Rover mission follows centuries of fascination with Mars

JULY 29, 2020
By Brooks Hays

July 29 (UPI) -- During the last two decades, Mars has captured the imagination of the public and attention of NASA decision makers, just as the moon excited the nation and served as the north star for the agency during the '60s and '70s.

Thursday morning's planned launch of the Mars 2020 mission is the latest, and the most advanced step in exploring the Red Planet, built upon lessons from sending spacecraft to Mars at almost every launch opportunity since the 1990s.

Fascination with the planet, however, predates the first lunar landing or NASA's Mars Exploration Program.

For as long as humans have been looking at the sky and writing stories, Mars has been mythologized. The Romans named the god of war after Mars, and the Red Planet found its way into Greek, Norse, Hindu and Chinese literature.

The 1897 novel War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, which depicts an invasion of England by Martians, was adopted for radio in 1938 -- a broadcast said to have caused panic among some listeners who didn't know it was fictional.

The concept of "little green men" -- often used generically to refer to aliens from any other planet, often as an invading force -- overall started gaining popularity in the late 1800s, and grew exponentially from there.

Popular stories have ranged from Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars in 1912 to the 1996 film Mars Attacks, which was adapted from a trading card series.

"Mars is a special place," Casey Dreier, chief advocate and senior space policy adviser for the Planetary Society, told UPI. "It's deeply embedded in our popular culture, going back hundreds, even thousands, of years -- even before we knew anything about Mars."

As more-capable telescopes arrived, Mars became more than just a red dot that grows larger every two years as its orbit comes closer to that of Earth's.

"You begin to see features that look vaguely like Earth, you have polar caps and you have light and dark features that change over time, and that's what I think inspired people to start imagining an Earth-like world with Earth-like things happening on the surface," Bruce Betts, chief scientist at the Planetary Society, told UPI.

Exploring the Red Planet

As early as the 17th century, astronomers realized that Earth and Mars shared commonalities. But while humans imagined Mars as a kind of alien Earth for decades, it wasn't until the early 2000s that scientists became certain of Mars' Earth-like history.

It was the Mars Exploration Program that revealed the full extent of the Red Planet's Earth-like qualities -- that Mars did once have water, lots of it, and that Red Planet was once habitable.

"That's all stuff we've learned relatively recently," the Planetary Society's Dreier said.

With each new mission to Mars, NASA's landers, rovers and orbiters have made discoveries that raised new scientific questions, exciting researchers and titillating the public's imagination.

And while the long history of human fascination has played an important role in fueling Martian exploration, both Betts and Dreier said NASA's mission planning decisions have been driven largely by science and pragmatism.

Not only do Mars' geologic wonders -- a water world dried and frozen in time -- offer a window into Earth's primordial past, but they're also closer than the interesting features found on any of Earth's planetary neighbors.

Mars is hard to get to, but everywhere else besides the moon is even harder.

"[Because] Mars missions are so much faster than other planetary missions, it allows technology to develop and engineers to push those boundaries on much shorter time scales," Dreier said.

The planning and execution of space missions to more distant targets can stretch a quarter of a century before scientists have their hands on fresh data.

Scientists working on the Mars 2020 mission will have to wait a little more than six months for the Perseverance rover to start returning usable data. That data -- and the insights they provide planetary scientists -- is likely to raise new questions about Mars. Rocks collected on this mission will not be brought back to Earth for a decade.

Beyond Mars missions

For now, NASA is working on plans for more scientific missions to Mars, and hopes to send humans to the Red Planet in the 2030s. But there is nothing concrete. A host of other plans for exploring the solar system exist, as well.

"As NASA's planetary science budget has gone up, we've seen a huge burst of non-Mars missions happening," Dreier said. "That's a consequence of Mars getting a lot of attention for a lot of years, and the rest of the planetary science community making an effort to get greater support and more funds."

NASA is working to once again ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station, as well as finalizing plans for a human return to the moon.

The space agency also has several asteroid visitation missions in the pipeline, in addition to plans for a trip to Jupiter's moon Europa and the outer reaches of the solar system. Under NASA's Discovery program, tentative itineraries have been created for treks to Venus, Jupiter's moon Io and Neptune's moon Triton.

"There's kind of a joke that a human Mars landing has been 20 years away for the last 60 years, but it's not really a joke," the Planetary Society's Betts said.

"There is good science to be done all throughout the solar system, and there's a limited amount of money and resources," he said. "There is always division within the planetary science community about where you put your resources and where you send space missions."

Source: United Press International.
Link: https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2020/07/29/Rover-mission-follows-centuries-of-fascination-with-Mars/4881595987885/.

NASA Selects Astrobotic to Fly Water-Hunting Rover to the Moon

Washington DC (SPX)
Jun 12, 2020

NASA has awarded Astrobotic of Pittsburgh $199.5 million to deliver NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) to the Moon's South Pole in late 2023.

The water-seeking mobile VIPER robot will help pave the way for astronaut missions to the lunar surface beginning in 2024 and will bring NASA a step closer to developing a sustainable, long-term presence on the Moon as part of the agency's Artemis program.

"The VIPER rover and the commercial partnership that will deliver it to the Moon are a prime example of how the scientific community and U.S. industry are making NASA's lunar exploration vision a reality," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. "Commercial partners are changing the landscape of space exploration, and VIPER is going to be a big boost to our efforts to send the first woman and next man to the lunar surface in 2024 through the Artemis program."

VIPER's flight to the Moon is part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which leverages the capabilities of industry partners to quickly deliver scientific instruments and technology demonstrations to the Moon. As part of its award, Astrobotic is responsible for end-to-end services for delivery of VIPER, including integration with its Griffin lander, launch from Earth, and landing on the Moon.

During its 100-Earth-day mission, the approximately 1,000-pound VIPER rover will roam several miles and use its four science instruments to sample various soil environments. Versions of its three water-hunting instruments are flying to the Moon on earlier CLPS lander deliveries in 2021 and 2022 to help test their performance on the lunar surface prior to VIPER's mission. The rover also will have a drill to bore approximately 3 feet into the lunar surface.

"CLPS is a totally creative way to advance lunar exploration," said NASA's Associate Administrator for Science Thomas Zurbuchen. "We're doing something that's never been done before - testing the instruments on the Moon as the rover is being developed. VIPER and the many payloads we will send to the lunar surface in the next few years are going to help us realize the Moon's vast scientific potential."

VIPER will collect data - including the location and concentration of ice - that will be used to inform the first global water resource maps of the Moon. Scientific data gathered by VIPER also will inform the selection of future landing sites for astronaut Artemis missions by helping to determine locations where water and other resources can be harvested to sustain humans during extended expeditions. Its science investigations will provide insights into the evolution of the Moon and the Earth-Moon system.

