The new frontier of exploration.

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.

NASA Mars Team Teaches Old Rovers New Tricks to Kick Off Year Four

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 29, 2006 - NASA's twin Mars rovers, nearing the third anniversary of their landings, are getting smarter as they get older. The unexpected longevity of Spirit and Opportunity is giving the space agency a chance to field-test on Mars some new capabilities useful both to these missions and future rovers. In addition to their continuing scientific observations, they are now testing four new skills that were included in revised flight software uploaded to the rovers' onboard computers.

Dec 29, 2006

Spirit Tests New Computer Smarts

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 27, 2006 - Spirit is healthy and conducting scientific analysis of a rock target known as Palma. During the past week, Spirit tested some new software sequences, including a watch for dust devil command and an automatic placement command. On the rover's 1052nd Martian day, or sol, of exploring Mars (Dec. 18, 2006), Spirit ran part of the dust devil watch, acquiring six images during the process, but did not run the dust-devil detection part of the program. Rover handlers planned to rerun the test on sol 1058 (Dec. 24, 2006).

Dec 27, 2006

Peeling Back The Skin Of Mars Meter By Meter

Paris, France (ESA) Dec 27, 2006 - Scientists are finding an older, craggier face of Mars buried beneath the surface, thanks to pioneering sounding radar co-sponsored by NASA aboard the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft. Observations by the first project to explore a planet by sounding radar strongly suggest that ancient impact craters lie buried beneath the smooth, low plains of Mars' northern hemisphere. The technique uses echoes of waves that have penetrated below the surface.

Dec 27, 2006

ESA Polls Stakeholders To Inform Its Long-Term Exploration Strategy

Paris, France (ESA) Dec 20, 2006 - Early next year in the historic town of Edinburgh, ESA and BNSC are to hold a workshop to kick off the first in a series of consultations with key stakeholders. The aim is to define European long-term strategy for space exploration and set the scene for the decisions to be taken at the ESA Council meeting at ministerial level scheduled for 2008.

Dec 20, 2006

Opportunity Looks For Entry Point Into Crater

Pasadena CA (SPX) Dec 20, 2006 - Opportunity is healthy and driving toward Bottomless Bay to gather data on whether this would be a suitable future entry point into Victoria Crater. The rover will continue traversing the crater rim and collecting images of the cliff walls. On Dec. 6, 2006, corresponding to the 1020th sol, or Martian day, of Opportunity's mission on the surface of Mars, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter entered safe mode, a protective state during which only those systems vital to the orbiter's health continue to operate.

Dec 20, 2006

Latest Spirit Update – Relay Link Restored After Orbiter’s Recovery

Washnington DC (SPX) Dec 19, 2006 - After Spirit drove on sol 1041 (Dec. 7, 2006), NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter went into safe mode before the rover's could relay data to Earth about results of the drive. (Safe mode is a protective state during which only the systems essential to spacecraft health continue operating. This incident of Odyssey temporarily going into safe mode has been attributed to a burst of solar activity.)

Dec 19, 2006

Geologists Finding A Different Mars Underneath

Pasadena CA (SPX) Dec 14, 2006 - With results that the principal investigator of the Mars Express MARSIS radar, Giovanni Picardi, from the University of Rome 'La Sapienza', describes as unprecedented, Mars is showing scientists that it has an older, craggier face buried beneath its surface. The results were obtained by MARSIS, the pioneering sounding radar on board ESA's Mars Express orbiter, and provide important new clues about the still mysterious geological history of Mars.

Dec 14, 2006

NASA Spacecraft Read Layered Clues To Changes On Mars

San Francisco CA (SPX) Dec 14, 2006 - Some of the first radar and imaging results from NASA's newest Mars spacecraft, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, show details in layers of ice-rich deposits near the poles. Observed variations in the layers' thickness and composition will yield information about recent climate cycles on the red planet.

Dec 14, 2006

Spirit Slowly Resumes Driving On Martian Terrain

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 13, 2006 - Despite a non-functioning right front wheel, Spirit is healthy and on the move. The rover completed short drives on Martian days, or sols, 1039 (Dec. 5, 2006) and 1041 (Dec. 7, 2006) on its way toward a rock target informally named Esperanza.

Dec 13, 2006

Spacecraft Fleet Zeroing In On Martian Water Reserves

Paris, France (ESA) Dec 11, 2006 - The discovery of bright deposits on Mars could indicate that liquid water has recently flowed on a few locations on the planet. The new data help planetary scientists involved with several missions orbiting the Red Planet focus their quest to understand the Martian water cycle.

Dec 11, 2006

Opportunity Reaches Six-Mile Mark At Bottomless Bay

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 11, 2006 - Opportunity is healthy and wrapping up imaging of Bottomless Bay (Bahia sin Fondo) at Victoria Crater. On Sol 1016, Opportunity arrived at Bottomless Bay and began making science observations. Opportunity also performed step one of a series of checkouts of its new capability for more autonomous assessment of where it is safe to place its robotic arm. This test did not involve any arm motion.

Dec 11, 2006

NASA Images Suggest Water Still Flows In Brief Spurts On Mars

Washington DC (SPX) Dec 07, 2006 - NASA photographs have revealed bright new deposits seen in two gullies on Mars that suggest water carried sediment through them sometime during the past seven years. These observations give the strongest evidence to date that water still flows occasionally on the surface of Mars, said Dr. Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program, Washington.

Dec 7, 2006

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Images Spirit Atop Columbia Hills

Washington DC (SPX) Dec 06, 2006 - New images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show three additional NASA spacecraft that have landed on Mars: the Spirit rover active on the surface since January 2004 and the two Viking landers that successfully reached the surface in 1976. The orbiter's high-resolution camera took a dramatic photograph of Spirit's twin rover, Opportunity, at the edge of a Martian crater two months ago.

Dec 6, 2006

Spirit Slowly Begins Driving Again

Pasadena CA (SPX) Dec 06, 2006 - Spirit is healthy and preparing to drive away from the rover's winter station after completing scientific investigation of a rock nicknamed King George Island. The rock, according to principal investigator Steve Squyres, contains some of the best-rounded grains ever seen in a Martian rock. Scientists will try to determine how the grains formed -- perhaps with help from wind or water.

Dec 6, 2006

Opportunity Tests New Driving Software And Helps Its Sister Spacecraft

Pasadena CA (SPX) Dec 04, 2006 - Opportunity is healthy and making progress imaging Victoria Crater. Sol 1002 began with a short drive to the edge of Cape St. Mary in order to take better images of the northeast side of Cape Verde. On Sols 1005 and 1006 (Nov. 21 and 22, 2006), Opportunity participated in efforts to recover communications with NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter, which had not communicated with Earth for more than two weeks at that point.

Dec 4, 2006

HiRISE Team Begins Releasing A Flood Of Mars Images Over the Internet

Phoenix AZ (SPX) Nov 30, 2006 - The University of Arizona-based team that operates the high-resolution camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, in conjunction with NASA, is releasing the first of what will be a non-stop flood of incredibly detailed Mars images taken during the spacecraft's two-year primary science mission.

Nov 30, 2006