's new findings suggest some rocks may have gotten wet a second time, after an impact excavated a stadium-sized crater.
October 06, 2004
Spirit Rover Disabled by Steering Problem
A steering problem disabled the Mars Rover Spirit Oct. 1, NASA officials said yesterday. The robot has not moved since.
While a fix of some sort is expected, Spirit could proceed with a greater chance of causing other problems.
The robot's right-front and left-rear wheels "did not operate as commanded" on the first day of the month, the space agency said in a statement. Engineers are investigating possible causes and remedies, which might include disabling the brakes on the two wheels so the craft can proceed with its mission in a hampered fashion.
October 01, 2004
Looks like Mars, sounds like the Arctic
Nunatsiaq News
If there are any native Martians on Mars, they may be shocked to learn that U.S. scientists are renaming places on their planet as fast as they can, in the same way that explorers and every wave of newcomers gave their own foreign place names to the Eastern Arctic. A little bit of Canada's North has been transported to Mars as names for places, people and events on Earth are transported to locations on the Red Planet. Borrowed place names for Martian craters include Inuvik, Nain, Nutak and Thule. The names of vessels used in past polar exploration are also now on Mars.
September 28, 2004
Rover Report Card: Prospect of Mars Life More Likely
Rolling, rolling, rolling. Keep those Mars rovers rolling. You can almost hear the crack of a Martian whip. Since January, NASAs Spirit and Opportunity robots have been wheeling and dealing with the red planet. Last week they had their driving licenses renewed for an additional six months. The science results already have changed how researchers view Mars, and the mission could be far from over.
Mars Orbiter Spots Rover's Tracks from Space
A spacecraft orbiting Mars photographed one of NASA's rovers and its tracks on the surface, the space agency said Monday. The image made by a camera aboard the Mars Global Surveyor shows a dark dot identified as the rover Spirit next to giant Bonneville Crater and the thin dark line of its tracks leading back to its lander. The picture was made by rolling the entire spacecraft, adjusting its rotation rate to match the ground speed under the camera, a process that produces sharper images.
September 22, 2004
UA Student Runs Remote Center for Mars Rover Mission
University of Arizona
Like some phenomenal high school quarterback drafted into the NFL, University of Arizona undergraduate Nicole Spanovich has made it as a pro. But her skill is in helping run rovers, named Spirit and Opportunity, on Mars. Spanovich, a UA astronomy senior, is running a remote operations center for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission in Tucson. She set it up at the UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory's Phoenix Project building, 1415 N. Sixth Ave., last month.
September 21, 2004
Spirit's Travels During its First 238 Martian Days
This map shows the complete traverse of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit through the rover's 238th martian day, or sol (Sept. 3, 2004). This was shortly before the rover stopped driving for about two weeks while Mars was nearly behind the Sun from Earth's perspective. The background image consists of frames from the Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. Inset images along the route are from Spirit's navigation camera. From its landing site, Spirit drove up to the rim of "Bonneville" crater on the far left and to the north rim of "Missoula" crater. Then it commenced a long drive across the plains, deviating to avoid large hollows. Upon arrival at the base of the "Columbia Hills", Spirit drove north for a short distance before beginning its ascent onto the "West Spur," where it is currently located.
Opportunity's Travels During its First 205 Martian Day
This map shows the traverse of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity through the rover's 205th martian day, or sol (Aug. 21, 2004). The background image is from the rover's descent imaging camera. Images inset along the route are from Opportunity's navigation camera. Opportunity began its exploration inside "Eagle" crater near the left edge of the map. Following completion of its study of the outcrop there, it traversed eastward to a small crater ("Fram" crater) before driving southeastward to the rim of "Endurance" crater. After a survey partly around the south rim of Endurance crater, Opportunity drove inside the southwest rim of Endurance crater and began a systematic study of outcrops exposed on the crater's inner slope.
Rover Missions Renewed as Mars Emerges from Behind Sun
As NASA's Spirit and Opportunity resumed reliable contact with Earth, after a period when Mars passed nearly behind the sun, the space agency extended funding for an additional six months of rover operations, as long as they keep working. Both rovers successfully completed their primary three-month missions on the surface of Mars in April and have already added about five months of bonus exploration during the first extension of their missions.
Mars rovers' mission extends with new goals, new funding
The Mars rovers emerged from a communications blackout period and the low point of winter today with new funding and big plans for the journey ahead. Engineers hope to put Spirit atop Husband Hill so it can get a view all the way to the edge of vast Gusev Crater, in which it landed. On the other side of the planet, Opportunity will soon leave Endurance Crater, visiting its discarded heat shield along the way, and make a 3-mile journey to Victoria Crater.
September 15, 2004
People on Mars Possible in 20 to 30 Years
People could land on Mars in the next 20 to 30 years provided scientists can find water on the red planet, the head of NASA's surface exploration mission said on Wednesday. Two partially solar-powered "robot geologists" -- Mars Exploration Rovers, or MERs -- have been trundling across 3 miles of the planet and into craters since January, beaming back data about the makeup of what scientists believe is Earth's sister planet. Asked how long it could be before astronauts land on Mars, Arthur Thompson, mission manager for MER surface operations, told Reuters in an interview in Lima, "My best guess is 20 to 30 years, if that becomes our primary priority."
September 14, 2004
Behind the Scenes Account of Mars Landing Scheduled at San Diego Space Event
Last January the people around the world were captivated by the landing of two robot geologists on Mars, Spirit
and Opportunity. At the Space 2004 Conference and Exposition, Dr. Firouz
Naderi, the head of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL), and Dr. Steve Squyres, the head of the Science Team on the
mission and a professor at Cornell University, will recount their experiences
on this mission through a highly engaging presentation. This fascinating
presentation begins at 6:00 p.m., 29 September 2004.
September 08, 2004
Mars rovers to sit tight for 12 days
Starting Wednesday, the Mars rovers will go into an anticipated 12-day "loss of communication" period as the sun passes between the Earth and Mars, an alignment known as conjunction. The energetic environment around the sun is expected to interfere with radio communications between the two planets. The down time will begin Wednesday for the Rover Spirit and Thursday for Opportunity.
Mars May Have Had Large Sea Near Nasa Rover Landing Site
University of Colorado at Boulder
Spacecraft observations of the landing area for one of NASA's two Mars rovers now indicate there likely was an enormous sea or lake covering the region in the past, according to a new University of Colorado at Boulder study. Research Associate Brian Hynek of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics said data from the Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey spacecraft now show that the region surrounding the Opportunity rover's landing site probably had a body of water at least 330,000 square kilometers, or 127,000 square miles. That would make the ancient sea larger in surface area than all the Great Lakes combined, or comparable to Europe's Baltic Sea.