NASA has previously contracted with three companies to make CLPS deliveries to the Moon beginning in 2021. Astrobotic is scheduled to make its first delivery of other instruments to the lunar surface next year. In April, the agency released a call for potential future lunar surface investigations and received more than 200 responses. CLPS is planned to provide a steady cadence of two delivery opportunities to the lunar surface each year.

"It is an enormous honor and responsibility to be chosen by NASA to deliver this mission of national importance," said Astrobotic CEO John Thornton. "Astrobotic's lunar logistics services were created to open a new era on the Moon. Delivering VIPER to look for water, and setting the stage for the first human crew since Apollo, embodies our mission as a company."

Source: Moon Daily.
Link: https://www.moondaily.com/reports/NASA_Selects_Astrobotic_to_Fly_Water_Hunting_Rover_to_the_Moon_999.html.

China eyes July 20-25 launch for Mars rover

Beijing (AFP)
July 1, 2020

China's first Mars rover should launch later this month, authorities said Wednesday, as the country races to catch up with the US dominance of space.

The Tianwen-1 Mars rover is scheduled to blast off from Hainan island, off China's south coast, between July 20 - 25, according to the Xichang Satellite Launch Center.

It will be China's first interplanetary mission, and takes place shortly before the next US Mars rover -- timed to launch no earlier than July 30.

Named after an ancient Chinese poem, the Tianwen-1 consists of an orbiter, rover and lander, and is expected to collect samples from the planet's surface, the launch center said.

The system will be carried into space on a Long March 5 rocket and is expected to reach Mars sometime in February 2021.

The dates have been chosen because the Earth and Mars are only aligned at an optimal position for spaceflight for a short period once every 26 months.

The US delayed the launch window of its own Perseverance probe -- its fifth Mars rover mission -- three times over the past month due to technical issues.

NASA initially said the launch must take place no later than August 15, but more recently suggested the window may be extended.

China has hugely expanded its space program in recent years to compete with the US and Russia, and has ambitions to put a man on the Moon.

In 2019, it sent the Yutu-2 rover to the far side of the lunar surface in a world first, and has also touted its cooperation with the European Space Agency.

A Chang'e 5 lunar probe is set to launch later this year, and a new space station is due for completion in 2022.

The US banned Chinese astronauts from using the International Space Station because of national security concerns.

Last week, China also launched the final satellite in its homegrown Beidou navigational system, which competes with the GPS system pioneered by the United States.

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: https://www.marsdaily.com/reports/China_eyes_July_20-25_launch_for_Mars_rover_999.html.

NASA's Mars 2020 rover is put to the test

Pasadena CA (JPL)
Mar 20, 2019

In a little more than seven minutes in the early afternoon of Feb. 18, 2021, NASA's Mars 2020 rover will execute about 27,000 actions and calculations as it speeds through the hazardous transition from the edge of space to Mars' Jezero Crater. While that will be the first time the wheels of the 2,314-pound (1,050-kilogram) rover touch the Red Planet, the vehicle's network of processors, sensors and transmitters will, by then, have successfully simulated touchdown at Jezero many times before.

"We first landed on Jezero Crater on Jan. 23rd," said Heather Bottom, systems engineer for the Mars 2020 mission at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "And the rover successfully landed again on Mars two days later."

Bottom was the test lead for Systems Test 1, or ST1, the Mars 2020 engineering team's first opportunity to take the major components of the Mars 2020 mission for a test drive. Over two weeks in January, Bottom and 71 other engineers and technicians assigned to the 2020 mission took over the High Bay 1 cleanroom in JPL's Spacecraft Assembly Facility to put the software and electrical systems aboard the mission's cruise, entry capsule, descent stage and rover through their paces.

"ST1 was a massive undertaking," said Bottom. "It was our first chance to exercise the flight software we will fly on 2020 with the actual spacecraft components that will be heading to Mars - and make sure they not only operate as expected, but also interact with each other as expected."

The heritage for Mars 2020's software goes back to the Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) and the Curiosity rover that has been exploring Mars' Gale Crater since 2012. But 2020 is a different mission with a different rover, a different set of science instruments and a different destination on Mars. Its software has to be tailored accordingly.

Work began in earnest on the flight software in 2013. It was coded, recoded, analyzed and tested on computer workstations and laptops. Later, the flight software matriculated to spacecraft testbeds where it was exposed to computers, sensors and other electronic components customized to imitate the flight hardware that will launch with the mission in 2020.

"Virtual workstations and testbeds are an important part of the process," said Bottom. "But the tens of thousands of individual components that make up the electronics of this mission are not all going to act, or react, exactly like a testbed. Seeing the flight software and the actual flight hardware working together is the best way to build confidence in our processes. Test like you fly."

Making the Grade

On the day before ST1 began, the High Bay 1 cleanroom was hopping with "bunny suit"-clad engineers and technicians assembling, inspecting and testing the mission's hardware. The next day, Wednesday, Jan. 16, the room was eerily quiet. The majority of workers had been replaced by two technicians there to monitor the flight test hardware.

Lines of electrical cabling - "umbilicals" - were added to provide data and power to the spacecraft's cruise stage, back shell, descent stage and rover chassis, which have yet to be stacked together. The ground to in-flight spacecraft (and in-flight spacecraft to ground) communications were handled by X-band radio transmission, just like they would be during the trip to Mars.

ST1 began with commands to energize the spacecraft's electrical components and set up thermal, power and telecom configurations. While all the spacecraft components remained in the cleanroom, Bottom and her team had them thinking they were sitting on top of an Atlas 541 rocket 190 feet (58 meters) above Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral on July 17, 2020, waiting to be shot into space.

Next, they focused on another part of cruise before testing the landing sequence. Then they did it all over again.

After a successful launch, they time jumped 40 days ahead to simulate deep space cruise. How would the software and hardware interact when they had to perform navigation fixes and trajectory correction maneuvers? And how would they work when simulated events didn't go as planned? The team looked for answers on the operators' computer screens in the test operations room beside the cleanroom.

"From the test operations room, you could look out the windows onto the cleanroom floor and clearly see the flight hardware," said Bottom.

"Nothing was visibly moving, but underneath the outer structure, there were flight computers swapping sides, radios sending and receiving transmissions, fuel valves moving in and out, subsystems being energized and later turned off, and electrical signals being sent to nonexistent pyrotechnic devices. There was a lot going on in there."

On Jan. 30, the Mars 2020 test team was able to close their 1,000-plus page book of procedures for ST1. They went two-for-two on Mars landings. They also launched four times, performed deep space navigation, executed several trajectory correction maneuvers and even tested a few in-flight off-nominal situations.

