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Mars Technology Phoenix lander scoops up Martian soil The American space module, Phoenix lander has scooped up its first, cup-sized sample of Martian dirt for analysis. NASA scientists say the mission is searching for water or signs of life. Full Story Australian Broadcasting Corp._ 6/7/08 Touchdown! First signals arrive from Martian water probe After traveling more than 400 million miles during its 10-month journey from Earth, the Phoenix Lander touched down safely and sent its first signals from the Martian arctic surface Sunday afternoon. The lander is sitting a half degree off-axis, a near perfect landing. When asked if the landing could have gone better, Phoenix project manager, Barry Goldstein replied, "Not in my dreams." The Phoenix Lander is built on a platform similar to the failed Mars Polar Lander, which lost communication contact shortly after entering the Martian atmosphere in 1998. The Phoenix, sent to find water and other signs that Mars can support life, has design improvements intended to fix problems that may have caused the Polar Lander's failure. Full Story Wired_ 5/25/08 Mars probe set for risky descent Scientists are preparing for "seven minutes of terror" as a Nasa spacecraft makes a nail-biting descent to the surface of Mars. The Phoenix lander will begin its plunge through the Martian atmosphere on 25 May (GMT) as it attempts to land in the planet's polar north. The craft needs to perform a series of challenging manoeuvres along the way. It then begins a three-month mission to investigate Mars' geological history and potential habitability. Water is crucial to the mission's objectives. Not only is it a pre-requisite for biology, but it has shaped the planet's geology and climate over billions of years. Phoenix will touch down on the northern plains, which hold vast stores of water-ice just below ground. The lander will use a 2.4m robotic arm to dig through the protective topsoil layer to this water-ice below; a scoop on the arm will lift samples of both soil and ice to the lander's deck for detailed scientific analysis. However, much of the water-ice is thought to be frozen as hard as paving stones. Full Story BBC News_ 5/14/08 The Cadillac of Mars rovers Wider than a Hummer, tall enough to roll over boulders and toting a laser "ray gun" that can zap rocks at 30 feet, NASA's next-generation Mars rover looks like something you would paint a skull and crossbones on and enter in a demolition derby. But then, this new rover has a big job: settling once and for all whether the conditions on ancient Mars were suitable for life. With a full complement of the most sophisticated instruments in NASA's tool chest, and the ability to drive over obstacles that deterred earlier rovers, the Mars Science Laboratory, or MSL, will strip away billions of years of Martian history to reveal its watery childhood and, possibly, evidence of any microbes that swam in those ancient seas. Full Story Los Angeles Times_ 3/4/08 (logon required) Mars project faces technical problems Weird "spider" volcanism among 1st Mercury highlights The solar system's smallest planet created a huge buzz today as NASA unveiled preliminary science results from the first Mercury flyby in 30 years. The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging—or MESSENGER—spacecraft cruised past the innermost planet on January 14. The approach was the first of three planned flybys that will eventually position the probe to settle into orbit around Mercury in March 2011. Until now Mariner 10 was the only mission to scope out the planet. The craft swung by in 1974 and 1975, but it left more than half the planet unseen by human eyes. During this flyby, MESSENGER's cameras captured 1,213 images covering another 30 percent of the tiny planet. The photos reveal widespread volcanism, asteroid assaults, and a spider-shaped formation the likes of which has never been seen before in the solar system. FULL STORY_ National Geographic News 1/30/08 NASA will use Russian technology to seek water on moon, Mars Russian and U.S. space chiefs signed agreements Wednesday to cooperate on unmanned missions that would search for potential water deposits beneath the surface of the moon and Mars. The agreements signed by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and Russian Space Agency chief Anatoly Perminov deal with putting Russian instruments on board NASA probes that would be sent to the moon and Mars. The first Russian instrument, called LEND, will be mounted on an unmanned NASA probe called Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, which is to be launched in October 2008 to search for possible sources of water under the moon's poles. Dr. Gordon Chin, project scientist for LRO, said that the Russian instrument has won an international