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Archive for exploration of Mars

Privately-Funded Manned Mission To Mars Being Planned For 2018 By …

By alkaon on February 25, 2013 No Comments

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Plans for a privately-funded manned mission to the planet Mars in 2018 have been revealed by the Inspiration Mars Foundation. The foundation is being led by the American multimillionaire Dennis Tito, and are aiming to be there first to bring humans to the planet Mars, launching their mission in only 5 years.

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The nonprofit organization will be holding a news conference on February 27th to detail and formally present their 501-day roundtrip mission. The mission is currently aiming for a January 2018 launch.

“This ‘Mission for America’ will generate new knowledge, experience and momentum for the next great era of space exploration,” Inspiration Mars representatives stated in a media advisory on February 20th. “It is intended to encourage all Americans to believe again, in doing the hard things that make our nation great, while inspiring youth through Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and motivation.”

Dennis Tito probably has a personal interest in eventually going to the Red Planet, he was actually the world’s first ‘space tourist’, journeying to the ISS in 2001.

“Tito will participate in the Feb. 27 news conference. So will Taber MacCallum and Jane Poynter, CEO and president, respectively, of Paragon Space Development Corp., which has expertise in life-support systems; and space-medicine expert Jonathan Clark of the Baylor College of Medicine.”

Also, on March 3, Tito is currently scheduled to present a talk called “Feasibility Analysis for a Manned Mars Free Return Mission in 2018″ at an aerospace conference.

According to The NewSpace Journal, which says that it got a hold of a copy of it, the paper discusses “a crewed free-return Mars mission that would fly by Mars, but not go into orbit around the planet or land on it. This 501-day mission would launch in January 2018, using a modified SpaceX Dragon spacecraft launched on a Falcon Heavy rocket. According to the paper, existing environmental control and life support system (ECLSS) technologies would allow such a spacecraft to support two people for the mission, although in Spartan condition.”

According to those involved the mission will be entirely privately financed, and a good bit cheaper than the estimates for manned Mars exploration that are currently out there.

SpaceX is reportedly involved, which is not very surprising since the exploration of Mars is one of their founding goals. Company founder Elon Musk has made it very clear that he wants to “help humanity reach and eventually colonize Mars.” SpaceX is itself currently developing a Mars exploration mission concept, dubbed “Red Dragon.” That mission aims to send human explorers to Mars using the Dragon capsule.

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Even without landing on the planet’s surface, the Inspiration Mars mission will still be 501 days in space, which will pose many potential problems. These include, the health problems astronauts on the ISS already experience, threats posed by travel in deep space, and the potential psychological problems.

“Researchers have tried to understand the psychological and sociological effects of being isolated in cramped quarters for long stretches, notably during the Russia-based Mars500 mock mission, which wrapped up in November 2011. But the physiological effects may be tougher to simulate and mitigate, experts say.”

This announcement follows on the heels of the impressive success that the private space technology firm SpaceX has had, many advancements in technologies such as solar sails, and the creation of several asteroid harvesting corporations. The next 10-20 years should be an interesting time with regards to space exploration.

Source: Space

Image Credits: Mars and Falcon SpaceX via Wikimedia Commons

Article source: http://planetsave.com/2013/02/22/privately-funded-manned-mission-to-mars-being-planned-for-2018-by-american-multimillionaire/

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NASA Aiming for Mars Again With New Science Rover in 2020

By alkaon on December 6, 2012 No Comments

As the Curiosity rover continues its exploration of Mars, NASA is already planning another scientific rover mission to the red planet, set for 2020.

NASA’s continuing exploration of Mars with scientific rovers on the red planet’s surface will continue into 2020, when the space agency plans to launch another robotic science rover based on its successful Curiosity rover.

The future mission was unveiled Dec. 4 by NASA as part of a “robust multiyear program” that aimed at preparing the nation’s space program to send humans to a Mars orbit by the 2030s, according to a NASA statement.

“The Obama administration is committed to a robust Mars exploration program,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. “With this next mission, we’re ensuring America remains the world leader in the exploration of the red planet, while taking another significant step toward sending humans there in the 2030s.”