This first evaluation of flight hardware and software, over a year in the making, had been a thorough success, demonstrating where things excelled and where they could be improved. When these new changes have been investigated on both a virtual workstation and in the testbed, they will have their chance to "fly" in one of the many other systems tests planned for Mars 2020.

"One of the future scenario tests will place the rover inside a thermal chamber and simulate being on the surface. It will step through mission critical activities at some very low Mars surface temperatures," said Bottom. "Both literally and figuratively it will be a very cool test."

The Mars 2020 Project at JPL manages rover development for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Launch Services Program, based at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is responsible for launch management. Mars 2020 will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/NASAs_Mars_2020_Rover_Is_Put_to_the_Test_999.html.

Opportunity's parting shot was a beautiful panorama

Pasadena CA (JPL)
Mar 13, 2019

Over 29 days last spring, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity documented this 360-degree panorama from multiple images taken at what would become its final resting spot in Perseverance Valley. Located on the inner slope of the western rim of Endurance Crater, Perseverance Valley is a system of shallow troughs descending eastward about the length of two football fields from the crest of Endeavor's rim to its floor.

"This final panorama embodies what made our Opportunity rover such a remarkable mission of exploration and discovery," said Opportunity project manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"To the right of center you can see the rim of Endeavor Crater rising in the distance. Just to the left of that, rover tracks begin their descent from over the horizon and weave their way down to geologic features that our scientists wanted to examine up close. And to the far right and left are the bottom of Perseverance Valley and the floor of Endeavour crater, pristine and unexplored, waiting for visits from future explorers."

The trailblazing mission ended after nearly 15 years of exploring the surface of Mars, but its legacy will live on. Opportunity's scientific discoveries contributed to our unprecedented understanding of the planet's geology and environment, laying the groundwork for future robotic and human missions to the Red Planet.

The panorama is composed of 354 individual images provided by the rover's Panoramic Camera (Pancam) from May 13 through June 10, or sols (Martian days) 5,084 through 5,111. This view combines images taken through three different Pancam filters. The filters admit light centered on wavelengths of 753 nanometers (near-infrared), 535 nanometers (green) and 432 nanometers (violet).

A few frames (bottom left) remain black and white, as the solar-powered rover did not have the time to record those locations using the green and violet filters before a severe Mars-wide dust storm swept in on June 2018.

The gallery includes the last images Opportunity obtained during its mission (black-and-white thumbnail images from the Pancam that were used to determine how opaque the sky was on its last day) and also the last piece of data the rover transmitted (a "noisy," incomplete full-frame image of a darkened sky).

After eight months of effort and sending more than a thousand commands in an attempt to restore contact with the rover, NASA declared Opportunity's mission complete on Feb. 13, 2019.

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Opportunitys_Parting_Shot_Was_a_Beautiful_Panorama_999.html.

Russians Land Mars Rover

Mon, Apr 01, 2013

Roscosmos Sends Race Challenge To NASA
ANN April 1 Special Coverage

In what may be the ultimate off-road spectacle, Roscosmos has challenged NASA to a Baja-style race between Curiosity and Russia's' Mars rover that it secretly landed on the red planet last week.

"We kept the mission very, very quiet," said Roscosmos spokesman Uri Nuttinksi. "Just in case we had another failure, we needed to keep the launch out of the press. But now that our "Chelyabinsk" rover is on the planet, it's time to see just who's got the faster explorer."

Chelyabinsk is the Russian city over which a meteor exploded last month. The object is thought to have passed near Mars before it encountered the Earth, and a Russian school child thought it would be an appropriate memorial of the event to name Russia's first Martian rover after the city.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden accepted the challenge, saying that the space agency's association with NASCAR gives it an edge in go-fast technology. "We had gotten wind that the Russians were up to something," Bolden said, "and that computer switch we did in March was actually done to activate NASCAR-developed technology on Curiosity. Believe me, if the Russians want to Cha-Cha ... we're ready to put the pedal to the Martian metal." The agency has recruited "Top Gear" host Rutledge Wood, a well-known NASCAR fan, to drive Curiosity for the race.

NASA TV will carry the race live, which is expected to see speeds of up to 7.34 miles per hour. "That may seem slow," Bolden said. "But heck, people watch sailboat races on TV. We figure we'll at least be competitive with that."

The race has generated a friendly wager between President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin. If Curiosity wins, Putin will send Obama an An-124 loaded with Russian Vodka. Should Chelabinsk prevail, Obama will send Putin a C-5A Galaxy's worth of poi from his native Hawaii.

Source: Aero News Network.
Link: http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=20795e41-75dd-43d5-9737-18dd340bdb1d.

Opportunity Departing South Soon

Pasadena CA (JPL)
Mar 18, 2013

Opportunity is completing the in-situ (contact) investigation of the terrain on the inboard edge of Cape York on the rim of 'Endeavour Crater' before departing to the south.

Flash memory issues appeared again on Sol 3244 (March 9, 2013), but were minor. Although, this time the symptoms were different from earlier incidents. The project continues to investigate this.

On Sol 3246 (March 11, 2013), Opportunity approached the Kirkwood outcrop with a 30 foot (9.2 meter) drive. The rover visited this site before the start of the regional 'walkabout' and has now returned for detailed investigation of the 'newberries' seen at this location.

As of Sol 3247 (March 12, 2013), the solar array energy production was 483 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.863 and a solar array dust factor of 0.598.

Total odometry is 22.14 miles (35625.03 meters).

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Opportunity_Departing_South_Soon_999.html.

Opportunity Begins Study of Martian Crater

Pasadena CA (JPL)
Sep 02, 2011

The initial work of NASA's Mars rover Opportunity at its new location on Mars shows surface compositional differences from anything the robot has studied in its first 7.5 years of exploration.

Opportunity arrived three weeks ago at the rim of a 14-mile-wide (22-kilometer-wide) crater named Endeavor. The first rock it examined is flat-topped and about the size of a footstool. It was apparently excavated by an impact that dug a crater the size of a tennis court into the crater's rim. The rock was informally named "Tisdale 2."

"This is different from any rock ever seen on Mars," said Steve Squyres, principal investigator for Opportunity at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

"It has a composition similar to some volcanic rocks, but there's much more zinc and bromine than we've typically seen. We are getting confirmation that reaching Endeavor really has given us the equivalent of a second landing site for Opportunity."

The diversity of fragments in Tisdale 2 could be a prelude to other minerals Opportunity might find at Endeavor. In the past two weeks, researchers have used an instrument on the rover's robotic arm to identify elements at several spots on Tisdale 2. Scientists have also examined the rock using the rover's microscopic imager and multiple filters of its panoramic camera.