contest for the best such device for the mission. Full Story AP/USA Today_ 10/4/07 Muddying the water: Orbiter drains confidence from fluid history of Mars Evidence for liquid water on some parts of Mars—now or in the past—looks leakier than researchers had supposed, according to an analysis of the sharpest images ever taken of the Red Planet from orbit. But in other places, the new images bolster the case that water once flowed. High-resolution pictures and infrared spectra recorded by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) indicate that fresh, bright streaks on two steep gullies don't signify a recent flow of water, as scientists suggested just a year ago. MRO's instruments neither detected minerals that might have been left behind as salty groundwater evaporated from those regions nor found changes in the shapes of the deposits since the gullies were last imaged 15 months ago. Such changes could have occurred if the bright deposits were frost created by an underground supply of water rushing to the frigid surface in recent years or months. Instead, the deposits on the steep gullies could just as easily have been formed by landslides of dry, sandy material, assert Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona in Tucson and his colleagues in one of five reports of MRO findings in the Sept. 21 Science. Other gullies, however, whose slopes are too shallow to permit landslides, do offer clear evidence of watery flows. These flows might have occurred several million years ago, when the Martian climate was warmer. Full Story ScienceNews_ 9/22/07 NASA's hardy rover begins its drive into a Mars crater Two months after surviving a giant dust storm, one of NASA's robotic rovers on Mars began a risky drive yesterday into a crater blasted open by a meteor eons ago. Scientists want the rover Opportunity to travel 40 feet down toward a bright band of rocks in the Victoria Crater. They believe that the rocks represent an ancient surface of Mars and that studying them could shed light on the planet's early climate. The aging but hardy rovers have been exploring Mars for 31/2 years - far outlasting their primary three-month mission. Both have uncovered geologic evidence of ancient water on the planet. Full Story AP/Philadelphia Inquirer_ 9/12/07 NASA's Phoenix spacecraft embarks on 10-month journey to Mars' north pole: It's expected to be the first to taste the water of another world The Delta II rocket carrying the 7-foot-tall lander lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla. at 5:26 a.m. on a scheduled 423-million-mile journey that should deliver Phoenix to the Martian surface on May 25. If the mission unfolds as planned, the lander will parachute to the Red Planet's surface, using its descent engines to slow itself to about 5 mph. Once on the ground, it will unfurl its power-generating solar panels and extend its 7.7-foot robotic digging arm, the key component of the $420-million mission. NASA has tried to keep expectations low, asserting that Phoenix is not searching for life, merely trying to understand the water story. Even optimists acknowledge that Mars is, and possibly always has been, too hostile an environment for complex life forms. But scientists no longer rule out the possibility that some rudimentary forms of life could once have existed, and may still, possibly in some watery underground environment heated by the planet's interior. The spacecraft was designed and built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Full Story Los Angeles Times_ 8/5/07 (logon required) U.S. to launch Mars probe in search for clues of life Mars Rover struggles to weather severe dust storm The hardy Mars rover Opportunity is struggling to stay alive amid a severe and long-lasting Martian dust storm -- posing the greatest threat so far to the unexpectedly long-lived vehicle. The dust storms kicked up late last month just as Opportunity was poised to make a dramatic entry into the Victoria Crater -- the deepest and most intriguing descent either of the Mars rovers would be attempting. NASA scientists believe that the layered rocks exposed in the crater could tell them much about the history of Mars, and especially whether life forms ever existed there. Full Story Washington Post_ 7/21/07 Volunteers wanted for trip to 'Mars' Mar's ice patchy, water cycle quite active, study reveals New data on Mars's underground ice shows that the red planet likely has a very active water cycle. Using heat emission observations from the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, researchers were able to map seasonal changes in the temperature of the red planet's surface to locate and measure the buried ice. "This gives us a more detailed picture of the underground ice on Mars," said Joshua Bandfield, a research specialist at Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration in Tempe, who led the study. The findings, which are reported in the May 3 issue of the journal Nature, show that the depth of the water-ice table varies greatly on Mars. The results also suggest that water ice and water vapor in the planet's atmosphere can swap places as the planet undergoes regular cycles of warming and cooling. FULL STORY_ National Geographic_5/2/07 NASA: Human error caused loss of Mars Global Surveyor An internal NASA board determined that power loss likely doomed the spacecraft after a decade of meticulously mapping the Red Planet. But the problems actually began in 2005, when a routine technical update to onboard computers caused inconsistencies in the spacecraft's memory. The board concluded that engineers didn't catch the mistakes because the existing procedures to do so were inadequate. Scientists lost contact last November with the $154 million Global Surveyor. Launched in 1996, it was the oldest of six different active probes on the Martian surface or circling the planet. Shortly before it failed, it also found stunning evidence that liquid water recently coursed through Mars. The discovery, which still needs to be confirmed, raises the possibility that the planet may have an environment conducive to primitive life. Full Story AP/CBS_ 4/13/07 Mars pole holds enough ice to flood planet, radar study shows Mars's southern polar ice cap contains enough water to cover the entire planet approximately 36 feet (11 meters) deep if melted, according to a new radar study. It's the most precise calculation yet for the thickness of the red planet's ice, according to the international team of researchers responsible for the discovery. Using an ice-penetrating radar to map the south pole's underlying terrain, the scientists calculated that the ice is up to 2.2 miles (3,500 meters) thick in places, said the study's leader, Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The radar, from the Mars Express orbiter, also revealed the surprising purity of the ice, Plaut added. FULL STORY National Geographic_3/15/07 Mars water traces left by springs, not seas, experts say US spacecraft gathers hints of underground water on Mars The U.S. space agency NASA's newest satellite around the red planet, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, has taken color pictures showing a landscape called Chasma Canyon composed of dozens of alternating layers of dark and light toned rocks and crossed by dark sand dunes. Within those layers, the detailed images show fractures, called joints, surrounded by light colored bedrock that was once deep underground before erosion exposed it. University of Arizona researcher Chris Okubo argues that this brighter bedrock is clear evidence that a liquid flowed through it and washed the dark minerals away, as water has done in similar situations on Earth. FULL STORY_ Voice of America_2/15/07 Sun did not blow water off Mars, study finds Mars rovers are taught new tricks Software upgrade to smarten up Mars rovers The doughty Mars rovers will celebrate their third anniversary on the Red Planet with new software that will make them smarter and more independent. Spirit and Opportunity will have improved image processing capabilities that will help them search out dust devils and other weather patterns. A new navigation system will allow the rovers to spot hazards and figure out how to avoid them without help from controllers on Earth. The twin rovers continue to defy all expectations for their longevity. When Spirit landed on Jan. 3, 2004, and Opportunity followed three weeks later, experts hoped they would last through their planned mission of 90 Martian days, which are about 40 minutes longer than Earth days. Their key discoveries include evidence that water was once abundant on the surface of Mars in at least one region. Opportunity also found rock layers showing that wind-blown dunes came and went while the water table fluctuated. Full Story Los Angeles Times_ 12/30/06 (logon required) Mars scientists intensify search for water
Editor's note: According to an item first posted by Aviation Weekend Space Technology magazine: "NASA is ready to announce major new findings about the presence of water currently emerging onto the surface of Mars. If confirmed, this would increase the possibility that microbial life could have existed recently or possibly exists now on the Martian surface. The potential seepage of ground water onto or near the surface has been a key area of investigation by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft (AW&ST Nov. 27, pp. 53-55). Full Story Aviation Week/SpaceRef_ 12/4/06 Veteran Mars orbiter may have died In words and somber tones usually associated with a death in the family, engineers and scientists have announced that the Mars Global Surveyor, the most