Category: Mars

Image credit: NASA/JPL

Mission controllers have released the first panoramic 360-degree view of the Martian landscape taken by the Spirit rover. The colour panorama is a mosaic stitched together from 225 separate images taken by Spirit’s panoramic camera. Not only is it pretty, but it’s a handy tool for the team’s scientists to get an understanding of all the terrain around the rover so they can start prioritizing their targets. One of their greatest interests is how the ground near the rover folded up like a carpet when the lander retracted the airbag. This was totally unexpected, and still a bit of a mystery. Spirit is expected to roll off the lander within two days.

The first 360-degree color view from NASA’s Spirit Mars Exploration Rover presents a range of tempting targets from nearby rocks to hills on the horizon.

“The whole panorama is there before us,” said rover science- team member Dr. Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego. “It’s a great opening to the next stage of our mission.”

Spirit’s flight team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., continues making progress toward getting the rover off its lander platform, but expected no sooner than early Thursday morning. “We’re about to kick the baby bird out of its nest,” said JPL’s Kevin Burke, lead mechanical engineer for the rover’s egress off the lander.

The color panorama is a mosaic stitched from 225 frames taken by Spirit’s panoramic camera. It spans 75 frames across, three frames tall, with color information from shots through three different filters. The images were calibrated at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., home institution for Dr. Jim Bell, panoramic camera team leader.

Malin said, “Seeing the panorama totally assembled instead of in individual pieces gives a much greater appreciation for the position of things and helps in developing a sense of direction. I find it easier to visualize where I am on Mars when I can look at different directions in one view. For a field geologist, it’s exactly the kind of thing you want to look at to understand where you are.”

Another new image product from Spirit shows a patch of intriguing soil near the lander in greater detail than an earlier view of the same area. Scientists have dubbed the patch “Magic Carpet” for how some soil behaved when scraped by a retracting airbag.

“It has been detached and folded like a piece of carpet sliding across the floor,” said science-team member Dr. John Grotzinger of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.

Spirit’s next step in preparing to drive onto the surface of Mars is to sever its final connection with the lander platform by firing a cable cutter, which Burke described as “an explosive guillotine.” The planned sequence after that is a turn in place of 115 degrees clockwise, completed in three steps over the next two days. If no obstacles are seen from images taken partway through that turn, drive-off is planned toward the northwestern compass point of 286 degrees.

Spirit landed on Mars Jan. 3 after a seven-month journey. Its task is to spend the next three months exploring rocks and soil for clues about whether the past environment in Gusev Crater was ever watery and suitable to sustain life. Spirit’s twin Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, will reach Mars Jan. 24 PST (Jan. 25 Univeral Time and EST) to begin a similar examination of a site on a broad plain called Meridiani Planum, on the opposite side of the planet from Gusev Crater.

NASA JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA’s Office of Space Science, Washington. For information about NASA and the Mars mission on the Internet, visit: http://www.nasa.gov. Additional information about the project is available on the Internet at: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov. Mission information is also available from Cornell University, at: http://athena.cornell.edu.

Original Source: NASA/JPL News Release

Image credit: NASA/JPL

After several attempts to collapse the airbag which is blocking Spirit’s exit from the lander, controllers have given up that plan. Instead, they’ve decided to have the rover exit from one of the platform’s alternate ramps. In order to take this northeastern route, the rover will have to back up and then perform a three-point turn in the tight space. Controllers will also fire a pyro device which will sever an umbilical cord connecting the rover to the lander. If everything goes as planned, Spirit will roll off the lander on the evening of January 14.

NASA’s Spirit rover now has its arm and all six of its wheels free, and only a single cable must be cut before it can turn and roll off its lander onto the soil of Mars. As that milestone is completed, scientists are taking opportunities to take extra pictures and other data.

During the past 24 hours — the rover’s 8th martian day on the planet, or “sol 8” — pyro devices were fired slicing cables to free the rover’s middle wheels and releasing pins that held in place its instrumented arm. The arm was then locked onto a hook where it will be stowed when the rover is driving.

Because one airbag remains adjacent to the lander’s forward ramp, the rover will turn about 120 degrees to its right and exit the lander from the side facing west-northwest on the planet — also the direction of an intriguing depression that scientists have dubbed Sleepy Hollow.

Current plans call for the rover to complete that turn in three steps, said Arthur Amador, one of the mission managers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. As currently envisioned, during the coming martian day engineers will complete ground tests and execute dress rehearsals of the drive-off, or “egress.”