Observations by Mars orbiters suggest that rock exposures on Endeavor's rim date from early in Martian history and include clay minerals that form in less-acidic wet conditions, possibly more favorable for life.

Discontinuous ridges are all that remains of the ancient crater's rim. The ridge at the section of the rim where Opportunity arrived is named "Cape York." A gap between Cape York and the next rim fragment to the south is called "Botany Bay."

"On the final traverses to Cape York, we saw ragged outcrops at Botany Bay unlike anything Opportunity has seen so far, and a bench around the edge of Cape York looks like sedimentary rock that's been cut and filled with veins of material possibly delivered by water," said Ray Arvidson, the rover's deputy principal investigator at Washington University in St. Louis. "We made an explicit decision to examine ancient rocks of Cape York first."

The science team selected Endeavor as Opportunity's long-term destination after the rover climbed out of Victoria crater three years ago this week. The mission spent two years studying Victoria, which is about one twenty-fifth as wide as Endeavor.

Layers of bedrock exposed at Victoria and other locations Opportunity has visited share a sulfate-rich composition linked to an ancient era when acidic water was present.

Opportunity drove about 13 miles (21 kilometers) from Victoria to reach Endeavor. It has driven 20.8 miles (33.5 kilometers) since landing on Mars.

"We have a very senior rover in good health for having already worked 30 times longer than planned," said John Callas, project manager for Opportunity at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"However, at any time, we could lose a critical component on an essential rover system, and the mission would be over. Or, we might still be using this rover's capabilities beneficially for years. There are miles of exciting geology to explore at Endeavor crater."

Opportunity and its rover twin, Spirit, completed three-month prime missions in April 2004 and continued working for years of extended missions. Both have made important discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting microbial life. Spirit ended communications in March 2010.

"This is like having a brand new landing site for our veteran rover," said Dave Lavery, program executive for NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "It is a remarkable bonus that comes from being able to rove on Mars with well-built hardware that lasts."

NASA will launch its next-generation Mars rover, Curiosity, between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18, 2011. It will land on Mars in August 2012. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Opportunity_Begins_Study_of_Martian_Crater_999.html.

Opportunity Reaches Endeavor Crater

Pasadena CA (JPL)
Aug 12, 2011

Opportunity has arrived at Endeavor crater after a 1000-sol, 13.36 mile (21.5 kilometer) odyssey across the plains of Meridiani.

On Sol 2681(Aug. 9, 2011), Opportunity drove 203 feet (62 meters), crossing the contact that delineates the geology of Cape York on the rim of the giant Endeavor crater.

Now begins the next chapter in the surface exploration of Mars, the exploration of clay minerals, minerals that may hold the clues to an ancient, habitable environment in the early, wet Noachian epoch of Mars.

The rover previously drove this week on Sol 2678 (Aug. 6, 2011), with a 246-foot (75-meter) drive in the run up to Endeavor.

As of Sol 2681 (Aug. 9, 2011), solar array energy production was 374 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 1.12 and a solar array dust factor of 0.542.

Total odometry is 20.81 miles (33,485.80 meters, or 33.49 kilometers).

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Opportunity_Reaches_Endeavour_Crater_999.html.

NASA's Mars rover reaches new grounds

WASHINGTON, D.C. (BNO NEWS) — NASA on Wednesday announced that its Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has reached the planet’s Endeavor crater to study rocks never seen before.

On Monday, the golf cart-sized rover relayed its arrival at a location named Spirit Point on the crater’s rim, after a journey of almost three years. Opportunity was able to drive approximately 13 miles (21 kilometers) after climbing out of the Victoria crater, NASA said.

Endeavor crater is more than 25 times wider than Victoria crater, being 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. At Endeavor, scientists expect to see much older rocks and terrains than those examined by Opportunity during its first seven years on Mars.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter first detected clay minerals that may have formed in an early warmer and wetter period, making Endeavor an intriguing destination.

“NASA is continuing to write remarkable chapters in our nation’s story of exploration with discoveries on Mars and trips to an array of challenging new destinations,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. “Opportunity’s findings and data from the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory will play a key role in making possible future human missions to Mars and other places where humans have not yet been,” he added.

Matthew Golombek, Mars Exploration Rover science team member at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said the exploration will allow sampling of a rock type the rovers had not seen before. “Clay minerals form in wet conditions so we may learn about a potentially habitable environment that appears to have been very different from those responsible for the rocks comprising the plains.”

NASA launched the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity in the summer of 2003. Both completed their three-month prime missions in April 2004 and continued years of extended operations. They made important discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting microbial life. 


In search for evidence that water persisted on the Martian surface for a long period of time, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was launched on August 12, 2005. Other Mars missions have shown water flowed across the surface in the planet’s history, but scientists have not determined if water remained long enough to provide a habitat for life.

Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

Source: WireUpdate.
Link: http://wireupdate.com/wires/19375/nasas-mars-rover-reaches-new-grounds/.

Opportunity On Final Rove To Endeavor Crater

Pasadena CA (JPL)
Aug 09, 2011

The NASA Mars rover Opportunity has gained a view of Endeavor crater from barely more than a football-field's distance away from the rim. The rim of Endeavor has been the mission's long-term goal since mid-2008.

Endeavor offers the setting for plenty of productive work by Opportunity.

The crater is 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter - more than 25 times wider than Victoria crater, an earlier stop that Opportunity examined for two years.

Observations by orbiting spacecraft indicate that the ridges along Endeavor's western rim expose rock outcrops older than any Opportunity has seen so far.

The selected location for arrival at the rim, "Spirit Point," is at the southern tip of one of those ridges, "Cape York," on the western side of Endeavor.

Opportunity and Spirit completed their three-month prime missions on Mars in April 2004. Both rovers continued for years of bonus, extended missions.

Both have made important discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting microbial life.

The mission of the Spirit rover, for which Spirit Point was named, was concluded in May, 2011, after the rover did not re-establish communications following the Martian winter.

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Opportunity_On_Final_Rove_To_Endeavour_Crater_999.html.

Mars-Bound Rover Begins Research in Space

Pasadena CA (JPL)
Dec 14, 2011

NASA's car-sized Curiosity rover has begun monitoring space radiation during its 8-month trip from Earth to Mars. The research will aid in planning for future human missions to the Red Planet.

Curiosity launched on Nov. 26 from Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). The rover carries an instrument called the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) that monitors high-energy atomic and subatomic particles from the Sun, distant supernovas and other sources.

These particles constitute radiation that could be harmful to any microbes or astronauts in space or on Mars. The rover also will monitor radiation on the surface of Mars after its August 2012 landing.