durable spacecraft ever to orbit that planet, has fallen silent and is given little chance of revival. The 10-year-old spacecraft - which mapped the Martian surface, recorded seasonal and annual climate changes, and gathered evidence of water in the planet's past - has not communicated with flight controllers since Nov. 2. A disabled solar power array is the prime suspect. "We may have lost a dear old friend and teacher," said Michael Meyer, chief scientist for Mars exploration at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Meyer spoke at a news teleconference Tuesday from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where the mission is being directed. Full Story New York Times/International Herald Tribune_ 11/22/06 Mars rover reaches rim of deep crater Rover nears crater science trove Exploring Mars: a crater where water ran In early 2004, NASA's Mars strategy of "following the water" paid off handsomely for the rover named Opportunity. Landing in Meridiani Planum, Opportunity immediately found beds of soft sandstones, much altered by acidic water long ago. NASA's next Mars rover will be the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), due for launch in 2009. In hopes of hitting paydirt once again, NASA has scientists scouting for landing sites that might extend the Martian water story beyond Opportunity's glimpse at Meridiani. Roughly 2,100 kilometers (1,300 miles) southwest of Meridiani lies Holden Crater, 154 km (96 mi) wide. Holden and surroundings contain two potential sites where MSL could study ancient water-flow deposits. Holden's wide floor, shown in a newly released image, has abundant layered sediments, channels, and large piles of debris at canyon mouths. These suggest a long history of deposits by water. And in Eberswalde Crater, just north of Holden, scientists have spotted what is surely the remnant of a river delta. FULL STORY_Space.com 6/22/06
Mars robots to get smart upgrade Secret UK study of UFOs finds no one out there One of Mars Rover's Wheels Stops Working Clues to Mars life may lie underground: scientist NASA probe reaches orbit and will pry secrets from Mars The two-ton Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is the most sophisticated ever to arrive at Mars and is expected to gather more data on the Red Planet than all previous Martian missions combined. It will explore Mars in low orbit for four years and is expected to churn out the most detailed information ever about the planet and its climate and landscape. In the fall, the orbiter will begin exploring the Martian atmosphere, scan the surface for evidence of ancient water and scout for future landing sites to send robotic and possibly human explorers. The $720 million mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Full Story AP/Wired_ 3/10/06 US spacecraft makes nail-biting approach to Mars Failed Beagle 2 probe "found" on Mars - scientist The scientist behind the lost 2003 Beagle 2 mission to Mars said on Tuesday the craft may have been spotted in NASA pictures which indicate the project very nearly worked. Beagle 2, named after the ship Charles Darwin sailed in when he formulated his theory of evolution, was built by British scientists for about 50 million pounds ($90 million) and taken to Mars aboard the European Space Agency's orbiter Mars Express. It was due to land in a crater on the red planet in a bouncing ball of airbags and begin looking for signs of life on Christmas Day, 2003. But it lost contact with Earth once it separated from the mother ship in mid-December. Full Story Reuters_ 12/20/05 UK signs up to Euro Mars mission The government is to invest 108m euros (£73.2m) to give Britain a major share in building the robotic probe. European Space Agency (Esa) member states approved funding for the ExoMars mission at the agency's minsterial meeting in Berlin. The rover will explore the surface of the Red Planet, in search of traces of life, past and present. The mission is a key milestone in the Aurora programme, Esa's vision to send spacecraft and eventually astronauts to the Moon and Mars. Full Story BBC News_ 12/06/05 September, 2005 Ice belt 'encircled Mars equator' Martian dunes hide water secret Scientists have found evidence that large amounts of water-ice hide within massive sand dunes on Mars. One of the dunes, which spans 6.5km and rises 475m above the Martian surface, may be the single largest sand dune in the entire Solar System. The icy dunes could be a valuable resource for any future manned missions to the planet, Dr. Mary Bourke told a science conference in Dublin. Full Story BBC News_ 9/5/05 June, 2005 Martian rover rolls free of trap February, 2005 European scientists believe in life on Mars Space.com Exclusive: NASA researchers claim evidence of present life on Mars A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water. The