The 2020 Mars rover program, which has not yet been named, would reuse designs, parts and technology from the current Curiosity rover which has been exploring Mars since landing on Aug. 6. By reusing Curiosity’s successful blueprints, the space agency expects to save a lot of money in development costs, while continuing its exploration of the planet, according to NASA. “This will ensure mission costs and risks are as low as possible, while still delivering a highly capable rover with a proven landing system,” said the space agency. “The mission will constitute a vital component of a broad portfolio of Mars exploration missions in development for the coming decade.”


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Full details of what that 2020 mars mission will entail have not yet been determined. The specific payload and science instruments for the mission will be debated and selected later through an open competition after the scientific objectives for the mission have been formulated, according to NASA. The mission will also be contingent on receiving adequate funding.

NASA’s Mars exploration efforts in the next decade or more will also include the 2013 launch of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiter, which will study the Martian upper atmosphere, as well as a mission called Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight), which will take the first look into the deep interior of Mars.

NASA will also participate in the European Space Agency’s 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions, including providing “Electra” telecommunication radios to ESA’s 2016 mission and a critical element of the premier astrobiology instrument on the 2018 ExoMars rover.

“The challenge to restructure the Mars Exploration Program has turned from the seven minutes of terror for the Curiosity landing to the start of seven years of innovation,” astronaut John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for science, said in a statement. “This mission concept fits within the current and projected Mars exploration budget, builds on the exciting discoveries of Curiosity and takes advantage of a favorable launch opportunity.”

So far, the Curiosity rover and its onboard Mars Science Laboratory Project are less than four months into a two-year prime mission to investigate whether conditions in Mars’ Gale Crater may have been favorable for microbial life, according to NASA. “The mission already has found an ancient riverbed on the red planet, and there is every expectation for remarkable discoveries still to come.”

One of Curiosity’s main tasks on Mars is checking for organic compounds, the carbon-containing chemicals that can be ingredients for life, according to NASA. “At this point in the mission, the instruments on the rover have not detected any definitive evidence of Martian organics,” the agency reported.

Just this week, Curiosity has analyzed the Martian soil for the first time, according to a Dec. 3 NASA blog post, and has found “a complex chemistry within the Martian soil. Water and sulfur and chlorine-containing substances, among other ingredients, showed up in samples Curiosity’s arm delivered to an analytical laboratory inside the rover.”

This is the first time that a Mars rover has been able to scoop up soil into analytical instruments for a deeper look into the soil and its composition, according to NASA. “The specific soil sample came from a drift of windblown dust and sand called ‘Rocknest.’ The site lies in a relatively flat part of Gale Crater still miles away from the rover’s main destination on the slope of a mountain called Mount Sharp. The rover’s laboratory includes the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) suite and the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument. SAM used three methods to analyze gases given off from the dusty sand when it was heated in a tiny oven. One class of substances SAM checks for is organic compounds—carbon-containing chemicals that can be ingredients for life.”

The research and sampling will continue.

“We have no definitive detection of Martian organics at this point, but we will keep looking in the diverse environments of Gale Crater,” SAM Principal Investigator Paul Mahaffy said in a statement. Mahaffy works at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Much of the science world has been abuzz with excitement since Curiosity’s August landing.

Curiosity successfully fired its rock-melting laser for the first time Aug. 19 as it ran through tests to be sure that the work of its science experiments will be able to proceed as planned.

The rover has been taking spectacular photographs on Mars since arriving after a 354-million-mile, eight-month voyage from Earth.

Article source: http://www.eweek.com/cloud/nasa-aiming-for-mars-again-with-new-science-rover-in-2020/

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NASA to extend Mars exploration with another robotic rover

By alkaon on December 6, 2012 No Comments

Computerworld - With NASA’s super rover Curiosity successfully investigating Mars, the space agency announced plans to extend its work there and even send up another robotic rover.

“The Obama administration is committed to a robust Mars exploration program,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “With this next mission, we’re ensuring America remains the world leader in the exploration of the Red Planet, while taking another significant step toward sending humans there in the 2030s.”

The next plan in the works is to build another robotic rover, equipped with scientific instruments, for launch in 2020. That will be a major step to support the goal set by President Barack Obama to send humans to Mars in the 2030s.

The next rover mission will be based on the Mars Science Laboratory architecture that carried the Curiosity on a nearly nine-month journey to the Martian surface this summer.