"RAD is serving as a proxy for an astronaut inside a spacecraft on the way to Mars," said Don Hassler, RAD's principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo."

The instrument is deep inside the spacecraft, the way an astronaut would be. Understanding the effects of the spacecraft on the radiation field will be valuable in designing craft for astronauts to travel to Mars."

Previous monitoring of energetic-particle radiation in space has used instruments at or near the surface of various spacecraft.

The RAD instrument is on the rover inside the spacecraft and shielded by other components of MSL, including the aeroshell that will protect the rover during descent through the upper atmosphere of Mars.

Spacecraft structures, while providing shielding, also can contribute to secondary particles generated when high-energy particles strike the spacecraft. In some circumstances, secondary particles could be more hazardous than primary ones.

These first measurements mark the start of the science return from a mission that will use 10 instruments on Curiosity to assess whether Mars' Gale Crater could be or has been favorable for microbial life.

"While Curiosity will not look for signs of life on Mars, what it might find could be a game-changer about the origin and evolution of life on Earth and elsewhere in the universe," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

"One thing is certain: the rover's discoveries will provide critical data that will impact human and robotic planning and research for decades."

As of noon EST on Dec. 14, the spacecraft will have traveled 31.9 million miles (51.3 million kilometers) of its 352-million-mile (567-million-kilometer) flight to Mars. The first trajectory correction maneuver during the trip is being planned for mid-January.

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Mars_Bound_Rover_Begins_Research_in_Space_999.html.

Two Possible Sites for Next Mars Rover

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 08, 2011

NASA's next Mars rover will land either beside the site of a former river delta or beside a mountain of stacked layers. These enticing locations are the two finalists as the Mars Science Laboratory landing sites: Eberswalde crater and Gale crater.

Selection of one of those sites is anticipated this month. The mission's spacecraft, including the rover named Curiosity, is in preparation for launch in the period Nov. 25 to Dec. 18, 2011.

As a clay-bearing site where a river once flowed into a lake, Eberswalde crater offers a chance to use knowledge that oil industry geologists have accumulated about where in a delta to look for any concentrations of carbon chemistry, a crucial ingredient for life.

At the other option, the mountain inside Gale crater could provide a route for the rover to study a transition from environments that produced clay deposits near the mountain's base to later environments that produced sulfate deposits partway up the slope.

The spacecraft will arrive at Mars in August 2012. Researchers will use the rover's 10 science instruments during the following two years to investigate whether the landing area has ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Two_Possible_Sites_for_Next_Mars_Rover_999.html.

NASA's Spirit Rover Completes Mission on Mars

Pasadena CA (JPL) May 26, 2011

NASA has ended operational planning activities for the Mars rover Spirit and transitioned the Mars Exploration Rover Project to a single-rover operation focused on Spirit's still-active twin, Opportunity. This marks the completion of one of the most successful missions of interplanetary exploration ever launched.

Spirit last communicated on March 22, 2010, as Martian winter approached and the rover's solar-energy supply declined. The rover operated for more than six years after landing in January 2004 for what was planned as a three-month mission.

NASA checked frequently in recent months for possible reawakening of Spirit as solar energy available to the rover increased during Martian spring. A series of additional re-contact attempts have ended, designed for various possible combinations of recoverable conditions.

"Our job was to wear these rovers out exploring, to leave no unutilized capability on the surface of Mars, and for Spirit, we have done that," said Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Spirit drove 4.8 miles (7.73 kilometers), more than 12 times the goal set for the mission. The drives crossed a plain to reach a distant range of hills that appeared as mere bumps on the horizon from the landing site; climbed slopes up to 30 degrees as Spirit became the first robot to summit a hill on another planet; and covered more than half a mile (nearly a kilometer) after Spirit's right-front wheel became immobile in 2006.

The rover returned more than 124,000 images. It ground the surfaces off 15 rock targets and scoured 92 targets with a brush to prepare the targets for inspection with spectrometers and a microscopic imager.

"What's really important is not only how long Spirit worked or how far Spirit drove, but also how much exploration and scientific discovery Spirit accomplished," Callas said.

One major finding came, ironically, from dragging the inoperable right-front wheel as the rover was driving backwards in 2007. That wheel plowed up bright white soil. Spirit's Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer and Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer revealed that the bright material was nearly pure silica.

"Spirit's unexpected discovery of concentrated silica deposits was one of the most important findings by either rover," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for Spirit and Opportunity.

"It showed that there were once hot springs or steam vents at the Spirit site, which could have provided favorable conditions for microbial life."

The silica-rich soil neighbors a low plateau called Home Plate, which was Spirit's main destination after the historic climb up Husband Hill. "What Spirit showed us at Home Plate was that early Mars could be a violent place, with water and hot rock interacting to make what must have been spectacular volcanic explosions. It was a dramatically different world than the cold, dry Mars of today," said Squyres.

The trove of data from Spirit could still yield future science revelations. Years of analysis of some 2005 observations by the rover's Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer, Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer and Moessbauer Spectrometer produced a report last year that an outcrop on Husband Hill bears a high concentration of carbonate. This is evidence of a wet, non-acidic ancient environment that may have been favorable for microbial life.

"What's most remarkable to me about Spirit's mission is just how extensive her accomplishments became," said Squyres.

"What we initially conceived as a fairly simple geologic experiment on Mars ultimately turned into humanity's first real overland expedition across another planet. Spirit explored just as we would have, seeing a distant hill, climbing it, and showing us the vista from the summit. And she did it in a way that allowed everyone on Earth to be part of the adventure."

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/NASA_Spirit_Rover_Completes_Mission_on_Mars_999.html.

Spain Supplies Weather Station For Next Mars Rover

by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 01, 2010

The first instrument from Spain for a mission to Mars will provide daily weather reports from the Red Planet. Expect extremes.

Major goals for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory include assessing the modern environment in its landing area, as well as clues to environments billions of years ago. The environment station from Spain will fill a central role in studying modern conditions by measuring daily and seasonal changes.

The Rover Environmental Monitoring Station, or REMS, is one of 10 instruments in the mission's science payload. REMS uses sensors on the mast, on the deck and inside the body of the mission's car-size rover, Curiosity. Spain's Ministry of Science and Innovation and Spain's Center for Industrial Technology Development supplied the instrument. Components were installed on Curiosity in September and are being tested at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

While most of Curiosity's electronics are sheltered for some protection from the Martian environment, the team that developed and built the environmental station needed to fashion external sensors that could tolerate the temperature extremes that some of them would be monitoring.

