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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.

Opportunity Drives 140 Meters In One Day

Pasadena - Apr 16, 2004 - Three days after switching to new software with mobility-enhancing features, NASA's Opportunity shattered the record for a single day's driving on Mars. The rover covered 140.9 maters (462 feet) during its 82nd sol on Mars, ending at 2:15 p.m. PDT, Saturday, May 17. That is about 40 meters farther than either the best previous one-day drive, by Opportunity two weeks ago, or the total distance covered by NASA's smaller Sojourner rover during its entire three-month mission in 1997.

Apr 16, 2004

Red Planet, Misread Planet or, Wet Dreaming on Mars

White Cliffs - Apr 16, 2004 - If you find layered sediments, they do not have to be either water-transported or the outpourings of volcanoes. They may be aeolian, that is, wind-blown. On Mars, they may also be a bit strange. Those are simple facts that the Martian Wet Worlders seem to generally forget, or, more to the point, resolutely ignore. Those good folk will not contemplate the simple proposition that the surface of Mars has mostly been shaped by wind-driven erosion and transport.

Apr 16, 2004

Opportunity Wakes Up With Version B2

Pasadena - Apr 15, 2004 - Waking up to the Ramones' Teenage Lobotomy, Opportunity began operating with new flight software on its 79th sol on Mars, which ended at 12:16 p.m. PDT on April 14. Yestersol, the rover took daytime readings with its Moessbauer spectrometer on Jeff's Choice -- a soil target in the tailings of the trench that the vehicle dug on Sol 73.

Apr 15, 2004

Student Research May Help Astronauts Burn Fuel On Mars

Ann Arbor, Mich - Apr 15, 2004 - One of the big problems with space travel is that one cannot over pack. Suppose astronauts reach Mars. How do they explore the planet if they cannot weigh down the vessel with fuel for excursions?

Apr 15, 2004

Travel Across Mars With Free GeoPlayer

Washington - Apr 14, 2004 - GeoFusion, Inc., a leading innovator in geospatial visualization, announces GeoPlayer Mars, created with the high performance GeoMatrix Toolkit technology. This Interactive 3D Demo allows users to interactively fly around the planet of Mars which is comprised of global imagery and terrain derived from NASA/JPL data.

Apr 14, 2004

Spirit Reboots With New Software

Pasadena - Apr 14, 2004 - On Sol 98, which ended at 10:36 p.m. PST on April 12, Spirit woke up to the song Where Is My Mind? by The Pixies in honor of its software transplant. The good news is that Spirit's mind is updated and operating as expected.

Apr 14, 2004

Mars, King Of The Hill

Moffett Field - Apr 13, 2004 - As both rovers approach their third month resident on Mars, the mission planners have returned to Earth time. Both rover teams look to make rapid progress toward distant hills, with a possible second September extension continuing with any remaining mission science.

Apr 13, 2004

Scientists To Develop Organic Analyzer To Find Life On Mars

Berkeley CA - Apr 13, 2004 - The same cutting-edge technology that speeded sequencing of the human genome could, by the end of the decade, tell us once and for all whether life ever existed on Mars, according to a University of California, Berkeley, chemist.

Apr 13, 2004

Spirit Stands Down for Flight Software Update

Pasadena - Apr 13, 2004 - Spirit began a four-sol stand-down on sol 94, which ended at 8:37 p.m. on April 8, 2004. During this time, the rover will receive a flight software update that should make its remaining martian days even safer and more productive.

Apr 13, 2004

Twin Rovers Set For Extended Encore

Pasadena - Apr 08, 2004 - NASA has approved an extended mission for the Mars Exploration Rovers, handing them up to five months of overtime assignments as they finish their three-month prime mission.

Apr 8, 2004

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

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