August 29, 2004
Plan 1 for Outer Space
Washington Post
Brian Cooper may be the slowest driver in the solar system. Floored, his vehicle reaches a sustained velocity of a tenth of a mile per hour. That's fine with Cooper, who fears getting stuck in the bottom of a crater. On Mars you can't call a tow truck.
August 26, 2004
Good Government At Work... On Mars
NY Post
On a recent day some of them were behind a laboratory at a pile of sand that resembles the surface of Mars. They were trying to drive a rover, like the two currently on Mars. The JPL scientists were trying to operate one with the kind of mechanical defect an inoperative drive wheel that is giving a slight limp to one of the rovers operating on the red planet 110 million miles away.
August 24, 2004
NASA: DOS Glitch Nearly Killed Mars Rover
ExtremeTech
A software glitch that paralyzed the Mars "Spirit" rover earlier this year was caused by an unanticipated characteristic of a DOS file system, a NASA scientist said Monday. The flaw, since fixed, was only discovered after days of agonizingly slow tests complicated by the limited "windows" of communication allowed by the rotation of Mars, said Robert Denise, a member of the Flight Software Development Team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
August 23, 2004
On Mars, no life yet, but many blue screens of death
News.com
Did Mars have water? The ground seems to say yes. The presence of a particular type of hematite, a mineral mostly associated with water, along with large, sandy areas, indicates that the red planet once had a supply of the liquid, said Robert Denise, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a member of the flight development software team for the Mars Exploration Rovers program. Denise is attending the Hot Chips conference taking place this week at Stanford University.
August 19, 2004
Mars hill find hints at wet past
The US space agency's robotic rover Spirit has found more evidence that water washed and altered the rocks it has been studying on the Red Planet.
The vehicle is examining the geology of an outcrop at Columbia Hills named Clovis, which shows chemical and physical signs of alteration by water. Sprit's twin, Opportunity, has now completed its transect of rocks in a large crater on the other side of Mars. NASA says both rovers continue to work well as they move into Mars' winter.
August 18, 2004
Bedrock in Mars' Gusev Crater Hints at Watery Past
Now that NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is finally examining bedrock in the "Columbia Hills," it is finding evidence that water thoroughly altered some rocks in Mars' Gusev Crater. Spirit and its twin, Opportunity, completed successful three-month primary missions on Mars in April and are returning bonus results during extended missions. They remain in good health though beginning to show signs of wear.
August 15, 2004
Dust Clears, Mars Bright
Astrobiology Magazine
One hundred twenty scientists have published their current running tally of results from the Spirit rover. No lakebed evidence has been found yet, but scientists are impressed with the equipment's diagnostic capabilities so far.
August 11, 2004
Relays from Mars Show International Interplanetary Networking
One of NASA's Mars rovers has sent pictures relayed by the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter for the first time, demonstrating that the orbiter could serve as a communications link if needed. The link-up was part of a set of interplanetary networking demonstrations paving the way for future Mars missions to rely on these networking capabilities. The American and European agencies planned them as part of continuing efforts to cooperate in space exploration.
Mars: The Nasa Mission Reports, Vol. 2
Apogee Books
This latest volume brings the exploration of Mars up to date. Including the latest results from the amazingly successful Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, as well as progress reports from the Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey missions. 416 pages with 248 pages of color images INCLUDES DVD-V / DVD-ROM.
August 10, 2004
How Is a Martian Rover Like a Bear?
The New York Times
Winter is bearing down on the southern hemisphere of Mars, where the days are growing shorter and colder, and the dimming Sun seems to be running out of energy. That means it's time for the two robotic rovers there, Spirit and Opportunity, to be going into a kind of hibernation. Not that any season anywhere on Mars is ever balmy. By the start of winter in the middle of next month, temperatures are forecast to fall as low as minus 150 degrees Fahrenheit and never rise above zero, a range only a few degrees lower than current autumnal levels.
August 09, 2004
Rovers pave way to comprehending Mars
San Francisco Chronicle
The sands of Mars inside the ancient crater named Gusev, wind- rippled and perhaps once briefly filmed by water, are marked now by the tracks of Spirit. Images of the rover tracks, documenting the imprint of human curiosity on an alien, rocky landscape, are some of the most remarkable pictures ever produced by the space program -- part of the photographic legacy of NASA's continuing robotic exploration of Earth's nearest planetary neighbor.
NASA Scientist Sees Possible Mat of Martian Microbes
A future astronaut traipsing across the landing sites of the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity might be squishing into a welcome mat of microbes, according to one NASA scientist. While the twin robots push ahead in scouring their real estate locations at Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum, they leave behind a tantalizing trail of issues that need to be sorted out. One big unknown: Did life ever take root on Mars? And if so, is that planet home to living organisms today? So far, the life-on-Mars card has not played out. Rover scientists have seen nothing they regard as needing a biological explanation.
August 05, 2004
Rover reveals magnetic Mars
PhysicsWeb
Almost all dust particles in the Martian atmosphere are magnetic, according to new data obtained by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. The craft also examined rocks at the Gusev crater, which were found to contain the strong magnetic mineral magnetite (Fe3O4). The results -- obtained by a team of scientists from Denmark, Germany and the US -- could help to determine if water was involved in the formation of these minerals (P Bertelsen et al. 2004 Science 305 827).
Glitches Dog Both Mars Rovers
In a prelude of more problems that are likely to arise, both of NASA's Mars rovers experienced glitches this week as they plow through unknown engineering territory, operating well beyond what the mission blueprints called for. The twins are working at reduced capacity while project managers try to figure out what's wrong. Both rovers had 90-day primary missions and have more than doubled that time on the surface of the red planet.
August 03, 2004
More Data from Mars Rover Spirit's First Month Now Online
Millions of people have viewed pictures from NASA's Spirit on the Mars rovers home page and other Internet sites. Beginning today, a more complete set of science data from Spirit's first 30 martian days is posted on a site primarily for scientists and technical researchers, but also available to anyone who's interested.
Life on Mars Likely, Scientist Claims
Those twin robots hard at work on Mars have transmitted teasing views that reinforce the prospect that microbial life may exist on the red planet. Results from NASAs Spirit and Opportunity rovers are being looked over by a legion of planetary experts, including a scientist who remains steadfast that his experiment in 1976 proved the presence of active microbial life in the topsoil of Mars. "All factors necessary to constitute a habitat for life as we know it exist on current-day Mars," explained Gilbert Levin, executive officer for science at Spherix Incorporated of Beltsville, Maryland.
July 24, 2004
Israeli calculations helped 'Spirit' and 'Opportunity' rovers land on Mars
ISRAEL21c
After the rovers 'Spirit' and 'Opportunity' landed on Mars in January 2004, international excitement was so great that NASA received over 6.5 billion hits on its website in less than two months. Helping the wildly popular Mars program get off the ground, so to speak, were some calculations of an Israeli scientist, Prof. Joseph Appelbaum of Tel Aviv University, along with colleagues at NASA.
