Washington - May 19, 2003 - Students from North Carolina State University (NCSU) are helping NASA expand the exploration of the surface of Mars. The team of students and researchers has designed a wind-powered rover that can be blown, like tumbleweed, across the surface of the Red Planet collecting atmospheric and geological samples at multiple locations.
Toronto - May 19, 2003 - Scientists estimated that in five billion years the sun will become a red giant, swallowing up Earth and everything else in its path. Darlene Lim, a PhD student in geology and an expert on Mars exploration, is planning ahead.
Manassas - May 07, 2003 - Aurora Flight Sciences Corp. has received an order from the NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., for a full-scale prototype of a proposed Mars airplane. The aircraft is being built as part of the Mars Scout Aerial Regional-Scale Environmental Survey (ARES) project of which Dr. Joel S. Levine is the Principal Investigator.
Huntsville - May 02, 2003 - Tomorrow a high-altitude balloon will rise to the edge of space, bringing with it a small glider. Under the space-black sky 100,000 feet above Earth, the glider will sprout a pair of inflatable wings from its sides. Ultraviolet rays from the Sun will harden them to flight readiness.
Pasadena - Apr 30, 2003 - A live interactive broadcast and webcast on May 1 will offer an advance look at NASA's plans to land two robotic geologists on Mars in January 2004 -- the Mars Exploration Rover mission.
Moffett Field - Apr 28, 2003 - The Beagle 2 project is the British-led effort to land on Mars as part of the European Space Agency's Mars Express Mission to be launched in June 2003. As a result of the relative positions of Mars and Earth in 2003, a launch during this window offers the shortest journey, the minimum transit time, allowing the maximum payload with the reduced fuel requirements.
Dublin - Apr 22, 2003 - Until the last few years, Mars has been regarded as a cold, arid world that lost most of its water long ago. However, recent observations by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey spacecraft have provided tantalising evidence that huge amounts of water may be hidden just below the surface.
London - Apr 17, 2003 - Mars Express, the European Space Agency's mission to Mars, is due to launch from Baikonur in Kazakstan in June 2003 (launch window is 1st to 23rd June). This week scientists involved in both the orbiter and lander will meet together in London to finalise and co-ordinate scientific operations between these two elements of the mission - a community of European scientists linked by their mutual desire to reveal the secrets of the mysterious Red Planet.
Pasadena - Apr 14, 2003 - NASA has chosen two scientifically compelling landing sites for twin robotic rovers to explore on the surface of Mars early next year. The two sites are a giant crater that appears to have once held a lake, and a broad outcropping of a mineral that usually forms in the presence of liquid water.
South Bend - Apr 11, 2003 - The loss of the shuttle Columbia on February 1 has triggered an extensive re-examination of the space program by supporters and pundits alike. It has also stimulated renewed popular interest in a range of schemes for accelerating space exploration-especially for sending humans to Mars-some of which appear to be panaceas of little immediate practical value.
Pasadena - Apr 08, 2003 - The winds of Mars leave their marks on many of the 11,664 new pictures being posted on the Internet today by the camera team for NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) mission.
Tokyo - Apr 07, 2003 - The Japanese Mars exploration mission Nozomi launched on July 4, 1998, is now cruising in interplanetary orbit, and on target for a final flyby of Earth ahead of insertion into Mars orbit at the end of 2003.
Richmond - Apr 01, 2003 - Canada's MD Robotics has been awarded a $150,000 study contract by the Canadian Space Agency for the Canadian contribution to a US-led Phoenix Mars Scout mission.
Sydney - Mar 25, 2003 - An international team of scientists, engineers and support personnel has just completed a month-long increment on the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in south-west Utah; conducting research and testing systems, technology and hardware which may pave the way towards sending humans to Mars.
Paris - Mar 25, 2003 - Are we alone, or is there life beyond Earth? Has life ever existed on Mars? The European Space Agency (ESA) is now offering scientists a rare opportunity to answer these fundamental questions that have intrigued mankind for centuries.
Paris - Mar 20, 2003 - Mars Express, the first European spacecraft to visit the planet Mars, has completed its tests at Toulouse, France. After six months extensive thermal environmental, mechanical and electric tests, the spacecraft with the Beagle 2 lander will leave for Baikonur, Kazakhstan on 19 March 2003 onboard an Antonov 124 aircraft. It will be launched early June 2003 onboard a Russian Soyuz-Fregat rocket.
