Moffet Field (SPX) Jun 07, 2004 - Mars has only a faint atmosphere [less than one percent of terrestrial pressures], yet offers up its history of dust devils as swirling tracks in a remarkable landscape of wind-swept and carved terrain. These tiny twisters tend to appear in the middle afternoon on Mars, when solar heating is maximum and when warm air rises and collides with other pressure fronts to cause circulation.
Moffet Field (SPX) Jun 07, 2004 - More than a month into bonus time after a successful primary mission on Mars, NASA's Spirit rover has sighted possibly layered rock in hills just ahead, while twin Opportunity has extended its arm to pockmarked stones on a crater rim to gather clues of a watery past.
Washington (UPI) Jun 04, 2004 - NASA mission controllers must make some key decisions as the twin Mars exploration rovers sit poised at critical junctures in their operational lives.
Pasadena (JPL) Jun 04, 2004 - NASA has decided the potential science value gained by sending Opportunity into a martian impact crater likely outweighs the risk of the intrepid explorer not being able to get back out.
Pasadena (JPL) Jun 02, 2004 - More than a month into bonus time after a successful primary mission on Mars, NASA's Spirit rover has sighted possibly layered rock in hills just ahead, while twin Opportunity has extended its arm to pockmarked stones on a crater rim to gather clues of a watery past.
Evanston Ill (SPX) Jun 02, 2004 - A bowl of blueberries by the thousands, a rock called Lion Stone, dunes of red sand, the shoreline of a salty sea, wind-sculpted volcanic rock -- all of these features of the Martian landscape come to three-dimensional life for faculty and students when they don their 3-D glasses and step into the Visualization Laboratory at Northwestern University.
Pasadena (JPL) May 31, 2004 - NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit used its panoramic camera to take the images that make up this full-resolution mosaic of the Columbia Hills.
Pasadena (JPL) May 30, 2004 - NASA's solar-powered Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is beginning on Thursday what controllers expect to be frequent use of an overnight deep sleep mode to stretch the robot's power supply.
Pasadena (JPL) May 27, 2004 - NASA's solar-powered Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is beginning on Thursday what controllers expect to be frequent use of an overnight deep sleep mode to stretch the robot's power supply.
Edmonton (SPX) May 26, 2004 - As if getting to Mars wasn't hard enough, astronauts also have to worry about what to wear when they arrive. Their concerns are not fashion pundits but exposure to micrometeor sandstorms, radiation, and a hyper-cold climate.
Pasadena CA - May 25, 2004 - Like a sweet, older sibling standing quietly to the side as the baby of the family gets all the ooh's and aah's, the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter has blended into the background noise of cheers for the Mars Exploration Rover discoveries.
Paris (ESA) May 25, 2004 - The Mars Express spacecraft, carrying the Beagle 2 lander, was launched on 2 June last year, arriving in the vicinity of Mars in December. The separation of Beagle 2 from Mars Express occurred on 19 December. The satellite continued its mission with its successful insertion into a Mars orbit on 25 December, the day on which Beagle 2 was due to land. London (UPI) May 24, 2004 The public may never be told why Britain's first Martian probe - Beagle 2 - disappeared last Christmas as it was about to land on Mars.
Paris (ESA) May 25, 2004 - The Mars Express spacecraft, carrying the Beagle 2 lander, was launched on 2 June last year, arriving in the vicinity of Mars in December. The separation of Beagle 2 from Mars Express occurred on 19 December. The satellite continued its mission with its successful insertion into a Mars orbit on 25 December, the day on which Beagle 2 was due to land.
Moffett Field (SPX) May 24, 2004 - Dr. William L. Red Whittaker is a principal scientist with the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He is also director of the Field Robotics Center, which he founded in 1986. Projects under his direction include unmanned robots to explore planetary surfaces and volcano interiors, and autonomous land vehicle navigation. Some of this work is funded by NASA's ASTEP (Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploration of Planets) and the Mars Technology Program.
Pasadena CA (SPX) May 24, 2004 - NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has begun sampling rocks blasted out from a stadium-sized impact crater the rover is circling, and the very first one may extend our understanding about the region's wet past.
Moffett Field (SPX) May 24, 2004 - To the Presidential Commission on Moon, Mars and Beyond, Dr. Marianne Frey, Professor Emeritus School of Aerospace Medicine, Wright State University, presented her views about the challenges to long-duration human exploration of the moon and Mars