July 22, 2004
Rovers to get extra time on Mars
The US space agency's Mars Rovers will be given another seven months to explore the Red Planet, says NASA. Dr Firouz Naderi, director of Solar System exploration at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told BBC News Online that he had recommended the missions be extended. Although NASA headquarters has said the project will not get any new money, Dr Naderi - who manages the rover finances - says the money will be found from elsewhere within the organisation.
July 16, 2004
Spirit Rover Hits Rock Paydirt on Mars
While NASA's Mars rover Opportunity toils away inside a crater, its robotic twin Spirit has rolled over its first rock outcrop on the other side of the planet. NASA scientists were elated at Spirit's rocky find, which came as the rover rolled backwards along the foot of a region called the West Spur at the Columbia Hills. "This is what we came to the Columbia Hills for," said an excited Matt Golombek, a rover science team member, during a press briefing today at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). "We've been seeking it, and we've finally found it."
July 14, 2004
As mission ages, CU MarsLab on campus has a major new role
Cornell Chronicle
Since the beginning of January, the Cornell team running the panoramic cameras, or Pancams, on the two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, has been largely functioning out of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). That's where instructions are uplinked, or sent, to the two roving vehicles. But as the mission ages -- in April NASA extended its life until at least mid-September -- demand is growing for space at JPL for other missions, such as Deep Impact and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. (Both missions also have Cornell involvement: the first to study the interior of a comet, the second to get even higher-resolution orbital data on Mars.) In addition, the Mars science team members need to get back to their universities. As a result, the MarsLab at Cornell is gradually taking on a new mission: actually generating the instructions for uplink directly to the two twin-lensed panoramic cameras atop each rover's mast.
Clouds Roll in for Martian Winter
Using its left navigation camera, the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity sought to capture some clouds on its 153rd sol on Mars (June 28, 2004). The presence of morning clouds in the area of Endurance Crater was established by spacecraft orbiting Mars. Mars has three kinds of clouds: dust clouds low in the atmosphere; water clouds near the surface up to heights of 20 kilometers (about 12 miles); and carbon dioxide clouds at very high altitudes.
Rover 'in training' for hill trek
Nasa's Spirit rover is gearing up for a challenging ascent on Columbia Hills, the high ground it will explore for clues to the history of water on Mars. Spirit is undergoing a "tune-up", a kind of training regime to prepare it for the climb.
July 12, 2004
Imaging Masterminds Give Human-Scale View of Mars
RedNova
The world gets to see the rusty, dusty martian terrain as if humans themselves were riding atop the rovers. Who's responsible for our front-row seats on Mars? The masterminds working tirelessly behind the scenes in the Multimission Image Processing Lab (MIPL) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
July 10, 2004
Maxon motors make Mars mission mobile
swissinfo
If small is beautiful, then the motors from a small company in central Switzerland can boast being that and much more. The tiny drive units from the maxon motor firm are not only small, but also powerful and have even found a niche for themselves on planet Mars.
July 08, 2004
Analysis: End not in sight for Mars rovers
At a NASA-sponsored briefing for journalists last December, scientists with the Mars Exploration Rover missions described the various hazards that could cut short the planned, twin 90 (Earth) day operations on the red planet and limit the amount of data shipped home by the robotic vehicles from their respective landing sites. The biggest threat, the scientists said, was dust from the Martian surface, which would degrade the landers' solar arrays, eventually cutting electric power and causing the batteries to fail.
July 06, 2004
Rovers roll on (and up and down) Mars
Months after their warranties have expired, both of NASAs Martian rovers continue to energetically poke, scan and roll over the rocks of the Red Planet. And with the ever-changing landscape in their television cameras comes ever-expanding insights into Mars, and ever enlarging hopes for even longer survival. Thats the beauty of a roving mission, mission scientist John Callas told MSNBC.com. Every day is a new day.
July 05, 2004
'Hank's Hollow' Sparkles
This false-color composite panoramic camera image highlights mysterious and sparkly dust-like material that is created when the soil in this region is disturbed. NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit took this image on sol 165 (June 20, 2004) in "Hank's Hollow," using filters L2, L5 and L7.
June 28, 2004
Double discovery on past Mars water
New Scientist
Signs of past water on the surface of Mars just keep getting clearer, with new discoveries from both NASA rovers. Spirit has discovered hematite, an iron mineral that is usually formed in water. It is abundant at Opportunity's site, but not seen before on the other side of the planet. Opportunity, meanwhile, has extended its evidence of water further back in time, through possible past cycles of wet and dry climate.
NASA's Mars Rovers Moving Into More Aggressive Terrain
Aerospace Daily & Defense Report
NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers (MER), which have spent nearly double their scheduled mission time on Mars, still are performing well as they prepare to enter even more challenging territory, according to NASA. The Spirit and Opportunity rovers "are both still in very good health, but we're approaching more aggressive terrain at both sites, which [is] going to require more planning and more thought," Chris Voorhees, rover engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), said at a press conference June 25. The rovers also are getting less power as the days get shorter and their solar panels accumulate dust. The rovers landed on Mars in January.
June 26, 2004
Spirit's 'Pot of Gold' Perplexes Researchers
NASA's Spirit rover has found a Martian rock unlike anything researchers have seen before -- on Mars or Earth -- but they hope it may finally hint at a watery past of the Gusev crater landing site. Mission engineers are also pushing the rover Opportunity to its robotic limits inside a crater on the other side of the planet.
June 22, 2004
Xerox DocuShare Software Helps NASA with Data Mars Rovers
WhatTheyThink.com
Millions of miles deep into space, NASA's two Mars Exploration Rovers are busy mining data about the red planet - and then NASA project personnel are analyzing their findings and using Xerox Corporation's DocuShare Enterprise Content Management software to create an out-of-this-world information collection that can be easily accessed and exchanged by Mars project members anywhere.
June 20, 2004
Naming Mars: You're in Charge
Astrobiology Magazine
Less than two weeks after Spirit landed on Mars, rover engineers and scientists were already planning Spirit's itinerary on the surface. "Go To That Crater And Turn Right" read the headline of a January 13 press release. Needless to say, generically referring to features as "that crater," "this rock," or "these hills" could quickly become confusing.
Mars rovers' longevity amazes scientists
Palm Beach Post
The twin Mars Exploration rovers, NASA's Spirit and Opportunity, continue to astonish scientists with their endurance and longevity. These rovers were designed to tough it out in the harsh Martian conditions, but they were expected to begin failing not long after they completed their initial missions -- which ended in April.
June 16, 2004
Mars rover spies pot of gold
New Scientist
Tantalising new images are cascading back from NASA's Mars rovers now that they have reached their long-awaited geological sites. Spirit is now at the edge of the Columbia Hills facing what appears to be an easily-accessible hilltop straight ahead. The hilltop should offer vistas of the surrounding plain that is believed to be an ancient lakebed.
