~ MARS NEWS ~
Digging It.
Spirit rover spent it's 47th day rolling a front wheel backwards and forwards for 2hrs. Spirits purpose is to expose soil that could be far more ancient. Spirit discovered the soil was firmer than Opportunity's findings. Opportunity meanwhile managed the same job in half the time. Spirit used it's camera and miniture equipment to look at the 3 inch trench. Also Spirit has looked at nearby rocks. After examining the trench for two days, Spirit will continue its mission some 455 feet away in a crater named Bonneville. Opportunity is still investigating a rocky area on the other side of the planet.
Opportunity's Trench. 21st February 2004.
Spirit rover breaks record.
The Spirit rover breaks the one-day distance record on the red planet, rolling almost 21 metres across the Martian surface. Today's distance traveled shattered the Sojourner rover's previous record of seven meters. Soujourner's record was set during the US Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997.
Over the weekend it finished examining the interior of a rock dubbed Adirondack, drilling a tiny hole in it for the first time in Mars exploration. The rock is volcanic basalt.
February 10th 2004.
Parachute Spotted.
Opportunity drove up to the edge of the crater today, and acquired a panoramic image which shows where its backshell (left) and parachute (right) landed.
Parachute pictured above
February 9th 2004.
Back on track.
Both of NASA's Mars exploration rovers are on the move, with Opportunity heading for a nearby outcrop and Spirit poised to navigate to a nearby crater. The computer problems with the Spirit rover seem to have been solved.
Opportunity Making more tracks and moving another few meters.
Friday 6th February 2004.
Opportunity strikes out.
Tyre marks are visible on the surface of Mars as the US rover Opportunity leaves its lander. The probe transmitted a black-and-white image of its base station after rolling onto the Martian surface at 1100 GMT, nearly a week after landing on the planet, indicating its journey had been a success. The six-wheeled vehicle's tracks could clearly be seen in the image. Lets hope there will be no problems with this second clone rover.
Controllers, optimistic about the mission's success, had decided to move
the probe 24 hours earlier than planned.
Mars rover looking forward.
Saturday January 31st 2004.
First image from second rover Opportunity.
This color image shows the martian landscape at Meridiani Planum, where the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity successfully landed at 9:05 p.m. PST on Saturday. This is one of the first images beamed back to Earth from the rover shortly after it touched down. The image was captured by the rover's panoramic camera. You can clearly see where the air bags have disturbed the Martian soil.
Sunday January 23rd 2004
Scientists have found proof there is water on Mars.
The
discovery, described by experts as the "holy grail" of Mars exploration
holds out the tantalising prospect that there could be life on the Red Planet.
Two years ago, a US mission found strong indications of water.Now
Mars Express, the mothership which carried the ill-fated British Beagle
2 probe, has found cast-iron proof, experts said.Scientists
announced the news yesterday after studying data from an infra-red camera
aboard the craft, which is orbiting over the planet's south pole.
Taken from Mars express.
January 23rd 2004.
Spirit rover to study its first rock.
After a weekend of driving that took it about 10 feet across the surface of Mars, the Spirit rover was parked on Monday in front of a rock that NASA plan to study for the next week.The scientists believe that the pyramid-shaped rock, which is about the size of an American football, is most likely basalt, spewed onto the surface of Mars hundreds of millions of years ago by a volcano.
In the coming days, Spirit will reach out with its robotic arm to examine Adirondack with microscopic imagers and spectrometers. Then the rover will use the same arm to drill a tiny hole in the surface and give scientists a glimpse of its interior. Interestingly scientists study the light that is reflected from each surface to determine what minerals are in the rocks on Mars. This process is inaccurate if the atmospheric data is not up to the job.
The rock nicknamed Adirondack.
January 20th 2004.
NASA Commands Rover to Roll Onto Mars
The Spirit rover successfully rolled onto Mars early Thursday, placing its six wheels on solid martian ground for the first time since the robot bounced down on the Red Planet nearly two weeks ago.
Spirit
is now free to roam the Gusev Crater - a crater the size of Wales - which
may once have been a lake. Its ultimate destination is a nearby hollow carved
by a meteorite hitting the planet.
Scientists believe it is a good place to look for deposits which could have
contained water, a key ingredient for life.
January 15th 2004.
Bush sets America's Sights on Moon,Mars.
"We will build new ships to carry man forward into the universe, to gain a new foothold on the moon and prepare for new journeys to the worlds beyond our own,"said bush.The new initiative would be "a journey, not a race," said Bush, calling on other nations to join the U.S. effort.
Bush's plan is to send humans back to the moon as early as 2015 and eventually to Mars. The russians however have spoken of 10 years for a manned mission to Mars.
January 14th 2004.
Mars landing sparks new interests.
The 300 million-mile journey of the Spirit rover has cought the imagination of George Bush. He is expected to make a speech this week relating to a permanent science base on the Moon. Mars would be the next step.
While the news set some spirits soaring, others were immediately reaching for their calculators, warning that the mission would be not only dangerous but extremely expensive, at a estimated cost of £500 billion. NASA's current budget stands at a very small $15.5 billion.
The visionary new space plan would be the most ambitious project since the Apollo Moon landings of three decades ago. It commits the United States to an aggressive and far-reaching mission that holds interplanetary space as the human race's new frontier. good luck to them.
January 10 2004.
First coloured picture from Spirit.
Spirit's twin rover, Opportunity, will arrive on Mars on January 25 to explore another region on the other side of the planet.
NASA celebrates safe landing on Mars.
Watch the full movie from take off.........
Spirit rover movie Quicktime about 7 min with broadband.
First images from spirit.
Cushioned by giant airbags the spirit rover touches down on the martian surface. This is the first image it sent back just 3 hours after landing. Everthing seems to be in good shape. The rover will travel around the surface looking for ancient signs of water/life.
January 4th 2004
.
I
wash my hands of the whole affair!
Scientists took the opportunity this morning to upload another command to Beagle 2 to try to reset its internal clock. This time however the instructions were embedded in the "hail" command. This is designed to initiate the contact sequence with Beagle 2 and doesn't require a response from the lander to confirm the data have been received. No initial result was achieved during this pass of Odyssey but it is hoped that the command may bring success in a future communication slot.
December 31st 2003
