Mars Lives.

[BridgeTroll]

We are 30 days from the landing attempt...

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1241

Curiosity Rover on Track for Early August Landing

MARS SCIENCE LABORATORY MISSION STATUS REPORT

PASADENA, Calif. -- A maneuver on Tuesday adjusted the flight path of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft for delivering the rover Curiosity to a landing target beside a Martian mountain.

The car-size, one-ton rover is bound for arrival the evening of Aug. 5, 2012, PDT (early Aug. 6, EDT and Universal Time). The landing will mark the beginning of a two-year prime mission to investigate whether one of the most intriguing places on Mars ever offered an environment favorable for microbial life.

The latest trajectory correction maneuver, the third and smallest since the Nov. 26, 2011, launch, used four thruster firings totaling just 40 seconds. Spacecraft data and Doppler-effect changes in radio signal from the craft indicate the maneuver succeeded. As designed by engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., the maneuver adjusts the location where the spacecraft will enter Mars' atmosphere by about 125 miles (200 kilometers) and advances the time of entry by about 70 seconds.

"This puts us closer to our entry target, so if any further maneuvers are needed, I expect them to be small," said JPL's Tomas Martin-Mur, the mission's navigation team chief. Opportunities for up to three additional trajectory correction maneuvers are scheduled during the final eight days of the flight.

The maneuver served both to correct errors in the flight path that remained after earlier correction maneuvers and to carry out a decision this month to shift the landing target about 4 miles (7 kilometers) closer to the mountain.

It altered the spacecraft's velocity by about one-tenth of a mile per hour (50 millimeters per second). The flight's first and second trajectory correction maneuvers produced velocity changes about 150 times larger on Jan. 11 and about 20 times larger on March 26.

Shifting the landing target closer to the mountain, informally named Mount Sharp, may shave months off the time needed for driving from the touchdown location to selected destinations at exposures of water-related minerals on the slope of the mountain.

The flight to Mars has entered its "approach phase" leading to landing day. Mission Manager Arthur Amador of JPL said, "In the next 40 days, the flight team will be laser-focused on the preparations for the challenging events of landing day -- continuously tracking the spacecraft's trajectory and monitoring the health and performance of its onboard systems, while using NASA's Deep Space Network to stay in continuous communications. We're in the home stretch now. The spacecraft continues to perform very well. And the flight team is up for the challenge."

Descent from the top of Mars' atmosphere to the surface will employ bold techniques enabling use of a smaller target area and heavier landed payload than were possible for any previous Mars mission. These innovations, if successful, will place a well-equipped mobile laboratory into a locale especially well suited for its mission of discovery. The same innovations advance NASA toward capabilities needed for human missions to Mars.

A video about the challenges of the landing is online at: http://go.nasa.gov/Q4b35n or http://go.usa.gov/vMn.

As of June 27, the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft carrying the rover Curiosity will have traveled about 307 million miles (494 million kilometers) of its 352-million-mile (567-million-kilometer) flight to Mars.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. More information about Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ . You can follow the mission on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

2012-188
Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Guy.Webster@jpl.nasa.gov

[BridgeTroll]

6 Days to go... for August 6 landing...

[wsansewjs]

Yea, I am back.

Don't forget, tonight at 1:31am, we will find out if Curiousity have made it or not...

7 MINUTES OF TERROR!

Learn more about the awesome rover, Curiousity,  go visit http://getcurious.com/

Watch NASA HD Web Streaming: http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv

-Josh

[Timkin]

Yea, I am back.

Don't forget, tonight at 1:31am, we will find out if Curiousity have made it or not...

7 MINUTES OF TERROR!

Learn more about the awesome rover, Curiousity,  go visit http://getcurious.com/

Watch NASA HD Web Streaming: http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv

-Josh

Glad you're back Josh.

[BridgeTroll]

Curiosity landed successfully!  First low res pix...



I think the Curiosity mission deserves its own thread and will be starting one to follow the two year mission.

[JeffreyS]

Check out the panoramas from opportunity.
http://mars.arounder.com/

[BridgeTroll]

While Curiosity is getting all the press... Opportunity trudges along... 

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE:  Opportunity Exceeds 35 Kilometers Of Driving! - sols 3051-3056, August 23-28, 2012:


Opportunity has exceeded over 35 kilometers (21.75 miles) of odometry!

The rover is moving south along the inboard edge of Cape York on the rim of Endeavour Crater surveying exposed outcrop in search of phyllosilicate clay minerals that have been detected from orbit.

On Sol 3051 (Aug. 23, 2012), Opportunity continued to move about 98 feet (30 meters) south along the inboard edge of Cape York, imaging the outcrop to the west with both Panoramic Camera (Pancam) and Navigation Camera (Navcam). On Sol 3053 (Aug. 25, 2012), the rover drove further south with more of an inboard bias to be closer to the outcrop. Again, more detailed Pancam and Navcam surveys were performed. On Sol 3055 (Aug. 27, 2012), the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) on the end of the robotic arm was imaged to re-confirm the available bit for future grinding and the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) collected a measurement of atmospheric argon.