"That was our biggest engineering challenge," said REMS Principal Investigator Javier Gomez-Elvira, an aeronautical engineer with the Centro de Astrobiologia, Madrid, Spain. "The sensors will get very cold and go through great changes in temperature every day." The Center for Astrobiology is affiliated with the Spanish National Research Council and the National Institute for Aerospace Technology.

The air temperature around the rover mast will likely drop to about minus 130 degrees Celsius (about minus 202 degrees Fahrenheit) some winter nights and climb to about minus 50 C (about minus 60 F) by 12 hours later. On warmer days, afternoon air temperatures could reach a balmy 10 to 30 C (50 to 86 F), depending on which landing site is selected.

Other challenges have included accounting for how the rover itself perturbs air movement, and keeping the entire weather station's mass to just 1.3 kilograms (2.9 pounds).

The instrument will record wind speed, wind direction, air pressure, relative humidity, air temperature and ground temperature, plus one variable that has not been measured by any previous weather station on the surface of Mars: ultraviolet radiation. Operational plans call for taking measurements for five minutes every hour of the 23-month-long mission. Twenty-three months is equal to approximately one Martian year.

Monitoring ground temperature and ultraviolet radiation along with other weather data will contribute to understanding the Martian climate and will aid the mission's assessment of whether the current environment around the rover has conditions favorable for microbial life.

"It is important to know the temperature and humidity right at ground level," said Gomez-Elvira. Humidity at the landing sites will be extremely low, but knowing daily humidity cycles at ground level could help researchers understand the interaction of water vapor between the soil and the atmosphere. If the environment supports, or ever supported, any underground microbes, that interaction could be key.

Ultraviolet radiation can also affect habitability. For example, germ-killing ultraviolet lamps are commonly used to help maintain sterile conditions for medical and research equipment. The ultraviolet sensor Curiosity's deck measures six different wavelength bands in the ultraviolet portion of the spectrum, including wavelengths also monitored from above by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The weather station will help extend years of synergy between missions that study Mars from orbit and missions on the surface.

"We will gain information about whether local conditions are favorable for habitability, and we will also contribute to understanding the global atmosphere of Mars," said Gomez-Elvira. "The circulation models of the Mars atmosphere are based mainly on observations by orbiters. Our measurements will provide a way to verify and improve the models."

For example, significant fractions of the Martian atmosphere freeze onto the ground as a south polar carbon-dioxide ice cap during southern winter and as a north polar carbon-dioxide ice cap in northern winter, returning to the atmosphere in each hemisphere's spring. At Curiosity's landing site far from either pole, REMS will check whether seasonal patterns of changing air pressure fit the existing models for effects of the coming and going of polar carbon-dioxide ice.

The sensor for air pressure, developed for REMS by the Finnish Meteorological Institute, uses a dust-shielded opening on Curiosity's deck. The most conspicuous components of the weather station are two fingers extending horizontally from partway up the rover's remote-sensing mast. Each of these two REMS mini-booms holds three electronic sensors for detecting air movement in three dimensions. Placement of the booms at an angle of 120 degrees from each other enables calculating the velocity of wind without worrying about the main mast blocking the wind. One mini-boom also holds the humidity sensor; the other a set of directional infrared sensors for measuring ground temperature.

To develop REMS and prepare for analyzing the data it will provide, Spain has assembled a team of about 40 researchers - engineers and scientists. The team plans to post daily Mars weather reports online.

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Spain_Supplies_Weather_Station_For_Next_Mars_Rover_999.html.

Mars Rovers Mission Using Cloud Computing

by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (JPL) Nov 03, 2010

The project team that built and operates the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity has become the first NASA space mission to use cloud computing for daily mission operations.

Cloud computing is a way to gain fast flexibility in computing ability by ordering capacity on demand - as if from the clouds - and paying only for what is used. NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project moved to this strategy last week for the software and data that the rovers' flight team uses to develop daily plans for rover activities.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., which manages the project, gained confidence in cloud computing from experience with other uses of the technology, including public participation sites about Mars exploration.

"This is a change to thinking about computer capacity and data storage as a commodity like electricity, or even the money in your bank account," said JPL's John Callas, rover project manager.

"You don't keep all your money in your wallet. Instead you go to a nearby ATM and get cash when you need it. Your money is safe, and the bank can hold as much or as little of the money as you want. Data is the same way: You don't need to have it on you all the time. It can be safely stored elsewhere and you can get it anytime via an Internet connection.

"When we need more computing capacity, we don't need to install more servers if we can rent more capacity from the cloud for just the time we need it. This way we don't waste electricity and air conditioning with servers idling waiting to be used, and we don't have to worry about hardware maintenance and operating system obsolescence."

Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars in January 2004 for what were planned as three-month missions. Bonus, extended missions have continued for more than six years.

Opportunity is currently active, requiring daily activity plans by a team of engineers at JPL, and scientists at many locations in North America and Europe. Spirit has been silent since March 2010 and is believed to be in a low-power hibernation mode for the Martian winter.

"The rover project is well suited for cloud computing," said Khawaja Shams, a JPL software engineer supporting the project.

"It has a widespread user community acting collaboratively. Cloud enables us to deliver the data to each user from nearby locations for faster reaction time."

Also, the unexpected longevity of the mission means the volume of data used has outgrown the systems originally planned for handling and sharing data, which makes the virtually limitless capacity of cloud computing attractive.

JPL collaborated with the cloud team of Amazon.com Inc., Seattle, to plan and implement the use of cloud computing in the Mars Exploration Rover Project's daily operations. JPL developed the rover project's activity-planning software, called Maestro.

"We have worked closely with multiple cloud vendors since 2007 to learn the best ways to gain the advantages of cloud computing," said Tomas Soderstrom, chief technology officer for the JPL Office of the Chief Information Officer.

"To implement JPL CIO Jim Rinaldi's vision of renting instead of buying capacity, we pragmatically look past the hype about cloud computing to find the practical, cost-efficient real mission applications. The Mars Exploration Rover project's use of clouds is one example of this results-oriented partnership. More will follow."

In support of the federal Open Government Initiative, which increases public access to data collected by the federal government, JPL collaborated with the cloud team at Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash., to launch the "Be a Martian" website in November 2009.

The site enables the public to participate as citizen scientists to improve Mars maps and take part in Mars research tasks. At this site - Be A Martian - more than 54,000 people have signed up to be "Martian citizens" and analyze data.

For another early use of cloud computing, JPL worked with the cloud team at Google Inc., Mountain View, Calif. The Google cloud served a project in which JPL and computer science students at the University of California, San Diego, developed an educational application enabling fifth- and sixth-graders to tag labels onto images from Mars spacecraft.

In addition to establishing a private cloud and working with Amazon, Google and Microsoft, JPL has also collaborated with other vendors of public cloud computing. Soderstrom said, "We defined a 'cloud-oriented architecture' to use clouds as an extension of our own resources and to run the computing and storage where it is most appropriate for each application."