June 15, 2004
Mars rover Spirit develops wheel problem
The Mars rover Spirit has developed a problem with one of its six wheels, but NASA officials said Tuesday they believe the robot geologist can continue working. The right front wheel has become balky, requiring more electrical current to turn, said Mark Adler, the mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
Mars Rovers Going the Extra Mile
NASA's Mars rovers are delighting scientists with their extra credit assignments. Both rovers successfully completed their primary three-month missions in April. The Spirit rover is exploring a range of martian hills that took two months to reach. It is finding curiously eroded rocks that may be new pieces to the puzzle of the region's past. Spirit's twin, Opportunity, is also negotiating sloped ground. It is examining exposed rock layers inside a crater informally named "Endurance."
Shooting for the stars (or Mars)
The Green Bay News-Chronicle
When Chris Lewicki was honored earlier this spring, it was for his work on Mars. The flight director of the NASA-JPL Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Flight Director Chris Lewicki accepted on behalf of the entire MER team the first Exploration Award presented by the Earth and Space Foundation at a star-studded ceremony in Los Angeles April 12, 2004. The award was commemorating the MER team's outstanding work on the surface of the Red Planet earlier this year.
June 14, 2004
NASA Schedules Mars Rover Media Briefing
NASA will update the news media on the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission Tuesday at 1 p.m. EDT at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California. The briefing will cover the Spirit rover's arrival at Columbia Hills and rover Opportunity's descent into Endurance Crater. Both rovers successfully completed their three-month primary missions in April and are exploring during their bonus extended missions.
June 13, 2004
Spirit Mars Rover Reaches Hills, Opportunity Goes Deep
The Spirit and Opportunity rovers have each entered a new stage of exploration on Mars. For Spirit, the robot has pulled up at the base of the Columbia Hills, following a record-setting trek across the landscape of Gusev Crater. Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet at Meridiani Planum, the Opportunity rover is studying science-rich targets within the sloping walls of the large impact crater dubbed Endurance.
June 10, 2004
Interesting details of the Columbia Hills
What on Mars
Images and Text by Dr. Norbert Gasch
Press Release Images: Spirit
This cylindrical-projection mosaic was created from navigation camera images acquired by NASAs Mars Exploration Rover Spirit during Spirit's sol 153, on June 8, 2004. Spirit is pointing toward the base of the "Columbia Hills."
Press Release Images: Opportunity
Perched on the edge of "Endurance Crater," NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity prepares to roll all six wheels in and then back out to the rim as an engineering test to ensure that the slope and rock surface meet expectations. The rover executed the maneuver successfully and proceeded farther into the crater the following day.
June 09, 2004
Mars Rovers Continue Unique Exploration of Mars
NASA's Mars Opportunity rover began its latest adventure today inside the martian crater informally called Endurance. Opportunity will roll in with all six wheels, then back out to the rim to check traction by looking at its own track marks. "We're going in, but we're doing it cautiously," said Jim Erickson, deputy project manager for the Mars Exploration Rovers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
Rovers Enter New Phase of Exploration
Mars research teams are ecstatic about the progress of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, each now in position to open new chapters in exploring the enigmatic red planet. The Opportunity Mars rover at Meridiani Planum has begun wheeling into a huge and deep impact crater, dubbed Endurance. Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, sister ship Spirit has nearly reached the base of the impressive Columbia Hills, perhaps a geological paradise within Gusev Crater.
June 08, 2004
Rover Update: Wintering on the Red Planet
That double-header of a rover mission to Mars -- Spirit and Opportunity -- are both moving toward fresh rounds of science-gathering and could survive far longer than once expected. Scientists and engineers that operate the robotic twosome are looking at "wintering over" schemes -- putting the mechanized explorers in hibernation mode, and then restarting their duties on Mars next spring. Coming out of hibernation mode in the spring, "were looking at the final demise of these vehicles perhaps as late as the onset of our second winter on Mars," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and principal investigator for the science payload carried on each of the Mars rovers.
June 04, 2004
Mars rover to take risky trip into crater
NASA's Opportunity rover will be sent into a big impact crater on Mars despite the risk that it may not be able to get out, the space agency said Friday. The potential scientific value of exploring Endurance Crater outweighs the risk that the six-wheeled rover may not be able to drive back up its inner slopes, mission officials said.
Mars Rover Opportunity Gets Green Light To Enter Crater
NASA has decided the potential science value gained by sending Opportunity into a martian impact crater likely outweighs the risk of the intrepid explorer not being able to get back out. Opportunity has been examining the rim of the stadium-sized "Endurance Crater" since late May. The rover team used observations of the depression to evaluate potential science benefits of entering the crater and the traversability of its inner slopes.
June 03, 2004
Mars rover sets eyes on long-sought hills
New Scientist
The Mars rover Spirit is now within a few hundred metres of the hills it has been trundling towards since March. Images of the Columbia hills suggest there may be outcrops of layered rock to examine, as well as many large boulders. "This is the first time we've ever had a close look at hills on Mars," said James Rice, of Arizona State University, Tempe, and a member of the rovers' science team. In 1997, the Mars Pathfinder rover landed about 1000 metres from hills, but did not go closer.
June 02, 2004
Rovers Examining Hills And Crater In Bonus-Time Mission
More than a month into bonus time after a successful primary mission on Mars, NASA's Spirit rover has sighted possibly layered rock in hills just ahead, while twin Opportunity has extended its arm to pockmarked stones on a crater rim to gather clues of a watery past.
May 30, 2004
Mars rover Opportunity endures 'deep sleep' with no harm
NASA's Mars rover Opportunity endured a martian winter night despite being put into a new energy-saving but risky "deep sleep" mode, a mission flight director said Friday.
May 27, 2004
Mars Rover Output Starts to Dim
Discovery News
The slow and inevitable build-up of dust on the solar panels of the Mars rover Opportunity is prompting scientists to cut overnight heating to the vehicle in hopes of eking out a few more hours for investigations by day.
May 24, 2004
Spirit Rover's Next Steps
Mission planners for NASA's Spirit rover on Mars are using this view from above to help plan the remainder of the robot's travels. It shows the Columbia Hills in Gusev Crater. The picture was made by draping an image from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor over a digital elevation model that was derived from two other images from the orbiter. As of sol 135, or May 21, 2004 on Earth, Spirit sat approximately 0.4 miles (680 meters) away from its first target at the western base of the hills, a spot informally called West Spur. The team estimates that Spirit will reach West Spur by sol 146, or June 1, 2004. Spirit will most likely remain there for about a week to study the outcrops and rocks associated with this location.