“The challenge to restructure the Mars Exploration Program has turned from the seven minutes of terror for the Curiosity landing to the start of seven years of innovation,” said John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for science. “This mission concept fits within the current and projected Mars exploration budget, builds on the exciting discoveries of Curiosity, and takes advantage of a favorable launch opportunity.”

This plan for further Mars exploration comes on the heels of NASA’s August announcement that it also intends to explore the interior of Mars to discover why that planet developed so differently from Earth. That mission, dubbed Insight, is designed to discover whether the core of Mars is solid or liquid like Earth’s, and why Mars’ crust is not divided into tectonic plates that drift as they do on Earth.

Insight involves a lander that carries two cameras, a robotic arm and a thermal probe that will pierce the Martian surface to gauge the planet’s temperature. The lander is expected to launch in 2016.

Right now, NASA’s rover Curiosity is not the only machine exploring Mars.

Coming up on its ninth anniversary, NASA’s rover Opportunity is still at work on Mars. Opportunity, along with its robotic twin Spirit, were both launched in 2003 on a three-month mission. Both rovers far exceeded expectations with Spirit continuing work until 2010 and Opportunity still investigating the surface of Mars.

NASA has repeatedly said that robots are critical to the exploration of Mars and that they’ll even be used to help build a human outpost there someday.

In 2010, NASA announced that it was building a six-legged robot that can walk or roll on wheels and ultimately help set up a habitat on Mars for astronauts.

The robot, which went into development in 2005, is designed to move easily across the various types of terrain on the moon, on Mars or even on an asteroid.

covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at Twitter @sgaudin, on or subscribe to Sharon’s RSS feed Gaudin RSS. Her email address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.

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Article source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9234396/NASA_to_extend_Mars_exploration_with_another_robotic_rover

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Mars rover finds clear evidence of flowing water

By alkaon on September 29, 2012 No Comments


Friday, 28 September 2012 10:43


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Engineering News

September 28, 2012

In another major step for the exploration of Mars, the Curiosity rover has come across some fairly firm evidence of flowing water on its way into the Gale Crater, according to Space.com.

The question of whether the Red Planet ever held liquid water has not really been much of a question for quite some time.

While there’s always a degree of uncertainty with a planet never less than 34 million miles away, the news source notes that numerous past expeditions have found a variety of different evidence to support the idea that Mars used to be warmer and wetter than it is today.

The Mariner 9 probe, launched in 1971 and the first spacecraft to orbit another planet, noted a number of ravines and valleys along the surface. Other probes since then have seen signs of water erosion. More recently the evidence has turned to more sophisticated details, including assessments of the soil for minerals associated with water.

The latest probe, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, has seen some signs that water might still flow along the surface at some times today.

But the big difference with the Curiosity’s find is that researchers get to see clear-cut evidence up close. Collections of water-rounded stones collected in stone crevices make it relatively apparent that water, possibly as high as hip-deep, at one point flowed across the surface.

“There was a fracture in the rock, water flowed through it, gypsum was precipitated from the water. End of story,” said Steve Squyres, Opportunity’s principal investigator and a professor at Cornell University, according to the news source. “There’s no ambiguity about this, and this is what makes it so cool.”

According to The Christian Science Monitor, the streambed found by Curiosity has been torn up since the time in which water ran through the area. While that would normally signify tectonic activity, this could more likely be attributed to an impact sometime in the intervening years.

While the new information about water flows on Mars offers some interesting perspective on the planet’s history, it also suggests that Gale Crater where the rover was dropped could be a promising site to find evidence of life, the broader objective of the mission.

“A long-flowing stream can be a habitable environment,” John Grotzinger, a researcher at Caltech, told the Monitor. “It is not our top choice as an environment for preservation of organics, though. We’re still going to Mount Sharp, but this is insurance that we have already found our first potentially habitable environment.”

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Article source: http://why.knovel.com/all-engineering-news/1913-mars-rover-finds-clear-evidence-of-flowing-water.html

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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Detects Dry Ice on Red Planet

By alkaon on September 13, 2012 No Comments

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NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has provided scientists with the clearest evidence to date of carbon-dioxide snowfalls on Mars, revealing the only known example of carbon-dioxide snow falling anywhere in our solar system.

