US Twin Rovers Eye Mars

MARSDAILY

NASA warns of dangers on Mars mission

Washington (AFP) Jun 06, 2003
NASA has warned that a new attempt to find signs of life on Mars, due to blast off on Sunday, is fraught with danger.

A rocket carrying the first of two robots that will search for signs of life on Mars is to lift off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

NASA's associate administrator for space science Ed Weiler warned 48 hours before the launch: "It's not a trip to the beach on a Sunday afternoon."

"This will continue NASA's long goal of finding the water. On Earth, wherever we find water, we find life. There was water on Mars billions of years ago and maybe just a few hours ago.

"We have to show that water was on Mars for a long time," Weiler explained.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration official did not rule out the possibility of problems on the mission, particularly during the landings expected in early January 2004.

"We can have a bad day on Mars. Wind. Bad weather. We are trying to predict the weather on Mars for January 2004," he explained, noting that of 30 attempts at Mars missions over the past 40 years just 12 have succeeded.

The launch of Mars Expedition Rover (MER-A) is scheduled for 1805 GMT Sunday on a Boeing-made Delta II launcher.

Forecasters said there was a 60 percent chance weather conditions would not be suitable on Sunday.

Washington - Jun 08, 2003
The United States will Monday enter the race with Europe to find out whether life could ever have existed on Mars. Mars Expedition Rovers (MER) will be the second and third of the competing crafts to launch, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is spending 800 million dollars to get this mission right after two costly failures in 1998.

The Delta II launch rocket, carrying the first of two huge robots to land on Mars, will leave from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Monday at 1802 GMT. A second MER robot will blast off on June 26.

Launch of the MER-A was delayed 24 hours Sunday due to bad weather at Cape Canaveral.

Europe's Mars Express left on June 2 and is scheduled to finish its 400 million kilometer (250 million mile) trip a few days before the first US MER arrives on January 4 next year.

The two rivals launched so close together because Mars is now at its closest position to the Earth, which only happens every 26 months.

On July 4 1997 the US Pathfinder mission was the first to land a rover on Mars, when in America's first return to the red planet in over 20 years a small rover was put on the Red Planet to gather information.

The mission will aim to overcome the disappointment of the failure of the Orbiter mission which took off in December 1998 and disappeared on arrival and the Polar Lander rocket which crashed into the planet in 1999 when its landing system broke down.

This time, NASA has decided to revert back to its Pathfinder landing system which uses a combination of parachutes and air bags to slow the spacecraft down and cushion the impact. Each vessel will bounce about 10 times on the frozen surface of Mars before coming to a standstill.

The two six wheeled robots will be put out on the opposite poles of Mars and go walkabout for three months collecting geological samples.

Powered by solar energy, the robots will be able to move 40 metresfeet) each Martian day, as much as during the whole Pathfinder mission in 1997.

The MER robot has a telescopic arm including a camera which will be able to take 360 degree colour images. It also has equipment to scratch and dig into the surface.

Not so much an X marks the spot, but rather a long series of bounces across Gusev in area so long and so wide. Not bad for aiming across 60 million miles. Oh that's right it kilometers, meters and kilograms
A squad of 150 scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, will gather data transmitted by the robots directly to Earth via two US satellites in orbit around Mars: the Global Surveyor and Odyssey probes.

The data will help scientists on Earth decide the robots route on Mars for the following day.

The robots first will explore the area around their drop point before venturing out 500 meters each over the course of the mission.

Water in its liquid form is not a feature of the Martian surface but topography which seems in part to have been criscrossed by running water has made many researchers believe it may have been there in the past.

The first Rover is expected to drop in to the Gusev crater January 4, 2004.

The second Rover is aiming for the Meridiani Planum, an area featuring considerable iron oxide. It is expected to arrive January 25, 2004.

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MARSDAILY

Wheels In The Sky NASA's Mars Exploration Program

Pasadena - Jun 02, 2003
When Chris Voorhees thinks about wheels, he doesn't imagine the rubber hitting the road, but aluminum crawling across the surface of Mars. In fact, he has already seen some of his handiwork making its way across the red planet. One of the first jobs Voorhees was handed as an intern was stamping out over 1,000 stainless steel cleats for the Sojourner rover on NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission.

Mars Express Does It In Record Time With Less Cost

Paris (ESA) Jun 02, 2003
ESA's Mars Express is a pioneering mission for several reasons. It is the first European voyage to Mars, it has been built at much less than the usual cost, and in record time.

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