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Editorial Team

Mars Daily Editorial Team

Editorial Team

The Mars Daily Editorial Team produces Mars Daily's coverage of Mars exploration and science. We report on rovers and orbiters, sample-return and human-Mars planning, and the geology, atmosphere and astrobiology of the Red Planet. Articles reflect our team's collective editorial process, source verification, drafting, technical review, and editing, rather than a single writer's work. Mars Daily takes editorial responsibility for content under this byline. For more on how we work, see our editorial policy.

NSF Awards Space@VT Grant To Improve Space Weather Understanding

Blacksburg VA (SPX) Aug 31, 2009 - Members of Virginia Tech's Space@VT research group are receiving a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to build a chain of space weather instrument stations in Antarctica. Space weather affects a variety of everyday consumer technologies including global positioning systems (GPS), satellites for television reception, and cellular phones. Also, the understanding of space weather is critical to space programs.

Aug 31, 2009

Opportunity Continues Meteorite Examination – Sol 1981-1987

Pasadena CA (SPX) Aug 31, 2009 - Opportunity is continuing its contact investigation of the 70-centimeter (28-inch) meteorite called Block Island.

Aug 31, 2009

Dust Storm Passing Over Spirit

Pasadena CA (SPX) Aug 28, 2009 - The amount of electricity generated by the solar panels on Spirit has been declining for the past several Martian days, or sols, as a regional dust storm moved southward and blocked some of the sunshine at Spirit's location. The team operating the rover has responsively trimmed Spirit's daily activities and is keeping an eye on weather reports from observations by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Aug 28, 2009

NASA Suggests Teaming Up With Russia For Mars Flight

Moscow, Russia (RIA Novosti) Aug 28, 2009 - The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has invited Russia to carry out a joint manned flight to Mars, the head of NASA's Moscow office said on Tuesday.

Aug 28, 2009

The AMASEing Adventure Continues

Moffett Field CA (SPX) Aug 25, 2009 - The sun was shining on the glaciers all day yesterday, giving us a chance to take some spectacular photos in between projects. It also resulted in an abundance of small icebergs let loose into the water in the bay, so we were treated to a flotilla of blue ice moving slowly past the windows of the Marinlab facility while we worked.

Aug 25, 2009

Second Test Rover Added To Driving Experiments

Pasadena CA (SPX) Aug 24, 2009 - A second, lighter-weight test rover has entered the testing setup at JPL where rover team members are assessing strategy for getting Spirit out of soft soil where it is embedded on Mars.

Aug 24, 2009

Block Island Offers More Opportunities For Closer Inspection

Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 21, 2009 - Opportunity is continuing its in-situ (contact) investigation of the 70-centimeter (28-inch) meteorite called Block Island.

Aug 21, 2009

Spirit Could Yet Rove For Many More Sols

Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 21, 2009 - Spirit has passed 2,000 sols on the surface of Mars, yet another milestone. Starting its third sol millennia, Spirit continues to profile the geology at the location where the rover is embedded, a site called Troy on the west side of Home Plate.

Aug 21, 2009

Spirit Hits 2000 Sols On Mars Duty

Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 20, 2009 - Today marks the 2,000th Martian day, or sol, of what was initially planned as a 90-sol mission on Mars for NASA's Spirit rover.

Aug 20, 2009

Spirit Hits 2000

Pasadena CA (SPX) Aug 19, 2009 - Today marks the 2,000th Martian day, or sol, of what was initially planned as a 90-sol mission on Mars for NASA's Spirit rover.

Aug 19, 2009

Roving The AMASEing Arctic

Moffett Field CA (SPX) Aug 18, 2009 - This is my first post to the blog about AMASE 2009. I am writing it from the Spitzbergen Guest house, a nice little accommodation place located in Nybyen at the southeast end of Longyearbyen (Svalbard), the place where part of the members of the AMASE expedition are staying before flying to Ny-Alesund. I am writing this blog while lying on bed because I am very tired...after a full week of work... however, the start of this trip could not have been better.

Aug 18, 2009

Planned Rover Test To Run A Week Or More

Pasadena CA (SPX) Aug 17, 2009 - Mars rover team members are planning a long-duration experiment with the test rover at JPL beginning next week. This test will check whether favorable motion seen in earlier tests can be sustained to gain as much distance in the sandbox as Spirit would need to complete on Mars to escape its predicament.

Aug 17, 2009

Mars Orbiter Shows Angled View Of Martian Crater

Tucson AZ (SPX) Aug 14, 2009 - The high-resolution camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has returned a dramatic oblique view of the Martian crater that a rover explored for two years.

Aug 14, 2009

Martian Dust Devil With Track And Shadow

Tucson AZ (SPX) Aug 14, 2009 - This telescopic view from orbit around Mars catches a Martian dust devil in action in the planet's southern hemisphere. The swirling vortex of dust can be seen near the center of the image. The shadow cast by this column of dust can be seen in the upper left while the dark track left by the passage of the dust devil is evident in the lower right.

Aug 14, 2009

AMASE 2009 Expedition Takes Off In The Arctic

Washington DC (SPX) Aug 12, 2009 - From August 1 to 24, 2009 AMASE (the Arctic Mars Analog Svalbard Expedition) will be taking place in Svalbard (Norway, 76-81 degrees N). This expedition involves different researchers from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, NASA/JPL, ESA, Cornell University, the Earth and Planetary Exploration Services (Norway), DLR (Germany), the University of Valladolid (Spain) and the University of Leeds (UK).

Aug 12, 2009

Orbiter Safe After Computer Swap

Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 12, 2009 - NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is in safe mode, a precautionary standby status, and in communications with Earth after unexpectedly switching to its backup computer on Thurs. Aug. 6.

Aug 12, 2009