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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.

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

Rosetta Warms Up For Mars Swing-By

Paris France (ESA) Nov 30, 2006 - This month the team working on ESA's Rosetta mission have been particularly busy. Activities are underway to set the spacecraft's trajectory and prepare the on-board instruments ready for the next major mission milestone: the swing-by of planet Mars in February 2007.

Nov 30, 2006

Mars Express Preparing For Aphelion Season

Paris, France (ESA) Nov 28, 2006 - Mission Status: Early June saw the celebration of 3 years in space for Mars-Express. Most of the summer has been spent on preparing for, and actually entering the power wise very challenging eclipse/aphelion season. The specially designed Survival Mode (SUMO) was tested and so far successfully used to safely sail through the longest eclipses.

Nov 28, 2006

India Mulls Unmanned Mission To Mars By 2013

New Delhi, India (SPX) Nov 27, 2006 - Indian space scientists plan to send an unmanned mission to Mars by 2013 to look for evidence of life, a news report said on Sunday. The six-to-eight-month mission, likely to be launched in the next seven years, would cost three billion rupees (67 million dollars), the Hindustan Times reported.

Nov 27, 2006

China To Participate In Russian Flight To Phobos

Moscow (RIA Novosti) Nov 22, 2006 - China will participate in a Russian project to fly to a Martian moon, a deputy head of Russia's Federal Space Agency said Tuesday. An agreement is being prepared whereby a Chinese micro-satellite, worth some $1 billion, will be installed on the Russian station Phobos-soil, Yury Nosenko told a press conference.

Nov 22, 2006

Mars Global Surveyor Mission Ends In Triumph

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.

Nov 22, 2006

Mars Orbiter’s Decade-Long Mission Probably Over

Los Angeles (AFP) Nov 21, 2006 - The unexpectedly long 10-year-old mission of the Mars Global Surveyor probe is most likely over after contact with the orbiter was lost earlier this month, NASA said Tuesday. Scientists said they suspected a damaged solar panel had left the craft unable to communicate with Earth following its successful decade-long sojourn around the Red Planet.

Nov 21, 2006