May 20, 2004
In Montreal, Steve Squyres describes new adventures of the Mars rovers
Cornell Chronicle
The Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, are heading into two new and very different adventures in their pursuit of further geological evidence that water once flowed on the planet. Spirit is speeding like a clipper ship toward the now not-so-distant Columbia Hills from its landing site at Gusev crater. Its twin, Opportunity, is surveying the rim along the football stadium-sized Endurance crater on the Meridiani plain for a potentially perilous pathway into the crater to investigate a huge, cantilevered bedrock outcrop.
May 18, 2004
New Mars rock hints at short-lived lakes
New Scientist
The Mars rover Opportunity has discovered hints of a type of rock never before seen on the planet. Its presence would mean that any watery periods in Mars' past were cold and short-lived. Opportunity has been perched on the rim of a 130-metre wide crater dubbed Endurance since early May. It has been using its remote sensing instruments to study the rocks exposed in the steep sides of the crater.
Rover finds new Mars water signs
The US space agency's robotic rover Opportunity has found initial evidence that rocks at a new Martian crater it is exploring were deposited in water. The rover has conducted tests on a 30-cm-long rock called Lion Stone, which was probably tossed out by the impact that excavated Endurance Crater.
May 17, 2004
NASAs Spirit rover rebooted on Mars
In the midst of its extended mission on Mars, NASA's Spirit rover ran into a software glitch over the weekend and rebooted itself, mission managers said Monday. The anomaly represented the first software reset since Spirit froze up early in its mission. This time, however, the consequences were not nearly as serious.
Temperature Map, "Bonneville Crater"
Rates of change in surface temperatures during a martian day indicate differences in particle size in and near "Bonneville Crater." Temperature information from the miniature thermal emission spectrometer on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is overlaid onto a view of the site from Spirit's panoramic camera.
Mars Rover Inspects Stone Ejected From Crater
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has begun sampling rocks blasted out from a stadium-sized impact crater the rover is circling, and the very first one may extend our understanding about the region's wet past. Opportunity is spending a few weeks examining the crater, informally named "Endurance," from the rim, providing information NASA will use for a decision about whether to send the rover down inside. That decision will take into account both the scientific allure of rock layers in the crater and the operational safety of the rover. Opportunity has completed observations from the first of three planned viewpoints located about one-third of the way around the rim from each other.
May 14, 2004
Rover starts crater science tasks
The US space agency's Mars rover Opportunity has begun investigating rocks along the rim of the large crater it is perched by on the Red Planet.
The rover has conducted scientific tests on Lion Stone, a 30cm-long rock by the edge of Endurance Crater. Scientists must now decide whether to risk sending the rover into the crater. There is a real possibility, they say, that it might not be able to get out.
NASA panel reviews JPL's Mars projects
Pasadena Star News
A NASA safety organization formed in October as a response to the space shuttle Colombia's accident released initial assessments this week relating to four agency projects, including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's pair of Mars rovers.
May 12, 2004
Spirit Keeps on Trekking
This cylindrical-projection mosaic was created from navigation camera images that NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit acquired on sol 121 (May 6, 2004). Continuing its trek toward the "Columbia Hills," Spirit drove 96.8 meters (318 feet) - half of which was performed in auto-navigation mode - and broke its record for the longest distance traveled in one sol. That drive brought the mission total to 1,669 meters (1.04 miles), flipping the rover's odometer over the one-mile mark.
May 06, 2004
Mars Rover Arrival at Deeper Crater Provides a Tempting Eyeful
Scientists and engineers celebrated when they saw the first pictures NASA's Opportunity sent from the rim of a stadium- sized crater that the rover reached after a six-week trek across martian flatlands. Multiple layers of exposed bedrock line much of the inner slope of the impact crater informally called "Endurance." Such layers and their thicknesses may reveal what the environment on Mars was like before the salty standing body of water evaporated to produce the telltale rocks that were explored in the tiny "Eagle" Crater. Thats where Opportunity spent its first eight weeks on Mars.
At Endurance Crater, Opportunity Rover Treads Carefully
NASA's Mars rover Opportunity will have to watch its step around its Endurance Crater destination to avoid a potentially mission-ending fall, while its twin Spirit continues its approach to the Columbia Hills. Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission scientists are particularly wary about sending Opportunity into Endurance crater, which bears tempting rock outcrops for study but could be catastrophic if the rover slips. With a depth of more than 66 feet (20 meters), Endurance is 10 times deeper than Opportunity's previous Eagle crater home.
Mars Rovers in Autumn: A Life-and-Death Drama on the Red Planet
NASA gave the go-ahead for both Mars Exploration Rovers -- Spirit and Opportunity -- to keep on rolling. Each robot has been handed up to five months of overtime assignments after completing their individual three-month prime mission. "Even though the extended mission is approved to September, and the rovers could last even longer, they also might stop in their tracks next week or next month," said Firouz Naderi, Manager of Mars Exploration at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, where the rovers were built and are controlled.
May 05, 2004
Spirit Encounters New Communication Problem
According to a daily briefing note made available to SpaceDaily.com NASA's Mars Exploration Rover A - Spirit - is having communication problems. The current information available suggests the problems are not overly critical and can probably be fixed. However the root cause of the problem remains unknown.
May 04, 2004
Mars rover on the brink of crater
New Scientist
NASA's Mars rover Opportunity is now perched on the brink of a 130-metre-wide crater and is surveying the site for a possible descent - from which it might never return. The prospect of exploring Endurance crater is exciting mission scientists, who hope there will be even more bedrock exposed than in the much smaller crater in which Opportunity landed. In that crater, dubbed Eagle, the rover found clear evidence that large quantities of liquid water once existed on Mars.
NASA Releases New View of Mars 'Endurance Crater'
NASA released Monday a sweeping 180-degree view of a broad crater punched in the surface of Mars that was photographed by the space agency's Opportunity rover as it perched on the rim of the 430-foot-wide depression. "I don't think it's disappointed anybody," mission manager Matt Wallace said of the first peek into Endurance crater. Members of the $830 million mission immediately began making plans to circumnavigate the 1,350-foot perimeter of the crater and, if feasible, send the rover rolling down into it.
Crater looms large for Mars rover
The US space agency's robotic Mars explorer Opportunity has arrived at Endurance Crater, where it has been travelling to for about three weeks.
The rover has now sent back a spectacular image from the western rim of the 130m-wide depression. Patches of thick rocky outcrop can be seen exposed all over the interior of the impact crater.
May 03, 2004
Almost There!
This cylindrical projection was constructed from a sequence of three images taken by the navigation camera on the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. The images were acquired on sol 94 (April 29, 2004) of Opportunity's mission to Meridiani Planum. The camera acquired the images at approximately 12:40 local solar time, or around 9:15 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. The images were taken from the rover's new location about 20 meters (65 feet) away from the rim of Opportunity's next target, "Endurance Crater."