On sol 10 — the night of Monday-Tuesday, Jan. 12-13, California time — engineers expect to sever the umbilical cord that connects the rover to its lander by firing a pyro device, the last of 126 pyro firings since Spirit separated from its cruise stage shortly before landing on Jan. 4 (Jan. 3 in U. S. time zones). Also on that day, the rover will execute the first of three parts of its turn when it moves clockwise (as viewed from above) about 45 degrees.

After taking and analyzing pictures to verify the first part of the turn, engineers anticipate completing it on sol 11 (night of Tuesday-Wednesday, Jan. 13-14). First, the rover will turn an additional 50 degrees and stop to take pictures. Then, if all is well, it will turn a final 20 to 25 degrees to position it precisely in front of one of its three exit ramps.

If no issues crop up as those steps are completed, the rover could drive off onto the martian soil no earlier than sol 12 (night of Wednesday-Thursday, Jan. 14-15). “But we adjust our schedule every day, based on flight events, so this remains an estimate,” said Amador.

The rover’s status overall is “pretty darn perfect,” said Amador. He described the communication link from Mars to Earth as excellent, allowing the team to receive 170 megabits of data during the past day. All science data stored on the rover has been sent to Earth. The rover is generating 900 watt-hours of power per day and using 750 watt-hours, and its thermal condition is good, he added.

While engineers are completing and testing commands to execute the rover’s turn and egress, the science team is enjoying an “unexpected dividend” of time to collect data, said Dr. John Callas, Mars Exploration Rover science manager at JPL.

Until now, all science observations have been planned far in advance, but the unfolding schedule of rover activities gave the team the opportunity to do their first on-the-fly planning for observations driven by previous results, Callas explained. In doing so they segued to a working style that they will practice on a day to day basis as the rover rolls across the surface of its landing site in Gusev Crater, named the Columbia Memorial Station.

In the next 24 hours, the team will collect 270 megabits of science data, considerably more than on any previous martian day. This will include a high-quality, 14-color mosaic taken by the panoramic camera of a third of the horizon toward Sleepy Hollow, the direction in which the rover will leave its lander.

In addition, they plan to complete two remaining “octants” (each a pie slice showing an eighth of the horizon) with the rover’s miniature thermal emission spectrometer. These areas will also be rephotographed with the rover’s panoramic camera in order to allow the camera and spectrometer data to be co-registered. Plans also call for the spectrometer to “stare” at three selected sites to collect very low-noise data, as well as calibration of another science instrument, the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer.

Spirit’s twin Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, will reach Mars on Jan. 25 (Universal Time and EST; Jan. 24 PST). The rovers’ main task is to spend three months exploring for clues in rocks and soil about whether the landing sites may have had abundant water for long enough in the past for life to appear. Pictures and detailed information from the mission is available at the project’s Web site: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA’s Office of Space Science, Washington.

Original Source: NASA/JPL News Release

Image credit: Beagle 2

Mars Express has made several more attempts to reach the British-built Beagle 2 lander, and so far it hasn’t received any communications. At this point the European Space Agency will go into a phase of radio silence until January 22, when Beagle 2 is supposed to go into a new communications mode where it will attempt to transmit a signal throughout the Martian day. It’s expected that the teams will consider the probe a lost cause if it can’t be reached by March.

No signal was received from Beagle 2 this morning when ESA’s Mars Express orbiter passed over the landing site around 0220 GMT. Prof. Colin Pillinger, Beagle 2 Lead Scientist, was present at ESOC when the data came through and although the news was disappointing Prof. Pillinger was encouraged by the continued support and determination of the team at ESA’s mission control centre to continue the search. The next phase will be to initiate a period of radio silence where no communication attempts will be made with Beagle 2 until the 22 January. Adopting this approach will force Beagle 2 into communication search mode 2 [CSM2] where the probe will automatically transmit a signal throughout the Martian day [power is still conserved during the night].

The results from future communication attempts will be posted on the Beagle 2 and PPARC web sites.

Original Source: PPARC News Release

Image credit: NASA/JPL

NASA engineers confirmed today that the Spirit rover has successfully unfolded itself and “stood up” from its contracted travel position on the surface of Mars. The latest image taken by the rover shows its front wheels locked into the proper position. The lander’s airbag is still partially blocking the main exit ramp, so engineers are considering whether to continue trying to pull the airbag in, or use another ramp to roll off the lander. The second rover, Opportunity, is expected to arrive on Mars on January 24, 2004.

