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.
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.
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 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.
Pasadena - Mar 07, 2003 - New information about what is inside Mars shows the Red Planet has a molten liquid-iron core, confirming the interior of the planet has some similarity to Earth and Venus.
KSC - Feb 26, 2003 - The first of two Mars Exploration Rovers, MER-2 arrived at the Kennedy Space Center today from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The cruise stage, aeroshell and lander for the Mars Exploration Rover-1 mission also arrived today. This same flight hardware for the MER-2 rover arrived January 27, however this rover is scheduled to arrive at KSC around March 10.
Pasadena - Feb 20, 2003 - Images from the visible light camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, combined with images from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, suggest melting snow is the likely cause of the numerous eroded gullies first documented on Mars in 2000 by Global Surveyor.
Denver - Feb 17, 2003 - While some researchers believe that only asteroid collisions made Mars warm enough to have running rivers, a Penn State researcher believes the planet had to be continuously warmer to form Mars' deep valleys, but he does not know how the planet warmed up.