April 28, 2004
Spirit's Travels
This overview map made from Mars Orbiter camera images illustrates the path that the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has taken from its first sol on the red planet through its 107th sol. As of sol 112 (April 26, 2004), Spirit has passed "Missoula" crater and sits approximately 1,900 meters (1.18 miles) away from its destination at the western base of the "Columbia Hills." While most of Spirit's journey has been over the very angular rocks that make up the ejecta fields surrounding "Bonneville" crater, the rover's next 50 or so sols will be spent traversing over martian plains that are dominated by rounder, vesicle-filled rocks.
Opportunity's Travels
This overview map made from Mars Orbiter camera images illustrates the path that the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has taken from its first sol on the red planet through its 87th sol. After thoroughly examining its "Eagle Crater" landing-site, the rover moved onto the plains of Meridiani Planum, stopping to examine a curious trough and a target within it called "Anatolia." Following that, Opportunity approached and remotely studied the rocky dish called "Fram Crater." As of its 91st sol (April 26, 2004), the rover sits 160 meters (about 525 feet) from the rim of "Endurance Crater."
April 21, 2004
Mars mission far from over
When you've proven the existence of a salty lake on Mars, what do you do for an encore? NASA's newly supercharged rovers may be racing toward an answer. I think some of the best stuff may still be ahead," the program's chief scientist said Tuesday.
April 20, 2004
Rovers reach rims of Martian craters
NASA's twin Mars rovers pulled up to the rims of separate craters on Monday as they continue to explore opposite sides of the Red Planet. Both stops were intended as intermediate pauses on longer journeys undertaken by both Spirit and Opportunity, said Cornell University astronomer Steve Squyres, the mission's main scientist.
April 15, 2004
Mars rover counts to 100 and more
The upload of new software to update both of the US space agency's Mars rovers has been completed successfully. It took three days to send the files to Spirit and Opportunity, and all science activity with the buggies had to be suspended while the upgrades were done.
April 14, 2004
Cornell's Man on Mars
The Cornell Daily Sun
It cannot be seen through the rainclouds, but somewhere up in the sky, two rovers are driving around on Mars collecting data. Yesterday, students and faculty had to go no farther than Goldwin Smith Hall to reap the benefits. Prof Steve Squyres Ph.D.'78, astronomy, who is the mission's science team leader, gave an overview of the mission to a packed audience in the Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium and explained how the rovers work and what they have found.
April 13, 2004
Spirit Update: Refreshed and Ready to Rock and Rove
On Sol 98, which ended at 10:36 p.m. PST on April 12, Spirit woke up to the song "Where Is My Mind?" by The Pixies in honor of its software transplant. The good news is that Spirit's "mind" is updated and operating as expected.
Controllers gave the go to reboot the rover's computer, which would then run the new software during the morning of sol 98. The command was sent, and a little over a half hour later, engineers saw the carrier beep that indicated that the command was received.
NASA Gives Mars Rovers Software Upgrade
NASA said Tuesday it has beamed new software to its twin Mars rovers that should allow the six-wheeled vehicles to travel farther, sleep better and avoid the type of computer glitches that temporarily paralyzed one of them.
April 12, 2004
A day in the life of a Mars rover
More than $3 million a day: That's how much NASA is paying to have the Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars, calculated simply by dividing the $835 million budget for the rovers' mission by the projected 240 days of operation. Of course, Spirit and Opportunity don't get a dime of those millions: Instead, the money goes to the people who put the rovers on Mars, keep them going and harvest the precious scientific return from millions of miles away.
April 09, 2004
Mars Rover Spirit Captures Amazing "Video"
WESH-TV
The Mars rover Spirit has been on the red planet since January and it's captured some amazing footage. The rover has traveled more than 600 meters, stopping every so often to examine rocks and soil.
NASA gives Mars rovers five more months
The manager of NASA's Mars missions said Thursday they have extended the working lives of Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity until September and they could be extended even further. Initially the missions were slated to last 90 days each, but with two healthy rovers returning regular information, the Mars rover project has been approved for a total of 250 days. That would prolong their missions until September 13.
April 08, 2004
NASA Extends Mars Rovers' Mission
NASA has approved an extended mission for the Mars Exploration Rovers, handing them up to five months of overtime assignments, as they finish their three-month prime mission.
The first of the two, Spirit, met the success criteria set for its prime mission. Spirit gained check marks in the final two boxes on April 3 and 5, when it exceeded 600 meters (1,969 feet) of total drive distance and completed 90 martian operational days after landing.
April 07, 2004
Walt Disney World Resort Salutes Success of Mars Exploration
collectSPACE
With the gleaming curves of Mission: SPACE as a backdrop, Walt Disney World President Al Weiss welcomed NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe and aspiring astronaut Sofi Collis, 10, to Epcot today for ceremonies honoring the success of the Mars Exploration Rover mission. Following remarks by Weiss and O'Keefe, Sofi activated a replica of the twin Spirit and Opportunity rovers that rolled slowly across a simulated Martian landscape before revealing a quote from O'Keefe about the first rover's touchdown on Mars, "We're back ... and we're on Mars."
April 06, 2004
NASA's Mars Success Honored At Disney World Day Of Discovery
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe joins NASA scientists, mission managers and a Mars rover today to help Disney's Epcot, at the Walt Disney World Resort, celebrate the success of the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity. The Administrator's now famous quote, "We're back. . . and we're on Mars" is being added to a permanent collection of space-related quotations on the faade of Disney's latest attraction, "Mission: SPACE." The popular attraction launches visitors on a simulated space adventure to the Red Planet. "Mission: SPACE" combines NASA-based technology and imagery with the creative minds of Walt Disney Imagineering to deliver a one-of-a-kind exploration experience.
Mars rover's mission goes into overtime
NASAs Spirit rover has completed its primary mission to Mars yet continues to roll along, moving toward a cluster of hills that could yield more evidence that the planet had a wet past. By Monday, Spirits 90th full day on Mars, the unmanned robot and its twin, Opportunity, had accomplished nearly all of the assigned tasks that would make their joint mission a full success. NASA already has extended the joint mission through September.
April 05, 2004
A lighthearted look at roaming the Red Plant
Twin robot geologists Spirit and Opportunity are hard at work making important scientific discoveries on Mars. But that doesn't mean NASA -- and the world -- can't have a little fun with the mission:
April 02, 2004
Water Evidence from Mars' Spirit
Astrobiology Magazine
This approximate true-color image (right) taken by the panoramic camera on the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit shows the rock dubbed "Mazatzal" before the rover drilled into it with its rock abrasion tool. The rock "has clearly been altered by interaction with fluids,' said Hap McSween, science team member from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Mars Rover Finds More Signs of Past Water
NASA's Spirit rover uncovered more evidence that there was once water on Mars, although not in the quantities its twin Opportunity found traces of halfway around the planet last month, the space agency said Thursday.