scientists, Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, told the group that they have submitted their findings to the journal Nature for publication in May, and their paper currently is being peer reviewed. What Stoker and Lemke have found, according to several attendees of the private meeting, is not direct proof of life on Mars, but methane signatures and other signs of possible biological activity remarkably similar to those recently discovered in caves here on Earth. Full Story Space.com_ 2/16/05 January, 2005 NASA's Martian explorer marks first year The US space agency's (Nasa) Spirit vehicle led the way when it landed on Mars on 3 January 2004, followed three weeks later by the Opportunity robot. Both rovers, which are equipped with a suite of geology tools, have uncovered direct evidence that the Red Planet was once drenched in liquid water. Their initial 90-day mission has been extended twice and they are expected to continue working for some time yet. Full Story BBC News_ 1/4/05 November, 2004 Overnight, Opportunity's solar panels produced between 2% and 5% additional power, perhaps due to Martian dust that had settled on them being removed. This may be increasing the efficiency by which the panels convert sunlight to electricity in order to power the rover. One theory is that a storm, or dust-devil, blew dust off the panels Full Story BBC News 11/5/04 October, 2004 Mag-beam could power 90-day trip to Mars Using current technology, it would take astronauts about 2.5 years to travel to Mars, conduct their mission and return to Earth, US scientists estimate. The plasma beam technology would use a space station to fire a beam of magnetised particles at a solar sail mounted on a spacecraft. Full Story BBC News_ 10/20/04 September, 2004 People on Mars possible in 20 to 30 years, if there is water Two Mars Exploration Robots robots, dubbed Spirit and Opportunity, have found ancient evidence that water was once plentiful -- important for scientists hoping to know if there was once -- or could still be -- life on Mars. Without water, the dream of sending astronauts to the often dusty planet could unravel. Such a mission would take 11 to 12 months to get to Mars and it would be impossible to carry enough water for the astronauts, plus the water needed to make rocket fuel for the return journey, to cool the spacecraft and to generate energy. Full Story Reuters_ 9/15/04 August, 2004 Next-gen rover
to practice searching for life.
Mars Hills, Crater
Yield Evidence of Flowing Water
Solar storms
may have torn away Mars water - NASA Lockheed Martin's Mars Global Surveyor completes over 25,000 orbits and keeps on going Built in partnership with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Mars exploration program, MGS has been circling Mars and mapping the planet's surface since 1997. The spacecraft and almost all of its instruments continue to operate, providing full data return. Full Story Press Release_ 6/7/04 Headed for Mars?
The well-dressed wear Demron™ Mars rovers, primary
mission done, eye new tasks May, 2004 Mars rover Opportunity
is perched to open the mysterious -- and possibly wet -- history
of the Red Planet
Europe's Mars
Express probe radar search for water postponed while antenna checked
out NASA's next Mars
Science Laboratory: New Rover, new science equipment The second of NASA's twin Mars rovers wrapped up its primary mission Monday, the 90th full day on the Red Planet Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, have completed all the tasks NASA required before the space agency would consider the double mission a success. Full Story AP/CNN_ 4/26/04 Russian space
experts plan private, manned Mars trip NASA extends Mars
robot mission, adding five months to the original three-month mission March, 2004 Is the aerospace
industry ready for Mars? Mars rovers wrap
up crater tests, ready to cruise The Discovery
in Pictures: How Opportunity divined water on Mars ACTEL'S SPACE FPGAS RETURN TO MARS In a stunning sequel to the 1997 Mars Pathfinder mission, Actel Corporation announced today that its radiation-tolerant and radiation-hardened field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) have returned to Mars, playing critical roles throughout the missions, both American and European. From Delta launch vehicles to orbiting, landing and actively roving the surface of the planet, Actel has provided hundreds of FPGAs to enable implementation of various mission-critical digital logic functions, including power management, attitude and orbit control, command and data handling, and instrumentation and telemetry. Full story Press Release 2/10/04 Wind River Powers NASA's Space Exploration
- Mars Rovers Lands Safely, Stardust Spacecraft Completes its Journey
to the Comet |
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