The new frontier of exploration.
Mars Daily Editorial Team
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.

Legacy Reports

Spirit Independently Approaches And Studies A Rock

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 06, 2007 - Spirit remains healthy after attempting to wrap up scientific studies on an outcrop that contains several tantalizing, high-silica targets. High-silica targets are of interest to scientists because water might have been involved in forming them. Spirit still has some work to do on two targets, known as Eileen Dean and Innocent Bystander, before moving on to the elevated, circular plateau known as Home Plate.

Jul 6, 2007
Legacy Reports

Dust Delays Mars Crater Entry

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 06, 2007 - A giant dust storm brewing for more than a week on Mars has become worse and is affecting surface operations of the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. Because the rovers depend on solar energy for survival, and the dust is partially blocking the sun, the storm is being watched closely by the rover scientists and engineers. Opportunity's entry into Victoria Crater is delayed for at least several days.

Jul 6, 2007
Legacy Reports

Seeking Mars Survival Secrets

Princeton NJ (SPX) Jul 06, 2007 - David Smith always wondered whether other planets might harbor life, so when he actually got the opportunity to investigate, he jumped at it. His decision launched him on a year-long mission, leading him to the Kennedy Space Center and back. Now, after months exploring whether Earth bacteria can survive on the surface of Mars, he has returned with findings that could help NASA plan better missions to the red planet.

Jul 6, 2007
Legacy Reports

Spirit Solar Power Levels Continue To Rise

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 06, 2007 - Spring cleaning continued on NASA's Spirit rover, as atmospheric turbulence on Mars cleared away more dust from the solar panels on the rover's 1,233rd sol, or Martian day, of exploration (June 22, 2007). As a result of this most recent dust-clearing event, Spirit out-produced the electrical energy of Spirit's twin, the Opportunity rover on the opposite side of Mars, by about 50 watt-hours. (That's the amount of electricity needed to burn a 50-watt light bulb for one hour.)

Jul 6, 2007
Legacy Reports

One Image Planned During Descent Of Phoenix

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 06, 2007 - Extensive testing of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander in preparation for an August launch has uncovered a potential data-handling problem in time to modify plans for use of a camera during the final minutes of arrival at Mars. The testing results led to a decision to take just one photograph with the spacecraft's Mars Descent Imager. The mission will still be capable of accomplishing all of its science goals. The issue is not the camera itself, which is capable of taking multiple downward-looking images of the landing area during the final three minutes of flight.

Jul 6, 2007
Legacy Reports

ESA Wants Space Pioneers For 520-Day Mars Experiment

Le Bourget, France (AFP) June 19, 2007 - The European Space Agency (ESA) on Tuesday called for applications for one of the most demanding human experiments in space history: a simulated trip to Mars in which six astronauts will spend 17 months in an isolation tank on Earth. Their spaceship will comprise a series of interlocked modules in an research institute in Moscow, and once the doors are closed tight, the volunteers will be cut off from all contact with the outside world except by a delayed radio link.

Jun 19, 2007
Legacy Reports

Simulating The Effects Of Martian Dust On The Phoenix Lander

Ann Arbor MI (SPX) Jun 15, 2007 - Gusting winds and the pulsating exhaust plumes from the Phoenix spacecraft's landing engines could complicate NASA's efforts to sample frozen soil from the surface of Mars, according to University of Michigan atmospheric scientist Nilton Renno. Set to launch Aug. 3 from Florida, the $414 million Phoenix Mars Lander will use descent engines to touch down on the northern plains, where vast stores of ice have been detected just below the surface.

Jun 15, 2007
Legacy Reports

Wandering Poles May Explain Ups And Downs Of Ancient Mars Shoreline

Berkeley CA (SPX) Jun 13, 2007 - A paper in this week's issue of Nature by University of California, Berkeley, geophysicists demolishes one of the key arguments against the past presence of large oceans on Mars. Even from Earth, a large plain surrounding the planet's north pole looks like a sediment-filled ocean basin. In the 1980s, Viking spacecraft images revealed two possible ancient shorelines near the pole, each thousands of kilometers long with features like those found in Earth's coastal regions.

Jun 13, 2007