A European Space Agency (ESA) mission that will arrive at Mars this month has American participants, and Europeans are team members for two NASA spacecraft that will reach Mars in January.
Paris - Dec 04, 2003 - Mars Express, ESA's first probe to Mars, still has some challenges to face. The spacecraft has successfully come through its first power test after the gigantic solar flare on 28 October.
Pasadena - Dec 03, 2003 - NASA'S robotic Mars geologist, Spirit, embodying America's enthusiasm for exploration, must run a grueling gantlet of challenges before it can start examining the red planet. Spirit's twin Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, also faces tough Martian challenges.
Paris - Dec 01, 2003 - The Mars Express spacecraft, despite a series of intense solar flares that occurred late October-early November in active sunspots regions, is in good health and is operating normally.
Moffett Field - Nov 25, 2003 - In an Interview with Bill Hartmann NASA's Astrobiology Magazine talks to one of the original scientists who had the opportunity to explore Mars through the eyes of our early robot explorers.
Tokyo - Nov 24, 2003 - It has been reported that Nozomi the Japanese made Mars exploration probe is to collide with Mars. This is not correct. The truth is that Nozomi will, if going as it is, approach Mars on December 14 by 894km passing above Martian surface at its closest approach, but there would not be excluded a theoretical possibility of colliding with Mars by more or less one percent, if we take the error of orbit determination into account.
Washington - Nov 24, 2003 - Herbert Hoover reputedly wanted a car in every garage and a chicken in every pot. Woodruff Sullivan would settle for a sundial in every backyard.
Pasadena - Nov 20, 2003 - NASA's Spirit spacecraft made its third trajectory correction maneuver on Friday, Nov. 14, fine tuning its flight path toward Mars with an engine-firing operation planned into the seven-month trip.
Los Angeles - Nov 17, 2003 - In a little over one month, the British built Beagle 2 exobiology lander will look for signs of extinct or extant life on the surface of Mars. Not since NASA's Viking mission 27 years ago has another search for life on Mars been attempted.
San Diego - Nov 17, 2003 - Newly seen details in a fan-shaped apron of debris on Mars may help settle a decades-long debate about whether the planet had long-lasting rivers instead of just brief, intense floods.
Tokyo - Nov 14, 2003 - Japan's leading national daily the Yomiuri Shimbun is reporting that the ill fated Nozomi explorer that is Japan's first Mars probe, is expected to crash into the red planet on Dec. 14 if it remains on its current course.
Paris - Nov 13, 2003 - What is the next best thing to humans landing on Mars and exploring the wonders of the Red Planet? The answer: touching, imaging and analysing carefully preserved samples of Martian rock in a state-of-the-art laboratory on Earth.
Pasadena - Nov 11, 2003 - Marsapalooza, part of NASA's Mars 2004 (M2K4) effort to promote the Mars Exploration Rovers mission and NASA Mars education initiatives, is a tour during which a team of youthful scientists and engineers (the M-Team) will visit five cities across the country to raise public literacy about the Mars mission, to reach out to students in underserved communities, and to present themselves as role models to inspire the next generation of explorers.
Pasadena - Nov 11, 2003 - The Planetary Society is mobilizing its members and the general public to write President Bush in support of a human space exploration program geared towards the ultimate goal of landing men and women on Mars.
Moffett Field - Nov 10, 2003 - A team of scientists from NASA, the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Louisiana State University and several other research organizations has discovered clues from one of Earth's driest deserts about the limits of life on Earth, and why past missions to Mars may have failed to detect life.
Pasadena - Nov 05, 2003 - A series of tests of one of the science instruments on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has enabled engineers and scientists to identify how to work around an apparent problem detected in August.