The extended missions of Spirit and Opportunity have provided a resource for testing innovations during an active space mission for possible use in future missions.

New software uploads giving the rovers added autonomy have been one example, and cloud computing is another. JPL is currently building and testing NASA's next Mars rover, Curiosity, for launch in late 2011 in the Mars Science Laboratory mission. This rover will land on Mars in August 2012.

Shams said, "The experience we gain using cloud computing for planning Opportunity's activities may be valuable when Curiosity reaches Mars, too."

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Mars_Rovers_Mission_Using_Cloud_Computing_999.html.

Rover finds signs of buried Martian water

Trapped craft discovers evidence water trickled beneath Red Planet's surface

NASA's stuck Mars rover Spirit has found more evidence that water trickled beneath the Red Planet's surface in the past perhaps within the last few hundred thousand years.

The sandy spot where Spirit got bogged down last year harbors stratified layers of dirt with different compositions close to the surface, a new study reveals. Researchers suspect these layers were caused by seepage of thin films of water on Mars, perhaps from melting frost or snow.

This seepage could have occurred during cyclical climate changes when Mars was tilted more on its axis, researchers said. The water may have moved down into the sand, carrying soluble minerals deeper than less-soluble ones, they added. [ Most Amazing Mars Rover Discoveries ]

The axis tilt of Mars varies over time scales of hundreds of thousands of years. The fact that Spirit found these layers in the dirt rather than locked away in rock further suggests the water was seeping relatively recently, rather than billions of years ago, researchers said.

"Once you freeze that evidence in a rock, it can stay there for a long time," said Bruce Banerdt, a project scientist for the Mars Exploration Rovers project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "But you don't expect to maintain evidence in loose dirt for long periods of time."

Buried water in Martian history
The relatively insoluble minerals near the surface include what is thought to be hematite, silica and gypsum, according to researchers. Iron-rich ferric sulfates, which are more soluble, appear to have been dissolved and carried down deeper by water, they added.

None of these minerals is exposed at the surface, which is covered by wind-blown sand and dust.

"The lack of exposures at the surface indicates the preferential dissolution of ferric sulfates must be a relatively recent and ongoing process since wind has been systematically stripping soil and altering landscapes in the region Spirit has been examining," rover deputy principal investigator Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, explained in a statement.

The new study, which appears in the Journal of Geophysical Research, is based on observations made by Spirit before it stopped communicating with Earth in March of this year. The findings contribute to an accumulating set of evidence that Mars may harbor small amounts of liquid water at some periods during ongoing climate cycles.

Spirit, its rover twin Opportunity and other NASA Mars missions have found evidence of wet Martian environments billions of years ago that may have been favorable for life. Observations by the Phoenix Mars Lander in 2008 and various orbiters since 2002 have identified buried layers of water ice at high and middle latitudes and frozen water in polar ice caps.

Spirit still sleeping
The twin Mars rovers finished their three-month prime missions in April 2004, then kept exploring in bonus missions. One of Spirit's six wheels quit working in 2006.

In April 2009, Spirit's left wheels broke through a crust at a site called "Troy" and churned into soft sand. A second wheel stopped working seven months later. Spirit could not maneuver into a position slanting its solar panels toward the sun for the winter, as it had done for previous winters.

Engineers anticipated it would enter a low-power, silent hibernation mode, and the rover stopped communicating March 22 of this year. Spring begins next month at Spirit's site, and NASA is listening to see if the rover reawakens, officials said.

"Most of us have high hopes," Banerdt told SPACE.com. "Our models say she could start communicating any day now. But we also recognize that this is an extremely risky situation for Spirit, and there are so many unknowns that we just can't be sure."

Among those unknowns, according to Banerdt: how much dust blankets Spirit's solar panels, how cold the rover's interior got and the current surface conditions where it bogged down.

Researchers took advantage of Spirit's months at Troy last year to examine in great detail soil layers the wheels had exposed, along with neighboring surfaces. Spirit made 13 inches of progress in its last 10 backward drives before energy levels fell too low for further driving in February.

Those drives exposed a new area of soil for possible examination if Spirit does awaken and its robotic arm is still usable, researchers said.

"With insufficient solar energy during the winter, Spirit goes into a deep-sleep hibernation mode where all rover systems are turned off, including the radio and survival heaters," said rover project manager John Callas of JPL. "All available solar array energy goes into charging the batteries and keeping the mission clock running."

The rover is expected to have experienced temperatures colder than it ever has before, and it may not survive. If Spirit does get back to work, the top priority is a multi-month study that can be done without driving the rover, researchers said.

The study would measure the rotation of Mars through the Doppler signature of the stationary rover's radio signal with enough precision to gain new information about the planet's core. The rover Opportunity has been making steady progress toward a large crater, Endeavor, which is now approximately 5 miles away.

Source: MSNBC.
Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39899649/ns/technology_and_science-space/.

End of the Road for NASA's Mars Rover 'Spirit'

The roving days are over for NASA's Mars rover Spirit after more than six years rolling across the Martian surface, the space agency announced Tuesday.

The roving days are over for NASA's Mars rover Spirit after more than six years rolling across the Martian surface, the space agency announced Tuesday.

NASA engineers have decided to abandon efforts to rescue the Spirit rover from the deep Martian sand that snared it in May 2009. Instead, they are trying to prepare the rover to survive the harsh winter ahead in Mars' southern hemisphere. If the rover survives, it will serve as a fixed science outpost, mission managers said.

SLIDESHOW: Mars Rover Spirit's Best Photos

"This is not a day to mourn Spirit. This is not a day of loss," said Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars exploration program, in a teleconference. "Its driving days are likely over, however its contribution will continue."

Spirit is stuck up to its wheel tops in Martian sand and slightly tilted back in a spot on Mars that scientists have named "Troy." The rover got stuck on May 6, when its wheels broke through a hard crust covering the soft sand and sunk into the sand trap.

"Spirit has encountered a golfer's worse nightmare," McCuistion said.

Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., spent months working on ways to extract Spirit from its sandy predicament. Those efforts - which began in November - have been unsuccessful. Making matters worse, two of the rover's six wheels are broken, hampering its escape attempts.

Spirit and its robotic twin Opportunity have been exploring different parts of Mars since they landed in January 2004. Since then, the long-lived rovers have far outlasted their initial 90-day mission plans and discovered new insights into the history of water on Mars. Opportunity is currently working fine and is studying an odd rock called "Marquette Island" – which appears to have been ejected from deep inside Mars during an impact – as it heads toward a giant crater called Endeavour.