JPL engineers played Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up” in the control room as they watched new images confirming that the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit successfully stood up on its lander late Thursday night Pacific time, a major step in preparing for egress. This image from the rover’s front hazard avoidance camera shows the rover in the final stage of its stand-up process. The two wheels on the bottom right and left are locked into position, along with the suspension system. The martian landscape is in the background. With a deflated airbag partially blocking one exit route, engineers will decide whether Spirit should use a different route to roll off the lander.

Original Source: NASA/JPL News Release

Image credit: NASA/JPL

Engineers have found that Spirit’s landing on Mars didn’t go quite as smoothly as they’d hoped. It turns out that the protective airbags haven’t fully retracted, and could snag the rover’s solar panels as it tries to get off the landing platform. Their current plan is to lift up the landing flap, try to pull the airbag back in, and then drop the flap again. The rover sent home the first high-resolution stereo images from the surface of Mars, which have provided new details about the rover’s environment – an enticing target is a low hill approximately 2 km away which could show layers of sediment.

The engineers and scientists for NASA’s Spirit are eager to get the rover off its lander and out exploring the terrain that Spirit’s pictures are revealing, but caution comes first.

An added “lift and tuck” to get deflated airbag material out of the way extends the number of activities Spirit needs to finish before it can get its wheels onto martian ground.

“We’ll lift up the left petal of the lander, retract the airbag, then let the petal back down,” said Art Thompson, rover tactical uplink lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. This and other added activities have pushed the earliest scenario for roll-off to Jan. 14, and it could be later.

The first stereo image mosaic from Spirit’s panoramic camera provided new details of the landscape’s shapes, including hills about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) away that scientists are discussing as a possible drive target for the rover. The rover’s infrared sensing instrument, called the miniature thermal emission spectrometer, has begun returning data about the surroundings, too, indicating that it is in good health. Now, positive health reports are in for all of Spirit’s science instruments.

The rover carried out commands late Tuesday to pull in the cords to its base-petal airbags with three turns of the airbag retraction motor. “We got about a 5 centimeter (2 inch) lowering of the airbag to the left of the front of the lander, which is the one we’re most concerned about,” said JPL’s Arthur Amador, mission manager. “That airbag is still a little too high, and we’re concerned that we might hit it with our solar panel on the way down.”

The rover could also turn to roll off in a different direction, but the maneuver to lift a petal and pull airbags further under it is designed to improve conditions for exiting to the front.

“We have experienced a couple of hiccups, so we’re being very cautious about how we deal with them,” Thompson said. One concern from Sunday and Monday was resolved late Tuesday, when results of testing a motor that moves the high-gain antenna showed no sign of a problem.

“We’re chomping at the bit to get this puppy off the lander,” Thompson said.

Dr. Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., deputy principal investigator for the rover’s science instruments, said the science team gathered in Pasadena has been offering diverse theories for how the landscape surrounding Spirit was shaped, and anticipating ways to test the theories with the rover’s instruments.

“A lake bed is typically flat, with very fine-grain sediments,” Arvidson said. “That’s not what we’re looking at. If these are lake sediments, then they’ve been chewed up by impacts and rocks have been brought in.”

Besides looking forward to exploring away from the lander, the rover teams are looking forward to getting Spirit’s twin Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, safely landed on Mars. Atmospheric conditions in the region of Opportunity’s landing site are being monitored from orbit, said Dr. Joy Crisp, project scientist for both rovers. Information about the actual conditions Spirit experienced on its descent through Mars’ atmosphere are being compared with the conditions predicted ahead of time in order to refine the predictions for what Opportunity will experience.

Spirit arrived at Mars Jan. 3 (EST and PST; Jan. 4 Universal Time) after a seven-month journey. Its task is to spend the next three months exploring for clues in rocks and soil about whether the past environment at this part of Mars was ever watery and suitable to sustain life.

Spirit’s twin Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, will reach its landing site on the opposite side of Mars on Jan. 25 (EST and Universal Time; Jan. 24 PST) to begin a similar examination of a site on the opposite side of the planet from Gusev Crater.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA’s Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Additional information about the project is available from JPL at http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov and from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., at http://athena.cornell.edu.

