Washington (AFP) Jan 2, 2006 - Nearly two years after landing on the Red Planet, NASA exploration rovers Spirit and Opportunity continue to send back amazing images and information about Mars in a mission long outpacing expectations.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 28, 2005 - This week Spirit drove to an outcrop area informally named Algonquin. On sol 685, Spirit successfully drove for 15 meters (49 feet) and prepared for a series of robotic-arm activities planned for sol 687 to 690 at Algonquin. Plans are to proceed downhill to Comanche after that.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Dec 27, 2005 - This week the Opportunity Instrument Arm Anomaly Team continued investigating the safety of different arm positions. The intent is to determine the safest position to leave the arm while the vehicle drives to new locations.
Tempe AZ (SPX) Dec 23, 2005 - Geologic features at the Opportunity landing site on Mars were formed not by a lake that evaporated but by constant strikes from meteorites, say two Arizona State University geologists.
Boulder CO (SPX) Dec 23, 2005 - A region of Mars that some planetary scientists believe was once a shallow lakebed and likely habitable for life may not have been so wet after all, according to a new University of Colorado at Boulder study.
London (AFP) Dec 20, 2005 - Two years after it disappeared, the British boffins behind the Beagle 2 mission to plant an unmanned robot laboratory on the surface of Mars have come up with a strong hypothesis to explain its fate.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 16, 2005 - Opportunity successfully deployed its robotic arm on sol 671 (Dec. 13, 2005) and used it to position the microscopic imager. The cause of a shoulder-joint motor stall during an attempt to deploy the arm on sol 654 appears to be a broken wire in the motor windings.
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 15, 2005 - NASA's Mars rover Opportunity managed to extend its robotic arm Tuesday and touch a rock outcrop in the Erebus Crater location with one of its scientific instruments, overcoming a shoulder joint motor problem that had prevented use of the arm since November 25.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 15, 2005 - In late November 2005 while descending Husband Hill, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit took the most detailed panorama so far of the Inner Basin, the rover's next target destination.
Berkeley CA (SPX) Dec 15, 2005 - A University of California, Berkeley, study of methane-producing bacteria frozen at the bottom of Greenland's two-mile thick ice sheet could help guide scientists searching for similar bacterial life on Mars.
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 14, 2005 - The Mars Journal, a new peer-reviewed online open-access scholarly journal, has published its first two papers. The first paper is a 4-page editorial entitled The Mars Journal by David A. Paige of the Dept. of Earth and Space Sciences, UCLA, and Chief Editor of The Mars Journal.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 14, 2005 - This week Spirit drove to an outcrop area informally named Algonquin. On sol 685, Spirit successfully drove for 15 meters (49 feet) and prepared for a series of robotic-arm activities planned for sol 687 to 690 at Algonquin. Plans are to proceed downhill to Comanche after that.
Santa Barbara CA (SPX) Dec 14, 2005 - The European Space Agency announced Monday support of a new program that will include development of an instrument for testing deep soil samples on Mars in a European mission called ExoMars. A researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara will direct the development of the instrument.
Pasadena CA (JPL) dDec 14, 2005 - Seemingly touched with a load of luck from the giddy-up, Opportunity has been galloping since she strutted off of her lander, some 670 sols ago. A mission planned for 90 days has turned into an adventure that's lasted nearly two Earth years!
Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 13, 2005 - Opportunity is currently parked at Erebus Crater, where it has continued remote-sensing science while the team made progress in diagnosing why a motor in the robotic arm stalled on sol 654.
Berkeley CA (SPX) Dec 13, 2005 - Auroras similar to Earth's Northern Lights appear to be common on Mars, according to physicists at the University of California, Berkeley, who have analyzed six years' worth of data from the Mars Global Surveyor.