On Sol 3056 (Aug. 28, 2012), Opportunity headed almost due west in a direct approach to some exciting outcrop units. With that drive, the rover passed 35 kilometers of odometry. Not bad for a vehicle designed for only about 1 mile (1 kilometer) of distance and 90 sols (days) of lifetime.

As of Sol 3056 (Aug. 28, 2012), the solar array energy production was 568 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.570 and a solar array dust factor of 0.684.

Total odometry is 21.76 miles (35,017.33 meters).

Opportunity Update Archive

[BridgeTroll]

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2012/09/mars-rover-finds-a-crunchy-blu.html

NASA Mars rover finds a crunchy 'blueberry' surprise

21:19 14 September 2012

NASA's Curiosity rover may be stealing all the headline of late, but lest it be forgotten, the veteran rover Opportunity is still turning up geologic gems. A recent scan of rocky outcrops near the west rim of Endeavour Crater revealed a dense group of marble-sized spheres that have experts baffled.

NASA scientists working on the Opportunity mission at first thought the spheres looked like structures known as Martian blueberries. These iron-rich orbs, discovered at the rover's landing site in 2004, are thought to have formed millions of years ago, when the Red Planet was likely warm enough to host liquid water.

In some places minerals precipitated out of the water as it diffused through rock, leaving behind hard masses. Erosion eventually exposed the spherules embedded in outcrops, like blueberries in a muffin.

Similar spheres have been found in sandstones in the US Southwest, and some scientists think they may hold clues to finding microbial life on Mars.

But when Opportunity took a closer look at the new spheres using its X-ray spectrometer, the rover found that they don't "taste" like blueberries.

For one, the spheres don't contain nearly as much iron. They're also much more tightly clustered than previous groups of blueberries, and they have a more fragile disposition.

"They seem to be crunchy on the outside, and softer in the middle," Opportunity's principal investigator, Steve Squyres of Cornell University, said in a NASA statement.

"They are different in concentration. They are different in structure. They are different in composition. They are different in distribution. So, we have a wonderful geological puzzle in front of us."

Luckily, Opportunity is still in good health, and engineers think the hardy rover should have plenty of juice left to study the mystery berries in the coming weeks.

[Jason]

Look like Martian deer droppings to me....

[BridgeTroll]

Look like Martian deer droppings to me....

Martian spawn?

[BridgeTroll]

September 28, 2012

Mars Rover Opportunity Working At 'Matijevic Hill' 

   
PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars rover Opportunity, well into its ninth year on Mars, will work for the next several weeks or months at a site with some of the mission's most intriguing geological features.

The site, called "Matijevic Hill," overlooks 14-mile-wide (22-kilometer-wide) Endeavour Crater. Opportunity has begun investigating the site's concentration of small spherical objects reminiscent of, but different from, the iron-rich spheres nicknamed "blueberries" at the rover's landing site nearly 22 driving miles ago (35 kilometers).

The small spheres at Matijevic Hill have different composition and internal structure. Opportunity's science team is evaluating a range of possibilities for how they formed. The spheres are up to about an eighth of an inch (3 millimeters) in diameter.

The "blueberries" found earlier are concretions formed by the action of mineral-laden water inside rocks, but that is only one of the ways nature can make small, rounded particles. One working hypothesis, out of several, is that the new-found spherules are also concretions but with a different composition. Others include that they may be accretionary lapilli formed in volcanic ash eruptions, impact spherules formed in impact events, or devitrification spherules resulting from formation of crystals from formerly melted material. There are other possibilities, too.

"Right now we have multiple working hypotheses, and each hypothesis makes certain predictions about things like what the spherules are made of and how they are distributed," said Opportunity's principal investigator, Steve Squyres, of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. "Our job as we explore Matijevic Hill in the months ahead will be to make the observations that will let us test all the hypotheses carefully, and find the one that best fits the observations."

The team chose to refer to this important site as Matijevic Hill in honor of Jacob Matijevic (1947-2012), who led the engineering team for the twin Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity for several years before and after their landings. He worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., from 1981 until his death last month, most recently as chief engineer for surface operations systems of NASA's third-generation Mars rover, Curiosity. In the 1990s, he led the engineering team for the first Mars rover, Sojourner.

A different Mars rover team, operating Curiosity, has also named a feature for Matijevic: a rock that Curiosity recently investigated about halfway around the planet from Matijevic Hill.

"We wouldn't have gotten to Matijevic Hill, eight-and-a-half years after Opportunity's landing, without Jake Matijevic," Squyres said.

Opportunity's project manager, John Callas, of JPL, said, "If there is one person who represents the heart and soul of all three generations of Mars rovers -- Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity, Curiosity -- it was Jake."

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information about Opportunity, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/rovers and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov . You can follow the project on Twitter and on Facebook at: http://twitter.com/MarsRovers and http://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers .


####


Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

[JeffreyS]

http://www.denverpost.com/dnc/ci_22082786/jpl-director-mars-rover-curiosity-life-compounds-organic

JPL director: Mars rover Curiosity may have found organic compounds, clue in search for life
Posted:   11/28/2012 09:00:09 PM MST
Updated:   11/28/2012 09:04:30 PM MST
By James Figueroa, SGVN


The Curiosity rover may have found organic compounds on Mars, Jet Propulsion Laboratory director Charles Elachi said in Rome on Wednesday, according to multiple reports.

