Pasadena CA (SPX) Mar 11, 2006 - NASA mission controllers pronounced Opportunity healthy in their weekly update Saturday and said the rover was making its way south along traverse paths at the Payson outcrop of the crater named Erebus. The rover team calls the traverse paths half-pipes, after the Olympic event.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Mar 10, 2006 - NASA controllers confirmed Friday the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter had successfully completed its delicate orbital-insertion maneuver and had been nudged by the red planet's gravity into a perfect orbital trajectory. At the end of its 350-million-mile journey - which began last Aug. 12 – controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory received the signal at 5:25 p.m. Eastern Time that the MRO had attained a correct attitude to achieve a proper orbit.
Washington DC (SPX) Mar 10, 2006 - Tomorrow, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will reach Mars, having traveled 300 million miles since its launch on August 12, 2005. The next portion of its journey – Mars Orbit Insertion - will be difficult, says Doug McCuistion, NASA Mars Exploration Program Director.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 07, 2006 - Mars plays a mean defense. The red warrior has overwhelmed nearly two-thirds of all international spacecraft that have sought its mysteries. For NASA's latest encounter with Earth's testy neighbor, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter team will be going into battle armored with discipline, training and experience.
Washington DC (SPX) Mar 7, 2006 - The NOAA Space Environment Center, home to the nation's early warning system for solar storms, is assisting NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission as the satellite approaches its critical orbit insertion phase. The SEC is providing daily briefings to the NASA MRO Mission Operations Assurance Group as well as providing appropriate warnings and alerts of space weather.
Paris, France (SPX) March 6, 2006 - This image, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, shows the eastern scarp of the Olympus Mons volcano on Mars.
Pasadena CA (SPX) March 5, 2006 - New measurements from NASA's Spirit rover show the peak in the Columbia Hills formation of Gusev Crater on Mars called McCool - after astronaut Willie McCool - is about 85 feet (26 meters) taller than its neighbor, Husband, named after mission commander Rick Husband.
St. Louis MO (SPX) Mar 03, 2006 - Two Mars orbiter missions - one from NASA, the other from the European Space Agency (ESA) - will open new vistas in the exploration of Mars through the use of sophisticated ground-penetrating radars, providing international researchers with the first direct clues about the Red Planet's subsurface structure.
Pasadena CA (SPX) March 1, 2006 - NASA's Spirit recorded this view while approaching the northwestern edge of the formation Mars Exploration Rover mission controllers have named Home Plate, a circular plateau-like area of bright, layered outcrop material roughly 80 meters (260 feet) in diameter.
Atacama Desert, Chile (SPX) Feb 28, 2006 - In the March 2006 issue of IEEE Spectrum, staff editor Jean Kumagai reports on what she saw and heard while observing the field team last fall. The researchers come to the Atacama because, more than any other on Earth, it approximates the barren, arid rockiness of Mars. Their robot, dubbed Zoe, is far more sophisticated than the current crop of rovers. For one thing, it can run autonomously, without having a human driver constantly feeding it instructions.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Feb 27, 2006 - In a race to collect as much scientific data as possible before the onset of the Martian winter, Spirit climbed to the top of the formation in Gusev Crater called Home Plate and acquired images of the surrounding terrain. Each day, Spirit's instruments log a reduction in solar energy collected as the Sun sinks lower on the planet's northern horizon.
Paris, France (SPX) Feb 27, 2006 - This image, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, shows the Ausonia Mensa massif on Mars. The HRSC obtained the image during orbit 506 with a ground resolution of approximately 37.6 meters (122 feet) per pixel.
Washington, D.C. (SPX) Feb 25, 2006 - NASA mission controllers are preparing for a critical phase of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's 350-million-mile trajectory designed to rendezvous the spacecraft with the red planet on March 10.
Boston MA (SPX) Feb 23, 2006 - Astronomers said Thursday they have uncovered the first clear evidence that solar flares can affect the upper atmosphere of Mars. A team at Boston University said their studies of X-ray bursts from the Sun in April 2001 that reached Mars show the phenomena caused dramatic enhancements to the planet's ionosphere - the region where the Sun's ultraviolet and X-rays are absorbed by atoms and molecules in the atmosphere.
Raleigh NC (SPX) Feb 23, 2006 - Plants and animals are fragile life forms. Dry them out, freeze them, expose them to high doses of radiation - they don't do so well. But not all organisms are so picky. Many archaeans, for example, are distinguished by their ability to adapt to a variety of extreme environments. It's in their genes.
Darmstadt, Germany (SPX) Feb 21, 2006 - New images taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera aboard ESA's Mars Express spacecraft show the fast-moving shadow of the moon Phobos as it moved across the Martian surface.