Opportunity Update: Biting into 'Bounce'
Opportunity's rock abrasion tool ground into "Bounce" for just over two hours, producing a 6.44-millimeter (0.25 inch) hole that will allow the rover's spectrometer's to analyze the rock's chemical composition.
Spirit Finds Multi-Layer Hints of Past Water at Mars' Gusev Site
Clues from a wind-scalloped volcanic rock on Mars investigated by NASA's Spirit rover suggest repeated possible exposures to water inside Gusev Crater, scientists said Thursday.
Gusev is halfway around the planet from the Meridiani region where Spirit's twin, Opportunity, recently found evidence that water used to flow across the surface.
April 01, 2004
Mars Rovers Launch Samples to Orbit
In a stunning development, reports from NASA/JPL indicate that samples of the martian surface, possibly containing life- bearing materials, have been launched into orbit during two separate events from the twin Mars Exploration Rovers.
While initial reports are somewhat fragmented, it appears that each rover has utilized a solid rocket booster (located underneath its high-gain antenna) to launch rock and soil samples into a trajectory which is projected by JPL to result in an orbit around the Red Planet.
March 26, 2004
NASA settles in for long haul on twin rover mission to Mars
Scientists working on NASA's twin rover mission to Mars said Friday they are settling in for the long haul, as they ready to dispatch the six-wheeled robots on extended treks that could stretch into the late summer.
NASA's Mars Rovers Perched on Crater Rims, Extended Mission Ahead
NASA's twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity are currently studying the rims of their respective craters in preparation for what mission planners expect to be an extended science run on the red planet.
March 25, 2004
Latest Mars Water Discoveries Will Have Major Impact On Exploration
The British social historian James Burke is fond of saying any time humanity's view of reality is changed by new knowledge, reality itself is changed. That is exactly what has happened with the discovery by the Mars rover Opportunity that the red planet once harbored liquid, flowing water.
Editor's Note: No relation to this James Burk... I'm an American software developer :)
Twin Mars rovers proving well worth the expense
Water can exist without life, but life requires water. The Mars rover Opportunity has found evidence that water once flowed on Mars, and that justifies more missions to search for signs of life.
Pictures taken by the NASA rover of sedimentary rocks suggest that salt water once pooled and sometimes flowed on Mars. If true, Mars once had a warmer climate more conducive to life, perhaps only microscopic forms.
Heatshield on the Horizon
The Mars Exploration Rover Spirit acquired this panoramic camera image mosaic on the 68th martian day, or sol, of its mission (March 12, 2004). The reflective speck about 200 meters (650 feet) away, on the far crater rim, was immediately a point of interest for scientists and engineers alike. They soon were able to identify it as Spirit's protective heatshield.
March 23, 2004
Mars Exploration Rover Briefings on NASA TV
Use this page to watch today's 11pm PST news briefing from NASA Headquarters. RealPlayer and Windows Media streams are both available.
NASA to Announce 'Major' Discovery by the Opportunity Mars Rover at 2 p.m. ET
The last time NASA promised something like this involving Mars, the result was the revelation that the Opportunity rover's landing site had once been soaked with water, providing the first evidence gleaned from the surface for past liquid water on Mars. A spokesperson for NASA told SPACE.com that the big announcement would again involve a discovery by the Opportunity rover and not its twin, Spirit. The agency did not provide detail regarding the science involved, and the spokesperson would not elaborate.
Major Mars revelation likely today
NASA will announce another "major scientific finding" from its Mars rover Opportunity at 2 p.m. today.
Scientists previously announced the rover found the first hard evidence water once drenched its landing site.
"This is the major announcement of the two," spokesman Don Savage said Monday.
Q&A: Discoveries on Mars
Steve Squyres, principal science investigator for the US Mars rovers, Opportunity and Spirit, tells BBC News Online about the ongoing mission to explore the Red Planet.
NASA Rover Climbs Out of Martian Crater
NASA's Mars rover Opportunity on Monday managed to climb up and out of the crater that it explored for nearly two months, overcoming a slippery slope that left the vehicle spinning its wheels during an earlier attempt. The short drive across the sandy inner rim of Eagle Crater placed the rover outside the shallow depression for the first time since it landed January 24, 2004.
March 22, 2004
Spirit Update: One Step Closer
Spirit woke up on sol 77, which ended at 8:24 a.m. PST on March 22, 2004, to "One Step Closer" by the Doobie Brothers, since the rover was to make its final approach to the rock target named "Mazatzal" today.
Opportunity Update: Opportunity Leaves the Nest
After a slightly slippery start yestersol, Opportunity made it out of "Eagle Crater"on sol 57, which ends at 8:45 p.m. PST on March 22. The drive along the crater's inner slope that was initiated on the last sol continued this sol until Opportunity exited its landing-site crater. Images from the navigation camera confirm that the rover is about 9 meters (about 29.5 feet) outside of the crater.
News flash from the Red Planet
NASA's top officials and the Mars rover missions' top scientists will announce "a major scientific finding" at 2 p.m. ET Tuesday, the space agency announced today. The last time a Mars news briefing was announced just a day in advance, it was to report geological hints that the Opportunity rover's landing site was "drenched" with water many millions or even billions of years ago. Those were considered "significant findings." So how does a major finding compare? One could argue that "major" outranks "significant," because NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe is due to give opening remarks this time around.
NASA Announces Major Mars Rover Finding on Tuesday, 23 March
NASA will announce a major scientific finding at a Space Science Update (SSU) Tuesday at 2 p.m. EST, in the headquarters Webb Auditorium, 300 E St. SW, Washington. The Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Opportunity is exploring the martian Meridiani Planum and recently discovered evidence rocks at the landing site have been altered by water.
Opportunity: Try Again to Exit Crater
NASA's Opportunity tried driving uphill out of its landing-site crater during its 56th sol, ending at 10:05 p.m. March 21, PST, but slippage prevented success. The rover is healthy, and it later completed a turn to the right and a short drive along the crater's inner slope. Controllers plan to send it on a different route for exiting the crater on sol 57.
Pitman native takes 'Opportunity' to be a part of Mars mission
Gloucester County Times
Just because you have the only car on the road, that doesn't mean you can speed.
"We wish there could be speeding," 38-year-old Pitman native Frank Hartman jokes via telephone from his Pasadena, Ca. home. He is referring to the leisurely pace of his current method of transportation -- a little 384-pound rover called Opportunity, one of two currently cruising the surface of Mars.
Iron Blueberries
Astrobiology Magazine
MER mission scientists have found hematite in the small spherical "blueberries" embedded in the rock outcrop near Opportunity's landing site. They speculate that the broad plain surrounding Eagle Crater, where the rover landed, may be littered with blueberries.
March 21, 2004
Off-Off-Off-Roading on Mars in a $414 Million S.U.V.