Frozen carbon-dioxide is better known here on Earth as dry ice, and requires temperatures of around minus minus 125 Celsius (193 degrees Fahrenheit), much, much colder than what is needed to freeze water.

The report of this discovery is to be published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. 

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Detects Dry Ice on Mars

Observations by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have detected carbon-dioxide snow clouds on Mars and evidence of carbon-dioxide snow falling to the surface.

“These are the first definitive detections of carbon-dioxide snow clouds,” said the report’s lead author, Paul Hayne of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “We firmly establish the clouds are composed of carbon dioxide — flakes of Martian air — and they are thick enough to result in snowfall accumulation at the surface.”

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is a multipurpose spacecraft designed to conduct reconnaissance and Exploration of Mars from orbit. The Orbiter detected the snowfalls in clouds around Mars’ south pole in winter, though the presence of carbon-dioxide ice in Mars’ seasonal and residual southern polar cabs has been known for decades. NASA’s Phoenix Lander mission in 2008, for example, detected falling water-ice snow on northern portion of the planet. Mars’ south pole is the only location on the planet where frozen carbon dioxide persists on the surface year round.

Hayne and his six co-authors analysed data taken using the Mars Climate Sounder, one of six instruments on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The Sounder looked at clouds from directly above and side on, recording brightness in nine wavebands of visible and infrared light as a means to examine particles and gases in the Martian atmosphere.

The results revealed information detailing temperature, particle sizes, and their concentrations.

“One line of evidence for snow is that the carbon-dioxide ice particles in the clouds are large enough to fall to the ground during the lifespan of the clouds,” co-author David Kass of JPL said. “Another comes from observations when the instrument is pointed toward the horizon, instead of down at the surface. The infrared spectra signature of the clouds viewed from this angle is clearly carbon-dioxide ice particles and they extend to the surface. By observing this way, the Mars Climate Sounder is able to distinguish the particles in the atmosphere from the dry ice on the surface.”

“The finding of snowfall could mean that the type of deposition — snow or frost — is somehow linked to the year-to-year preservation of the residual cap,” Hayne said.

Source: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory


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Article source: http://planetsave.com/2012/09/12/mars-reconnaissance-orbiter-detects-dry-ice-on-red-planet/

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REDLANDS: Astronomer explores theories about Mars – Press

By alkaon on September 7, 2012 No Comments

As recently as the 1950s, people on Earth saw Mars as the home of an alien race of canal builders.

“Imagine what that must have been like,” astronomer Tyler Nordgren said during a Redlands Forum on Wednesday, Sept. 5.

“Imagine being able to look up at that red light in the sky and know that you were seeing the abode of life – that a civilization perhaps far older, far more intelligent than us was looking back,” he said “I would give anything to live in that world.”

But it was not to be. The more that humans explored Mars, the more those early theories were shattered. There were no Martians, there were no canals, and scientists came to believe that Mars was dead.

But that theory was abandoned, too, as exploration continued.

Now scientists believe that Mars may once have had abundant water, one of the three elements necessary for life, said Nordgren, a physics professor at the University of Redlands.

“Now when we look at the planet we cannot help but see signs of water – flowing, rushing water everywhere,” he said.

Nordgren has been involved in the exploration of Mars through NASA’s rover program. He is part of a team of scientists and artists who created a sundial – and camera calibration system – that has traveled to Mars on several rovers.

During Wednesday’s talk, he showed a photo of the Curiosity rover, which arrived on Mars in August, its sundial prominently displayed.

“There it is,” Nordgren said, his voice tinged with awe. “There it is at Gale Crater. That’s amazing.”

The audience applauded.

Curiosity landed at the base of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall peak the rover will explore. It will look at layers of rocks that seem similar to rocks and sediment exposed in the Grand Canyon, Nordgren said.

“In those layers, you are seeing an active Earth,” he said. “Seeing this on Mars, we know Mars was an active place, too.”

The debate over whether there was water on Mars was resolved with the discovery of ice some 10 years ago by the Odyssey spacecraft. The rovers Spirit and Opportunity looked for signs of liquid water, and found ample evidence in their examination of Martian rocks, he said.

Some of those rocks have the same features of sedimentary rock on Earth – ripples formed in stone when water flowed over it and deposits that only could have been left by water.

