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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.

Mars Rovers Using Air Force Lab Developed Batteries

Wright-Patterson - Jul 22, 2003 - As the Mars exploration rovers Spirit and Opportunity race toward the Red Planet, part of the Air Force Research Laboratory is soaring with them. The two rovers, expected to touch down and explore opposite sides of Mars in early 2004, are powered by rechargeable lithium-ion batteries researched and developed by experts at the laboratory's propulsion directorate. Spirit and Opportunity will act as robot geologists while on the surface of Mars.

Jul 22, 2003

Opportunity Resets Course To Mars

Pasadena - Jul 19, 2003 - NASA's Opportunity spacecraft made its first trajectory correction maneuver today, a scheduled operation to fine-tune its Mars-bound trajectory, or flight path.

Jul 19, 2003

Sixth International Mars Conference Set To Meet

Pasadena - Jul 16, 2003 - Next year, if all goes well, NASA's two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, along with the British rover Beagle 2, will begin streaming back reams of data about the Red Planet, much to the delight of Mars researchers everywhere.

Jul 16, 2003

A Dusty Rusty Old World Shines Silent Over Earth

Huntsville - Jul 10, 2003 - Something is happening on Mars and it's so big you can see it through an ordinary backyard telescope. On July 1st a bright dust cloud spilled out of Hellas Basin, a giant impact crater on Mars' southern hemisphere. The cloud quickly spread and by the Fourth of July was 1100 miles wide--about one-fourth the diameter of Mars itself.

Jul 10, 2003

Berkeley Team To Explore The Elements Needed To Support Martian Life

Berkeley - Jul 08, 2003 - Could life once have existed on planets other than Earth, perhaps on Mars? A team of researchers led by the University of California, Berkeley, has joined the quest to find the answer.

Jul 8, 2003

Mars Trio Will Consider Viking’s Confusing Leads On Mars Life

Moffett Field - Jun 30, 2003 - The milestone launch of NASA's latest Mars mission--called Spirit--along with the scheduled end-of-June launch for its twin--Opportunity--together, provide the impetus to revisit the remarkable journey of the earliest martian missions.

Jun 30, 2003

Odyssey Watches A Frosty Mars

Pasadena - Jun 30, 2003 - NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft is revealing new details about the intriguing, dynamic character of the frozen layers now known to dominate the high northern latitudes of Mars. The implications have a bearing on science strategies for future missions in the search of habitats.

Jun 30, 2003

Northrop Grumman Provides Navigation Systems For Mars Rovers

Woodland Hills - Jun 27, 2003 - NASA will depend once again on key navigational aids produced by Northrop Grumman when it launches its Mars Exploration Rovers and spacecraft planned for later this month. The mission will attempt to determine whether water once existed on the planet.

Jun 27, 2003

Rescheduling Of Some Beagle 2 Cruise Check-Out Tests

Paris - Jun 25, 2003 - The instruments on board ESA's mission to Mars, Mars Express, are in the process of being tested to verify that they have survived the launch successfully and will work properly. One of these tests on the Mars Express lander, Beagle 2, has been postponed to the first week of July 2003.

Jun 25, 2003

Surveyor Snaps A Phobos Exclusive

Pasadena - Jun 25, 2003 - Images from the Mars Orbiter Camera aboard NASA's Mars Global Surveyor capture a faint yet distinct glimpse of the elusive Phobos, the larger and innermost of Mars' two moons. The moon, which usually rises in the west and moves rapidly across the sky to set in the east twice a day, is shown setting over Mars' afternoon horizon.

Jun 25, 2003

Mars Exploration Rover-A Performs Trajectory Correction

Pasadena - Jun 22, 2003 - NASA's Spirit spacecraft, the first of twin Mars Exploration Rovers, performed its first trajectory correction maneuver Friday. Following commands from the Mars Exploration Rover flight team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., the spacecraft first performed a calibration and check of its eight thrusters, then fired the thrusters to fine-tune its flight path toward Mars.

Jun 22, 2003

Mars Shines Brightly In Midnight Sky

Huntsville - Jun 22, 2003 - Earth and Mars are converging for a close encounter in August. The red planet is already an appealing target for sky watchers. Count slowly: one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand.... You just got about 30 km closer to the planet Mars.

Jun 22, 2003

Japanese Mars Probe: Unlucky Guy Gets Second Chance

Berlin - Jun 20, 2003 - This year's Mars hunt should soon have a new participant: After five involuntarily idle years in space, the Japanese craft Nozomi will try an Earth swing-by this week when it passed Earth as close as 11,000 kilometers July 19 (at 14.43 GMT), and by using the Earth's gravity, was set on a new trajectory towards the red planet where it should arrive around New Year.

Jun 20, 2003

Roll Call For Next Flashline Crew

Pasadena - Jun 18, 2003 - The 2003 crew for the Flashline Mars Arctic Station has been chosen. The Mars Society announces that the upcoming four-week rotation at FMARS is the longest to date. At the site on Devon Island, the members of Crew 8 will simulate a long-term research mission to the planet Mars, studying the region around the Houghton Crater and living at the analog space station there.

Jun 18, 2003

Mars Rovers Underscore Rise Of Machines In Space Exploration

Pasadena - Jun 09, 2003 - On Monday, June 9th, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) project kicks off by launching the first of two unique robotic geologists. The identical rolling rovers see sharper images, can explore farther and examine rocks better than anything that's ever landed on Mars. Each rover can explore up to half a kilometer (just under one-third of a mile) away from their respective touchdown locations.

Jun 9, 2003

Odyssey Thermal Data Reveals a Changing Mars

Temple - Jun 09, 2003 - The first overview analysis of a year's worth of high-resolution infrared data gathered by the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) on NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft is opening Mars to a new kind of detailed geological analysis and revealing a dynamic planet that has experienced dramatic environmental change.

Jun 9, 2003