"Perhaps Curiosity has found simple organic molecules," Elachi said at La Sapienza University, according to La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno. "It's preliminary data that must be checked (on) organic, not biological, molecules."

The statement figures to set off a new round of speculation and excitement about the possibility of life on Mars.

Elachi, however, made clear that Curiosity cannot find life.

The rover's sample-analysis instruments can detect organic compounds like methane, which contain carbon, the basic building block for life.

Even if Curiosity finds methane, it has no way to confirm it came from a biological organism. The compound also forms through chemical reactions and has been found on meteorites.

Earlier this month, Curiosity project scientist John Grotzinger told NPR that recent data from the sample analysis would be "one for the history books."

It caused a furor of speculation about the mystery news, with most educated guesses pointing to organic compounds.

However, JPL has since said that Grotzinger's statement was meant to describe the mission as a whole, not a specific finding.

More details could emerge Monday at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco, where a news conference about Curiosity is scheduled.

"There's not going to be any earth-shaking news on Monday," JPL spokesman Guy Webster said.

Since its celebrated landing in Mars' Gale Crater in August for a two-year mission, Curiosity has already found that an ancient streambed once rushed through the area, and found that properly equipped astronauts could withstand the radiation on the planet.

The soil sample the rover collected for its first sample-analysis test wasn't expected to come up with organic compounds.

The sample came from Rocknest, a sandy, windblown spot where previous tests had already shown much of the material had been transported from elsewhere.

Curiosity has since moved on to an area called Point Lake, overlooking lower terrain, where JPL scientists hope to use its rock-sampling drill for the first time.

The rover's ultimate destination is Mount Sharp, in the center of the crater, where layered rock provides a good chance to find organic material.

james.figueroa@sgvn.com

626-657-0987


Read more: JPL director: Mars rover Curiosity may have found organic compounds, clue in search for life - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/dnc/ci_22082786/jpl-director-mars-rover-curiosity-life-compounds-organic#ixzz2De4VQdaB
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

[spuwho]

Is it Mars? Or is it Nevada?



It's Mars

Image taken 11/29 by Curiosity.

[BridgeTroll]

http://www.livescience.com/25239-mars-rover-opportunity-endeavour-crater.html

Mars Rover Opportunity Exploring Possibly Habitable Ancient Environment

by Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior Writer

Date: 04 December 2012 Time: 04:40 PM ET
SAN FRANCISCO â€" NASA's Mars rover Curiosity may be dominating the headlines, but its older, smaller cousin has made its way to a spot on the Red Planet that may have been capable of supporting life long ago.

The Opportunity rover, which landed on Mars in January 2004 along with its twin, Spirit, is currenlty studying clay deposits on the rim of the Red Planet's Endeavour Crater. The clays imply that the area was exposed to relatively neutral â€" as opposed to harshly acidic or basic â€" water long ago, researchers said.

"This is our first glimpse ever at conditions on ancient Marsthat clearly show us a chemistry that would've been suitable for life at the Opportunity site," Opportunity principal investigator Steve Squyres, of Cornell University, told reporters here today (Dec. 4) at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

Opportunity didn't just stumble blindly onto the clays. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft spotted them from orbit, leading the rover team to point the golf-cart-size robot toward its current location, which is known as Matijevic Hill.

"From orbit, we have seen the unambiguous infrared spectral signature of clays along the rim of Endeavour Crater," Squyres said. "It was that chemical beacon that drew us."

Opportunity has already circumnavigated Matijevic Hill, which was named after the late Jake Matijevic, who led the Spirit and Opportunity engineering teams for several years. Such a "walkaround" is exactly what a human field geologist would do to get the lay of the land, Squyres said.

The rover will likely stay at Matijevic Hill for a while, trying to understand how the clays were laid down billions of years ago, Squyres said. Part of the work will involve investigating mysterious tiny spherules Opportunity has discovered embedded in the clay matrix.

The Opportunity team initially thought the BB-size gray spheres were similar to the iron-rich "blueberries" that the rover has found elsewhere on the Red Planet. But initial analyses have shown that's not the case, leading Squyres to dub them "newberries."

The team isn't sure exactly what the newberries are, or how they formed.

"I think a big part of the story is going to be understanding the newberries," Squyres said. "I think figuring out the newberries is going to be fundamental to understanding how this clay-bearing unit was emplaced."

Opportunity and Spirit were tasked with three-month prime missions to search for signs of past water activity on Mars. They found plenty of it, and then kept on going. Spirit stopped communicating with Earth in 2010, and NASA declared the rover dead last year.

But Opportunity is still going strong. It has some age-related issues, such as an arthritic arm, but the rover remains in good health, Squyres said.

"Every day is a gift at this point," he said. "We're just going to push the rover, and push ourselves, as hard as we can."

[Jason]

It feels like we are so very close to finding some concrete evidence of life up there