Gottingen, Germany (SPX) Oct 28, 2009 - Is the Earth the only place in our Solar System on which living organisms exist? Is there, for example, life on Mars? The goal of the European space mission ExoMars is to resolve this question. To this end, the atmosphere on Mars is being simulated at the German Aerospace Center in Gottingen.
Moscow, Russia (XNA) Oct 28, 2009 - The future Mars manned exploration projects will only become true by using nuclear energy, said President and Chief Designer of Russia's Energia Aerospace Corporation Vitaly Lopota here on Monday.
Moscow, Russia (RIA Novosti) Oct 28, 2009 - The Russian Institute of Medical and Biological Problems continues to recruit volunteers for participation in a 520-day simulation of an expedition to Mars, the institute said Monday.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Oct 27, 2009 - Spirit has recovered from X-band fault and is using her steerable high-gain antenna (HGA) normally. The clearing of the X-band fault was to occur on Sol 2056 (Oct. 15, 2009), but a Deep Space Network (DSN) station outage at the last minute prevented the commands from reaching the rover.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Oct 26, 2009 - Opportunity surveyed another meteorite and has been driving ambitiously to the west and south to get around a field of large ripples. On Sol 2038, Opportunity circumnavigated a meteorite called Mackinac, conducting mid-drive imagery of the rock, then drove away covering about 70 meters (230 feet) to the southwest.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Oct 21, 2009 - Engineers using test rovers on Earth to prepare for extracting the sand-trapped Spirit rover on Mars have added a new challenge to their preparations.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Oct 20, 2009 - Spirit is still in X-band fault mode due to a high-gain antenna (HGA) dynamic brake anomaly that first occurred back on Sol 2027 (Sept. 15, 2009) and has re-occurred most recently on Sol 2052 (Oct. 11, 2009). With the HGA fault, all X-band uplinks use the low-gain antenna (LGA) and uplink bandwidth is limited.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Oct 19, 2009 - Opportunity completed its survey of the meteorite called Shelter Island. On Sol 2029 (Oct. 8, 2009), the rover completed the in-situ (contact) science campaign on the meteorite's surface with a microscopic imager (MI) mosaic and an alpha particle X-ray spectrometer (APXS) placement for integration.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Oct 12, 2009 - Spirit is still currently in X-band fault mode due to a high-gain antenna (HGA) dynamic brake anomaly that first occurred on Sol 2027 and recurred again on Sol 2037. With this HGA fault, all X-band uplinks use the low-gain antenna (LGA), and uplink bandwidth is very limited.
Bonn, Germany (SPX) Oct 12, 2009 - The High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) operated by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) on board the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter imaged Daedalia Planum, a sparsely cratered, untextured plain on the Red Planet, featuring solidified lava flows of varying ages.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Oct 12, 2009 - Opportunity has discovered another large (0.5-meter) meteorite. The rover began the approach to this new meteorite, called Shelter Island, with a 28-meter backward drive on Sol 2022.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Oct 06, 2009 - NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found a rock that apparently is another meteorite, less than three weeks after driving away from a larger meteorite that the rover examined for six weeks.
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Oct 02, 2009 - They haven't yet figured out how to draw blood from stones, but a group of French researchers is offering new insight that could change how scientists search for signs of life in Martian rocks.
Beijing, China (XNA) Oct 02, 2009 - China's first Mars probe mission will be delayed because of Russia's decision to postpone the launch of its mission to the Martian moon Phobos from next month to the year 2011.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Oct 01, 2009 - Spider-shaped features in the south polar region of Mars are carved by vaporizing dry ice in a dynamic seasonal process. This image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter includes several of the distinctive features in an area 1.2 kilometers (three-fourths of a mile) wide.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Sep 29, 2009 - Spirit is recovering from the high-gain antenna (HGA) anomaly that occurred on Sol 2027 (Sept. 15, 2009). The HGA problem is suspected to be an apparent intermittent behavior in the dynamic brake relay for the HGA actuators, a problem that has been seen and mitigated before in other rover actuators.