The New York Times
To date, there are no traffic jams on Mars. This is a good thing for John R. Wright, an engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory here, whose daily drive includes time at the controls of the Mars rover Spirit, whose $414 million price tag makes the most luxurious Range Rover look cheap.
March 20, 2004
Mars's Air Up There
Sky & Telescope
Since their arrival on the red planet, the Mars Exploration Rovers have sent back thousands of breathtaking pictures of the ruddy landscape. The rovers are doing much more than analyzing rocks and looking for water. Michael Wolff (Planetary Science Institute), Michael Smith (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center), and others have been using Spirit and Opportunity to learn as much as they can about Mars's atmosphere and weather.
March 19, 2004
Drive the Mars Rovers
Road trip! Destination: Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum.
March 18, 2004
Rovers to Speed Across Mars as Support Staff Shrinks
With NASA's Mars rover Spirit nearing the end of its primary mission profile and its twin, Opportunity, more than halfway through its own, mission planners preparing to give the two robots a longer leash while scaling back the amount of people on the project. Mission managers are looking ahead to an extended mission for both Spirit and Opportunity, which will kick in once the robots complete their first 90 days -- or sols on Mars.
Follow the Hematite
Sky & Telescope
When planetary scientists reviewed potential landing sites for the Mars Exploration Rovers, Meridiani Planum rose to the top of the list. Opportunity's future destination was known from orbital studies to be covered by hematite a mineral often associated with water on Earth. Now, scientists have not only verified that Meridiani is covered by hematite, they are closer to determining how it got there.
Mystery Spheres on Mars Finally Identified
Scientists have learned the composition of the mysterious sphere-shaped objects scattered across the crater floor at Meridiani Planum, the landing site of the Opportunity Mars rover.
By using a Mssbauer Spectrometer mounted on Opportunity's robot arm, a patch of the tiny spherules -- also called "blueberries," although they aren't blue -- received close examination and have now been identified as hematite.
March 17, 2004
Spirit Digs with a Jig
Sol 72, which ended at 5:06 a.m. PST on March 17, was a day full of digging for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. Spirit began the day taking panoramic camera and miniature thermal emission spectrometer observations of the drift dubbed "Serpent" before creating the "scuff" that would reveal the inside material at this location.
March 16, 2004
Panorama shows Mars crater in living color
The Spirit rover worked through its busiest Martian day yet, completing a record 43 observations, NASA said Monday. Among the pictures sent back was a breathtaking color panorama of the 650-foot-wide Bonneville crater as seen from its rim.
March 12, 2004
Linux brings Mars Rover images to earth
Vnunet.com
Linux is powering the infrastructure behind a distributed global network hosting images of the current Mars Rover and the European Space Agency's recent Rosetta comet chaser mission.
Mars rover finds crater a little depressing
New Scientist
The Mars rover Spirit has finally reached its destination, a 200-metre wide impact basin called Bonneville crater, after a month-long odyssey across the rock strewn plain of Gusev.
NASA scientists hoped the crater would provide a "window" into the rocks below the surface, but initial views suggest a big disappointment. Spirit may instead quickly head off to the hills.
Mars rover finds little new at destination
Baltimore Sun
After traveling over the Martian surface for more than 30 days to reach the Bonneville crater, NASA's Spirit rover peeked over the rim and found that the crater floor looks very much like the terrain it has already passed over, researchers said yesterday.
Notably absent in the 220-yard-diameter crater were rock outcroppings like those found by Spirit's twin, Opportunity, halfway around Mars in a much smaller crater at Meridiani Planum.
NASA weighs risks of sending Spirit rover into Mars crater
NASA's Spirit rover inched toward the edge of a gaping crater on Mars Thursday as mission managers weighed the risks of driving into it.
A trip into the 660-foot-wide crater could yield an unprecedented look at subsurface Mars, one that might provide a window into the planet's geologic history.
But the robotic field geologist could get stuck in the crater, nicknamed "Bonneville," fouling plans to eventually head off and explore rolling hills east of the rover's landing site.
March 11, 2004
Did Spirit Image Its Own Heatshield?
Did the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit image its own heatshield? The photo release caption makes no mention of it.
Spirit Looks Down Into Crater After Reaching Rim
NASA's Spirit has begun looking down into a crater it has been approaching for several weeks, providing a view of what's below the surrounding surface.
Spirit has also been looking up, seeing stars and the first observation of Earth from the surface of another planet. Its twin, Opportunity, has shown scientists a "mother lode" of hematite now considered a target for close-up investigation.
Spirit completes road trip, peers over crater rim
CBC News
The Mars rover Spirit has driven a "long, windy road" and reached the edge of a large crater on Thursday where it looked inside with a camera.
Spirit travelled for over four weeks to reach Bonneville, a 150-metre-diameter impact crater. Since it landed in early 2004, the six-wheeled rover has driven 30 metres.
Mars Rovers to Last Longer Than Expected
It took more than a month for NASA's Spirit Mars rover to finish the drive to its destination, a crater called "Bonneville," but mission planners are already looking toward more distant pastures, confident that their robust robot -- and its twin, Opportunity -- will last twice as long as originally expected.
Spirit was scheduled to travel the last few feet to the rim of Bonneville today, then look around with its panoramic camera for anything interesting enough to nuzzle its science instruments against.
A Deep Dish for Discovery
On the 66th martian day, or sol, of its mission, the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit finished a drive and sent back this navigation camera image mosaic revealing "Bonneville" crater in its entirety. Spirit has spent more than 60 sols, two thirds of the nominal mission, en route to the rim of the large crater dubbed "Bonneville." The rover stopped on occasion to examine rocks along the way, many of which probably found their resting places after being ejected from the nearly 200-meter-diameter (656-foot) crater.
Mars Rovers See Earth, Moons and Stars
The Spirit rover on Mars took the first picture of Earth ever made from the surface of another planet. It also did a little astronomy, imaging bright stars. It also spotted what could be a Viking Orbiter spacecraft or a meteor -- scientists aren't sure which. The photo of Earth shows the planet as a bright dot above the horizon about an hour before sunrise. The image is not in color, though scientists say if a human stood in the same spot and looked earthward, home would probably appear pale blue.
Mars rover gets ready to peek inside crater
The NASA rover Spirit was ready today to make its final push to the rim of a big crater that scientists hope will provide a window into Mars' geologic history. Spirit was close enough Wednesday to snap a panorama showing the rim on the opposite side of the crater, according to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Spirit was expected to finish its drive and be in position to peer inside the crater with a camera today. "We're all waiting very anxiously to see what's inside this crater," said George Chen, the Spirit flight director.
Private Detectives Investigate Mars
The unmatched imagery being relayed from the two NASA Mars rovers -- Spirit and Opportunity have made it possible for amateur investigators to explore the red planet as never before. Thanks to the Internet, various software packages, and a generous helping of patience, the general public can jump right in and scout out Mars for themselves.
March 10, 2004