McCuistion called the Spirit's situation "inextractable." He didn't rule out that Spirit could free itself by accident, but that's not the goal anymore.

"Right now, our plan is to worry about getting through the winter," McCuistion said.

Recent attempts to drive Spirit backwards have made some improvement to its tilt toward the sun, which is vital for the rover's solar arrays to generate the power to stay alive.

During winters on Mars, the sun is low in the sky, so engineers try to perch Spirit and Opportunity on north-facing slopes to maximize the amount of sunlight their top-mounted solar panels can collect. NASA is hopeful that Spirit can be wiggled into a favorable position before the full brunt of winter arrives in a few months.

If successful, Spirit could continue to operate through the Martian winter, or possibly enter a hibernation-like mode until the season passes and springtime returns, bringing with it more favorable levels of sunlight.

"We have hope that Spirit will survive this cold, dark winter that we have ahead of us and be ready to do more science come springtime," said the rover mission's principal investigator Steven Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Squyres said Spirit can still study the Mars dirt around Troy. There is also a tantalizing chance for scientists to determine if the core of Mars is liquid or solid iron. They could do that by using Spirit's radio signals to record the motion of Mars and deduce if the red planet's core is molten or not, he added.

"Totally new science," Squyres said.

But first, Spirit must survive the next winter on Mars.

Rover project manager John Callas of JPL said that, in the end, it will all come down to power. If Spirit does not find a good sunward tilt for the coming winter, it could experience a so-called "low-power fault" and shut down all non-essential systems.

"The rover will be like a polar bear, hibernating," Callas said. "It could be for many months...on the order of six months, that the rover will be in this state."

Unlike NASA's long-silent Phoenix lander in the Martian arctic, Spirit is designed to hibernate through winters on Mars and will experience temperatures of minus 45 degrees Celsius, Callas said. But Spirit is not a new rover, so its systems could be susceptible to damage due to age, he added.

"There's no guarantee that the rover will be able to survive these colder temperatures," Callas said.

It will likely be frustrating for NASA engineers as they await word from Spirit to determine if the rover survives the coming winter. After all, NASA has spent $900 million on the Mars rover mission, and typically spends $20 million a year to support Spirit and Opportunity during their extended treks on the red planet.

"That'll be challenging for the team, but it's just something we'll have to be disciplined about," Callas said.

Source: Fox News.
Link: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/01/26/end-road-nasas-mars-rover-spirit/.

NASA's Mars Rover Might Be Stuck For Good

By SPACE.com Staff

Efforts to free the stuck Spirit rover on Mars have been dragging on since May and today a NASA official said the robot may never get free.

"We are proceeding very cautiously and exploring all reasonable options," said John Callas, NASA project manager for Spirit and its twin, Opportunity. "There is a very real possibility that Spirit may not be able to get out, and we want to give Spirit the very best chance."

Callas and colleagues at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have been testing ideas on a twin of Spirit at the California facility, in a pit designed to simulate the surface of Mars. It's tricky though, because of the difference in gravity of the two planets. The rover team is also refining a detailed computer model of rover mobility, calibrated with results from testing and measurements from Mars.

"The computer modeling will allow us to connect the results from tests performed in Earth gravity with what to expect from the rover in Mars gravity," Callas said in a statement Monday.

Spirit has certainly outlived expectations. It became embedded in soft soil at a site called Troy in early May, more than five years into a mission on Mars that was originally scheduled to last for three months. The rover team suspended further driving attempts with Spirit while evaluating how to free it.

The engineers are trying to figure out how to move Spirit while avoiding putting the rover's center of gravity directly over a rock that is touching or nearly touching the machine's underbelly. Other added tests are using a lighter-weight test rover than the one used for most of the testing this summer. A complete "dress rehearsal" test of the extrication strategy judged to hold the best chance of success is planned in the test setup at JPL before the team commands Spirit to begin driving. That test and subsequent review of its results are expected to take several weeks.

Moves by Spirit will not begin before October, according to current plans.

A dust storm that had reduced the electrical output from Spirit's solar panels by nearly half during late August still has some lingering effects on the skies above Spirit, NASA said.

Spirit and Opportunity rovers mark five years on Mars

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US space agency's Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity this month mark their fifth anniversary on the Red Planet, where they have endured harsh conditions and revealed a deluge of information.

The twin robots, which landed on Mars three weeks apart in January 2004, were initially expected to have just 90-day missions, but have since sent back to Earth a quarter-million images, toured mountains and craters and survived violent dust storms.

"The American taxpayer was told three months for each rover was the prime mission plan. The twins have worked almost 20 times that long," said NASA assistant administrator Ed Weiler in a statement.

"That's an extraordinary return of investment in these challenging budgetary times."

The rovers, which along with 250,000 images have sent back to Earth some 36 gigabytes of data, have greatly advanced NASA's understanding of Mars' geology, including peeks into the planet's wet and habitable past.

Analysts say the wealth of information data will keep scientists busy for years as they further unravel the vast banks of data.

Since 2004 the machines have covered 21 kilometers (13 miles) of Mars' characteristic red rock desert, driving inch by inch to avoid chasms and rocky obstacles, picking up samples and snapping images to beam back to mission control on Earth.

"These rovers are incredibly resilient considering the extreme environment the hardware experiences every day," said John Callas, project manager for Spirit and Opportunity.

"We realize that a major rover component on either vehicle could fail at any time and end a mission with no advance notice, but on the other hand, we could accomplish the equivalent duration of four more prime missions on each rover in the year ahead."

While the machines have had relatively balmy 20 degree Celsius (68 degree Fahrenheit) summers, they have had to endure frigid extremes, where temperatures of minus-100 degrees Celsius (minus-148 degrees Fahrenheit) in winter are common.

Harsh Martian winds, however, have provided an occasional cleaning job to the rovers' solar panels -- critical instruments to power the machines.

This unconventional aid, however, has not be reliable, with the Spirit machine's panels hardly clear enough to survive its third southern hemisphere winter, which ended in December.

Although the 820-million-dollar project's mission began as scientific, the it has become something much larger, according to Steve Squyres of Cornell University, the rover mission's principal investigator.

The journeys "have led to something else important," he said. "This has turned into humanity's first overland expedition on another planet.

"When people look back on this period of Mars exploration decades from now, Spirit and Opportunity may be considered most significant not for the science they accomplished, but for the first time we truly went exploring across the surface of Mars."

The continuing wealth of data provided by the rovers is a welcome hold-over for the US space agency, which was forced to delay a landmark mission to Mars by 26 months last month.

The 2.3- billion-dollar Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is now expected to be launched in 2011.

Launch opportunities for Mars come only every 26 months, when the planets are in right alignment.