All of the Martian explorations contribute to the search for the elements required for life – energy from the sun or volcanoes, which Mars has; liquid water, which Mars may have had; and organic molecules, which haven’t yet been found.

“When we find these three things together, we find life,” Nordgren said. “If we can find them on Mars, we will know that Mars was capable of supporting life.”

If that happens, it will mean that life occurred on two planets in a single solar system, increasing the probability of life on planets in other solar systems, he said.

If no life is found, perhaps a different conclusion should be drawn, he said.

“That means that life on Earth is even more precious, so maybe we ought to do a better job of taking care of it here,” Nordgren said.

Follow Jan Sears on Twitter: @jancsears or online at blog.pe.com/redlands

Article source: http://www.pe.com/local-news/san-bernardino-county/san-bernardino-county-headlines-index/20120906-redlands-astronomer-explores-theories-about-mars.ece

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Africa: Rover Sends Human Voice and Panoramic View From Mars

By alkaon on September 1, 2012 No Comments

Washington — The human voice has been transmitted from Mars across the solar system to Earth for the first time.

The rover Curiosity carried a recording from NASA Director Charles Bolden when the craft landed on the red planet August 6 (August 5 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory control center). At a news briefing August 27, the director’s voice came through loud and clear after its journey across millions of kilometers of empty space.

Bolden said exploration of Mars with the laboratory equipment aboard the rover — the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) — will increase our understanding of Mars and our own planet as well.

“Curiosity will bring benefits to Earth and inspire a new generation of scientist and explorers as it prepares the way for a human mission in the not too distant future,” Bolden’s message said.

NASA’s Curiosity program executive, Dave Lavery, said the transmission from Mars is a further step toward extending humanity’s presence beyond its home planet.

“As Curiosity continues its mission, we hope these words will be an inspiration to someone alive today who will become the first to stand upon the surface of Mars,” Lavery said. “And like the great Neil Armstrong, they will speak aloud of that next giant leap in human exploration.”

Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon in 1969 with the words “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” That breakthrough moment in human achievement has been refreshed in the public memory in recent days with Armstrong’s death on August 25.

NASA unveiled a new panoramic photo of the Martian surface surrounding the rover, one with greater clarity and detail than any sent since the landing three weeks ago. The composite photograph shows the ground at the base of Curiosity, then stretches across a plane to a rising mountain in the distance.

Michael Malin, the principal investigator of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument that took the photographs, characterized them as “geologically exciting” and “pretty,” though he acknowledged adjusting the colors to be softer and less stark than they probably appear on the surface.

The spot where Curiosity landed — Gale Crater — was carefully chosen from a wide selection of potential sites revealed by views of the planet collected by the orbiters that NASA has had circling the planet for some years. John Grotzinger, MSL project scientist, said the panoramic photo affirms the choice of the location, as it reveals geologic features of great scientific interest.

“Although the anticipated scenic beauty was not something that was at the top of the list for reasons to select it, it was certainly one thing that we were hoping would come through one day,” Grotzinger said at the press briefing. “It’s awesome to see this.”

Mount Sharp is one scientific target seen in the photograph, a mountain about 5 kilometers high in the center of the large crater. The striations of rock and soil seen in the foothills of the mountain are expected to tell part of the planet’s history. Research and analysis from previous missions led to the conclusion that Mars was once wetter and warmer than it is today.

The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) team reported that its instruments have been put through preliminary testing indicating that they too reached the Martian surface without damage. This machine carries several analytic tools that will allow collection of chemical samples from the planet. While the cameras may be the eyes of Curiosity, SAM is the nose, said team leader Paul Mahaffey. SAM’s equipment will test the chemical composition of the surface atmosphere and other gases that may exude from rocks and soil.

All of Curiosity’s data collection would be for naught without the capability to transmit the data back to JPL scientists for analysis. The Curiosity communications team has organized the orbiters into a network of telecommunications relay orbiters that collect data from the rover and convey it back to Earth. JPL has received about 7 billion bytes of data in the three weeks of the mission, more than double the amount received from previous rovers at this early point in their missions.

Curiosity is working a two-year assignment on Mars, collecting data to determine if and when the Mars climate and habitat might have supported some form of life.