Original Source: NASA/JPL News Release

Image credit: NASA/JPL

NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe announced on Tuesday that they plan to name the Spirit landing site in honour of the Columbia astronauts who lost their lives nearly a year ago. The place where Spirit landed in Gusev Crater will be called the Columbia Memorial Station. One image sent back by the rover shows a memorial plaque attached to Spirit’s high-gain antenna – the plaque is aluminum and approximately 15 cm across.

NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe today announced plans to name the landing site of the Mars Spirit Rover in honor of the astronauts who died in the tragic accident of the Space Shuttle Columbia in February. The area in the vast flatland of the Gusev Crater where Spirit landed this weekend will be called the Columbia Memorial Station.

Since its historic landing, Spirit has been sending extraordinary images of its new surroundings on the red planet over the past few days. Among them, an image of a memorial plaque placed on the spacecraft to Columbia’s astronauts and the STS-107 mission.

The plaque is mounted on the back of Spirit’s high-gain antenna, a disc-shaped tool used for communicating directly with Earth. The plaque is aluminum and approximately six inches in diameter. The memorial plaque was attached March 28, 2003, at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla. Chris Voorhees and Peter Illsley, Mars Exploration Rover engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., designed the plaque.

“During this time of great joy for NASA, the Mars Exploration Rover team and the entire NASA family paused to remember our lost colleagues from the Columbia mission. To venture into space, into the unknown, is a calling heard by the bravest, most dedicated individuals,” said NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe. “As team members gazed at Mars through Spirit’s eyes, the Columbia memorial appeared in images returned to Earth, a fitting tribute to their own spirit and dedication. Spirit carries the dream of exploration the brave astronauts of Columbia held in their hearts.”

Spirit successfully landed on Mars Jan. 3. It will spend the next three months exploring the barren landscape to determine if Mars was ever watery and suitable to sustain life. Spirit’s twin, Opportunity, will reach Mars on Jan. 25 to begin a similar examination of a site on the opposite side of the planet.

Original Source: NASA News Release

Image credit: ESA

The first opportunity for Mars Express to hear from Beagle 2 has come and gone, and so far, there’s just silence. The spacecraft passed over the anticipated landing area Tuesday, at 1213 UTC (7:13 am EST) and attempted to make contact with the lander. Several more attempts are planned for the coming days, and now that Mars Express has reached its operational orbit, there should be plenty of opportunities to hear from Beagle 2 if it’s still intact on the surface of Mars.

ESA?s Mars Express orbiter made its first attempt to establish contact with the Beagle 2 lander, after the two spacecraft separated on 19 December 2003.

The orbiter made its first pass over the Beagle 2 landing site today at 13:13 CET, but could not pick up any signal from the tiny lander. More attempts to contact Beagle 2 are planned in the days to come.

Beagle 2 was released on 19 December on a course towards the Red Planet by Mars Express, the mothership for the 400 million kilometre interplanetary cruise. Six days later it entered the Martian atmosphere and should have landed on the near-equatorial site of Isidis Planitia.

Since then, attempts to communicate with the lander through NASA?s Mars Odyssey orbiter and radio telescopes on Earth have been unsuccessful.

The Mars Express orbiter successfully entered Mars orbit at about the same time as Beagle 2?s landing. Then, in early January, it made a series of planned manoeuvres to change its equatorial orbit to a polar one, to prepare for its scientific mission and to make contact with Beagle 2.

Unlike Mars Odyssey and the radio telescopes, Mars Express has a communication system that was fully tested to contact Beagle 2, which gives ESA more confidence of picking up the signal in the coming days.

?We have not lost hope yet to contact Beagle 2, but we also know that it has landed on an unforgiving planet,? said David Southwood, ESA?s Director of Science.

?There are still opportunities to make contact with Beagle in the days to come, and we are giving our best efforts. Nevertheless, our spacecraft Mars Express has now reached its operational orbit and is working well; I know the science community is eagerly waiting for its first results.?

Original Source: ESA News Release

Well, here it is, the picture we’ve all been waiting for – the first colour image from the surface of Mars taken by Spirit. I can’t believe the resolution this rover has. I’ve taken a big chunk of the image and processed it to be a 1280 x 1024 wallpaper. To set this image as your desktop wallpaper, click the following link, and then right-click anywhere in the image and select “Set as Wallpaper”.

Click here to download the first colour image of Mars taken by Spirit. (156 KB)

If you want to access the original, high-resolution image from NASA, click here instead. I’ll warn you, though, it’s more than 4 MB… and that’s just the medium resolution version.

