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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.

Spirit Chalks Up Total Success With 90 Sols On Mars

Pasadena - Apr 06, 2004 - Spirit woke up on sol 91, which ended at 6:38 p.m. PDT on April 5, 2004, as if it were any other martian day, but this one was special. Finishing 90 sols of surface operations since landing day marked completion of the last of the official success criteria for Spirit's prime mission. The rover team at JPL had checked off the next-to-last box for mission success two days earlier, when a drive of 50.2 meters (165 feet) took Spirit's total travel distance over the 600-meter (1,969 feet) mark.

Apr 6, 2004

EADS Space Defines Mars Sample Return Mission

Portsmouth - Apr 05, 2004 - Following the award of the 600,000 Euro study contract by ESA, EADS Space has made significant progress in completing the first definition of a European Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission. While EADS Astrium is defining the overall mission and the spacecraft, EADS Space Transportation is responsible for the re-entry systems and a 'Mars Ascent Vehicle' - a small rocket to carry the precious sample up through the Martian atmosphere.

Apr 5, 2004

Spirit Finds Multi-Layer Hints Of Past Water At Mars’ Gusev Site

Pasadena - Apr 02, 2004 - Clues from a wind-scalloped volcanic rock on Mars investigated by NASA's Spirit rover suggest repeated possible exposures to water inside Gusev Crater, scientists said Thursday.

Apr 2, 2004

Human Exploration Of The Moon And Mars

Milton Keynes - Apr 01, 2004 - These are exciting times for space exploration. For the first time in a generation, human missions beyond Earth orbit are being seriously considered by space agencies on both sides of the Atlantic. Europe has initiated the Aurora programme, with the ultimate aim of landing people on Mars by 2033, while the US has recently redirected its human space activities towards a return to the Moon.

Apr 1, 2004

Mars Express Commissioning Almost Complete

Paris - Apr 01, 2004 - Since the last status report, the overall operational performance of the spacecraft and payload continued to be satisfactory. Some temporary problems were encountered with the Solid State Mass Memory (SSMM), which are currently under investigation.

Apr 1, 2004

Mars Express Confirms Methane In The Martian Atmosphere

Paris - Mar 31, 2004 - Observations from the ESA Mars Express spacecraft in orbit around Mars, methane have detected in its atmosphere. Whilst it is too early to draw any conclusions on its origin, exciting as they may be, scientists are thinking about the next steps to take in order to understand more.

Mar 31, 2004

Methane on Mars

Moffett Field - Mar 31, 2004 - Considered suggestive of life, an atmosphere of methane on another planet is considered one of the four best candidates for detecting habitable conditions using remote sensing and telescope spectrographs.

Mar 31, 2004

NASA Tests Computer ‘Mobile Agents’ And Helper Robot At Ames

Moffett Field - Mar 31, 2004 - NASA is testing intelligent 'mobile agent' software this week that some day may help astronaut-robot teams on Mars to communicate with Earth.

Mar 31, 2004

World’s Largest Postcard?

Paris - Mar 30, 2004 - The biggest postcard in the world does not fit into any known terrestrial letterbox. It measures 24 metres by 1.35 metres and shows a 3700-kilometre long, 166-kilometre wide strip of Martian landscape in south-north direction.

Mar 30, 2004

Around The Hills In 90 Sols

Pasadena - Mar 29, 2004 - After nearly three months working on Mars' time, a trimmed down engineering team plans to service the rovers' daily operation with a more terrestrial turn. According to Matt Wallace, a JPL mission manager, the staff likely to realize the benefits will be about three-quarters of what has manned the consoles round-the-clock since January: Next week, we transition off Mars' time. It has been a trying schedule.

Mar 29, 2004

Different Flavors Of Blueberries

Pasadena - Mar 29, 2004 - As the Opportunity rover left Eagle Crater, it took a retrospective look at the scientific treasures that its two month laboratory had presented. The rover landed in what looked from orbit to be a flat plain, but one rich in an iron oxide called hematite. No one knew exactly how the iron got there or why it was concentrated in an equatorial region the size of Oklahoma.

Mar 29, 2004

New Phase of Exploration Beginning for Mars Rovers

Pasadena - Mar 29, 2004 - NASA's Spirit will begin trekking toward hills on its eastern horizon in the next few days, entering a new phase of the rover's exploration of Mars just before its prime three-month mission ends and its extended mission begins, rover team members said today.

Mar 29, 2004

Martian Spiral Mystery At Poles Explained

Tucson AZ - Mar 26, 2004 - The spiral troughs of Mars' polar ice caps have been called the most enigmatic landforms in the solar system. The deep canyons spiraling out from the Red Planet's North and South poles cover hundreds of miles. No other planet has such structures.

Mar 26, 2004

Opportunity Finds Beachfront Property on Mars

Moffett Field - Mar 26, 2004 - The rocks in the outcrop that NASA's Opportunity rover has been exploring for the past several weeks were not just altered and modified by water; they were actually formed in water, perhaps [in] a shallow salty sea, NASA Associate Administrator Ed Weiler said Tuesday.

Mar 26, 2004

Rover and Track Makes Its Debut

Pasadena CA - Mar 26, 2004 - The engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, home of some of the best six-wheeled exo-atmospheric off-roaders anywhere, have really done it this time. Their 2004 series MERs (Mars Exploration Rovers) are jam-packed with so many cutting-edge technologies (several literally with cutting edges) it takes a stack of owner's manuals the height of a Sherman tank to do them justice.

Mar 26, 2004

Iron Blueberries

Moffett Field CA - Mar 24, 2004 - The story of water on ancient Mars just got more interesting. Scientists working on the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission announced last week that the small spherules of rock, referred to as blueberries, embedded in the bedrock outcrop near the Opportunity landing site contain the iron oxide hematite.

Mar 24, 2004