Kategorie: Mars

Mars Exploration Rover Landing Site at Gusev Crater

Spirit @ Home Plate

Opportunity Rover at ‚Victoria Crater‘ on Oct. 3, Nov. 14 and Nov. 30, 2006

Viking Lander 1 (Thomas Mutch Memorial Station)

Viking Lander 2 (Gerald Soffen Memorial Station)

A new HiRISE image shows the landing site of the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. The prominent impact crater on the right-hand side of the image is „Endurance crater“ where Opportunity spent about ten months of its now nearly three-year mission. The bright irregularly-shaped feature in area „a“ of the image is Opportunity’s parachute, now lying on the martian surface. Near the parachute is the cone-shaped „backshell“ that helped protect Opportunity’s lander during its seven-month journey to Mars. Area „b“ of the image shows the impact point and the broken remnants of Opportunity’s heat shield. Area „c“ of the image shows „Eagle crater“, the small martian impact crater where Opportunity’s airbag-cushioned lander came to rest. The lander is still clearly visible on the floor of the crater.
Mars Exploration Rover Landing Site at Meridiani Planum

NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor has likely finished its operating career. The spacecraft has served the longest and been the most productive of any mission ever sent to the red planet.
The orbiter has not communicated with Earth since November 2nd. Preliminary indications are that a solar panel became difficult to pivot, raising the possibility that the spacecraft may no longer be able to generate enough power to communicate. NASA’s newest Mars spacecraft, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, pointed its cameras toward Mars Global Surveyor on Monday, but preliminary analysis of the images did not show any definitive sightings of a spacecraft.
Mars Global Surveyor launched on November 7, 1996, and began orbiting Mars on September 11, 1997. The mission started its primary mapping phase in April 1999. The original plan was to examine the planet for one Mars year, nearly two Earth years. Based on the value of the science returned by the spacecraft, NASA extended its mission four times.
Mars Global Surveyor revolutionized our view of the Martian surface. Among its accomplishments are its more than 240.000 pictures, offering the best high resolution view of the red planet to date.
Source: NASA

The European Space Agency (ESA) has elected to delay the launch of its next Mars mission, ExoMars, by two years. The decision gives ESA scientists extra time to test key technologies and to lobby for an expansion of the mission, which could almost double its cost. ExoMars is Europe’s first planned rover mission to Mars. Originally slated to launch in 2011, the mission will now blast off in 2013. The new launch date will allow ESA to spend more time refining technologies like airbags, supersonic parachutes, descent control, and stability systems. The rover’s drive systems and navigation controls are also likely to come under further scrutiny. The delay also gives mission planners time to expand the scope of the mission, something scientists have been pushing for since the mission was first mooted.
ExoMars @ ESA

An unexpected break in communications has NASA struggling to restore contact with its Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft. If communication cannot be restored soon, NASA may try to diagnose the problem by having another spacecraft, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), take pictures of MGS. MGS recently had its 10-year anniversary in space. It was launched on November 7, 1996, and has been orbiting Mars since September 1997. It has far outlasted its original mission, which ended in 2000. NASA has repeatedly extended its mission since then.
https://mars.nasa.gov/mgs/newsroom/20061107a.html

Yesterday, October 26, 2006, was Spirits 1.000th sol on Mars, that’s 910 sols longer than the mission was planned for. A sol is equal to 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35 seconds. The rover Spirit took a panorama of its winter home on the Martian surface. The 360-degree image is called the McMurdo panorama and comes from the Pancam on Spirit. The image approximates the natural colors on Mars.
Here’s the NASA story with a high resolution image of the McMurdo panorama:
‚McMurdo‘ Panorama from Spirit’s ‚Winter Haven‘

NASA’s twin Viking spacecraft may have missed signs of life during their examination of the Martian surface 30 years ago. Researchers now say that the landers‘ experiments were not sensitive enough to find life and in any case may not have been able to spot the strange forms that Martian life might take. The results from Vikings‘ onboard experiments are confusing because some tests suggested the presence of organisms capable of digesting organic molecules. But heating the soil with a gas-chromatograph mass spectrometer to release these organic molecules found nothing, causing most scientists to rule out life. Now, a paper by Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez of the University of Mexico and others demonstrates that the mass spectrometer onboard Viking was incapable of detecting organic compounds even in Mars-like soils from various locations on Earth. This includes Chile’s Atacama desert, where other tests prove that living microbes are indeed present, and samples taken from Rio Tinto in Spain, which contain iron compounds similar to those detected in Mars soils by the Mars Exploration Rover „Opportunity“.

The limitations on organic detection in Mars-like soils by thermal volatilization–gas chromatography–MS and their implications for the Viking results

Researcher Dr. Peterson, an expert in geological science and engineering, has discovered a mineral that could explain the mountainous landscape of Mars – and could have implications for NASA’s next mission to the Red Planet. Dr. Peterson suggests that Mars was likely wetter in the past. All of the images that are coming back from the rovers show layering in the rock which is indicative of sediment manipulated by water. This kind of out-wash would require a fair amount of water on the planet at some point. The discovery was made in Dr. Peterson’s unheated garage using epsomite, also known as Epsom salts. The solution was left to crystallize for several days at temperatures below freezing, which formed crystals that have unusual properties. The crystals were then rapidly melted, which created mould-like channels and gullies – similar to what we see on the surface of Mars. This indicates that Martian terrain may have been created in a similar fashion.

Crystal molds on Mars: Melting of a possible new mineral species to create Martian chaotic terrain

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Cydonia_s_Face_on_Mars_in_3D_animation

First results from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provide provocative new evidence that there were diverse watery habitats capable of supporting life on Mars eons ago. MRO is also finding evidence of recent Martian climate changes only hundreds of years apart that could influence Earth climate studies. MRO has already found unexpectedly narrow banding in the north Martian polar cap, providing a window into periods of rapid and somewhat recent climate change on Mars. The data could help researchers address issues such as global warming on Earth, where there’s debate about whether rapid climate changes are affected by human activity, which is no factor on Mars. The spacecraft’s high-resolution cameras are starting to be focused on several thousand preplanned Martian targets to answer specific questions, in addition to seeking new targets. Some geologic features showing up in HiRISE imagery never seen before on Mars from an orbiter are: small-scale features like joints in rocks where rocks have fractured but not moved apart; evidence for water flow along some of those joints; rocks and boulders at scales smaller than ever seen before; much smaller water gullies than previously seen.
Press Release

HiRISE Images