Enjoy!

Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today

Image credit: NASA/JPL

NASA scientists are chomping at the bit to get Spirit rolling, and they’ve already found what will probably become the rover’s first target: a nearby depression in the ground the scientists have called “Sleepy Hollow”. This shallow bowl could be an impact crater, and provide scientists with a deeper look into the structure of the Martian surface. Spirit’s next task is to extend its front wheels, which are curled up on the platform to give it a smaller size for the journey. Full colour pictures of Mars are expected later today.

“Sleepy Hollow,” a shallow depression in the Mars ground near NASA’s Spirit rover, may become an early destination when the rover drives off its lander platform in a week or so.

That possible crater and other features delighted engineers and scientists examining pictures from the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit’s first look around.

“Reality has surpassed fantasy. We’re like kids in a candy store,” said Art Thompson, rover tactical activity lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “We can hardly wait until we get off the lander and start doing fun stuff on the surface.”

A clean bill of health from a checkout of all three science instruments on Spirit’s robotic arm fortified scientists’ anticipation of beginning to use those tools after the rover gets its six wheels onto the ground.

Also, Spirit succeeded Sunday in finding the Sun with its panoramic camera and calculating how to point its main antenna toward Earth by knowing the Sun’s position.

“Just as the ancient mariners used sextants for ‘shooting the Sun,’ as they called it, we were successfully able to shoot the Sun with our panorama camera, then use that information to point the antenna,” said JPL’s Matt Wallace, mission manger.

Within sight of Spirit are several wide, shallow bowls that may be impact craters, said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, principal investigator for the spacecraft’s science payload. “It’s clear that while we have a generally flat surface, it is pockmarked with these things.

The mission’s scientists, who are getting little rest as they examine the pictures from Spirit, chose the name “Sleepy Hollow” for one of these circular depressions. This one is about 9 meters (30 feet) across and about 12 meters (40 feet) north of the lander, Squyres said.

“It’s a hole in the ground,” he said. “It’s a window into the interior of Mars.”

One of the next steps in preparing Spirit for rolling onto the soil is to extend the front wheels, which are tucked in for fitting inside a tight space during the flight from Earth.

Spirit arrived at Mars Jan. 3 (EST and PST; Jan. 4 Universal Time) after a seven month journey. Its task is to spend the next three months exploring for clues in rocks and soil about whether the past environment at this part of Mars was ever watery and possibly suitable to sustain life.

Spirit’s twin Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, will reach its landing site on the opposite side of Mars on Jan. 25 (EST and Universal Time; Jan. 24 PST) to begin a similar examination of a site on the opposite side of the planet from Gusev Crater.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA’s Office of Space Science, Washington. Additional information about the project is available from JPL at http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov and and from Cornell University at http://athena.cornell.edu.

Original Source: NASA/JPL News Release

Image credit: ESA

On January 7 and for the following three days, Mars Express will attempt to communicate with the missing Beagle 2 lander. Now that it’s modified its orbit, Mars Express will pass directly over the region that Beagle 2 was thought to have landed. Previous attempts to reach the lander have been unsuccessful; however, Mars Express and Beagle 2 have been extensively tested to communicate with one another. The first attempt will happen on January 7 at 1215 UTC (7:15 pm EST January 6). The European Space Agency will announce their results a few hours later.

As of Wednesday 7 January 2004, and for the following three days, ESA?s Mars Express orbiter will be as little as 315 kilometres above the landing area of the still-silent Beagle 2.

Since Christmas attempts to communicate with the tiny lander through NASA?s Mars Odyssey orbiter and radio telescopes on Earth have been unsuccessful. However, Mars Express and Beagle 2 are the only systems tested end-to-end, giving ESA more confidence of establishing contact with the lander in the coming days.

The Ultra High Frequency (UHF) receivers on Mars Express are ready to communicate with Beagle 2. On 7 January, at precisely 13:15 CET, ESA?s Mars Express orbiter will be in both an ideal flight path and an ideal communication configuration, right over the Beagle 2 landing area, at about 86 degrees, allowing ground controllers at ESA?s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, to catch the slightest beep from the Martian surface.

The results of this first search attempt will be announced at a press briefing at ESA/ESOC by David Southwood, Director of Science, Rudolf Schmidt, Mars Express Project Manager, and Michael McKay, Deputy Flight Director, starting at 16:00 CET.

Original Source: ESA News Release