Article source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201208291089.html

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How Swindon will make its mark on Mars

By alkaon on August 31, 2012 No Comments

How Swindon will make its mark on Mars

10:30pm Thursday 30th August 2012 in News


By David Wiles

AN INSTRUMENT funded by the Swindon-based UK Space Agency has been selected to travel on a new rocket probe to Mars to investigate how the Red Planet was created at the dawn of the Solar System.

The SEIS-SP, designed to investigate the interior structure and processes of Mars, will travel on NASA’s newly announced InSight mission, set to launch in 2016, which will take the first look into
the deep interior of Mars to investigate why the Red Planet evolved so differently from Earth.

The seismometer will listen to detect ‘Marsquakes’ – to see if Mars has similar quakes to Earth – and use this information to map the boundaries between the rock layers. This will help determine if
the planet has a liquid or solid core, and provide some clues as to why its surface is not divided up into tectonic plates as on Earth.

Detailed knowledge of the interior of Mars in comparison to Earth will help scientists understand better how rocky planets form and evolve. The SEIS-SP will be provided by space scientists at
Imperial College London and the University of Oxford, headed by Dr Tom Pike.

The announcement comes just days after the Curiosity rover sent back its first colour photos of the Martian landscape. Insight will join Curiosity, a car-sized surface rover that landed earlier
this month, to search for habitats where microbial life could thrive on Mars.

Dr David Williams, chief executive of the UK Space Agency, based at Polaris House, North Star, said: “We are delighted that Dr Pike and his team will be playing a crucial role in the InSight
mission. “Placing the first seismometer on Mars has long been a goal of international scientists, and this is a great example of the pioneering, world-class science and technology supported by the
UK Space Agency.

“The technical challenge is significant but the UK team are proving themselves more than equal to it. The scientific outcomes may well revolutionise our understanding of Mars – and by extension its
nearest neighbour: Earth. “Where previous Mars missions have scratched the surface, InSight will be digging deeper for the planet’s secrets.”

The InSight spacecraft will be a static lander that will carry four instruments. There will also be two cameras and a robotic arm, a sensor that will accurately determine the degree to which the
planet wobbles on its axis, and a probe that will be pushed into the planet’s surface to reveal how the planet is cooling.

All the data combined will inform researchers about the internal state of Mars today and how it has changed through the aeons.

Previous exploration of Mars has revealed that the Red Planet was much more geologically active in the past. What has not been established is when, and why, this activity ceased.

NASA officials anticipate it will take six months for InSight to reach Mars, and then a full Martian year – about 680 Earth days – to gather the data it is looking for.

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Article source: http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/news/9902867.How_Swindon_will_make_its_mark_on_Mars/

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NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity gears up for test drive (+video)

By alkaon on August 26, 2012 No Comments

The next step in NASA’s exploration of Mars is the test drive of its rover, Curiosity, on Wednesday. Curiosity’s mission on Mars is to search for signs of life. The rover’s broken wind sensor may make its exploration more challenging.

By

Irene Klotz, Reuters /
August 21, 2012

This full-resolution image from NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars shows the turret of tools at the end of the rover’s extended robotic arm, in this image taken Wednesday and released by NASA on Tuesday.The Navigation Camera captured this view.

JPL-Caltech/NASA/Reuters



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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, dispatched to study if the Red Planet could have hosted life, will take its first test drive on Wednesday.

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  • In Pictures: Exploring Mars

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  • Mars rover ramps up for its first test drive (+video)

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The one-ton, nuclear-powered robotic geologist, which landed inside a Martian crater on Aug. 6, will get instructions for a 30-minute drive, mission manager Michael Watkins told reporters on a conference call Tuesday.

Later in the day, Curiosity will drive about 10 feet (3 meters), turn its wheels, then drive back to its landing site, ending up at a 90-degree angle from where it touched down inside Gale Crater.

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“We want to park in a place we’ve exactly examined. We just want to be extra safe,” Watkins said.

Ultimately, scientists plan to drive the six-wheeled rover, which is about the size of a small car, to a 3-mile-high (5-km-high) mound of layered rock rising from the center of the crater’s floor, the primary target of the $2.5 billion, two-year mission.

Scientists believe the mound, known as Mount Sharp, is the remnant of sediment that once completely filled the 96-mile-wide (154-km-wide) basin.

The rover is equipped with 10 science instruments to search for organic materials and other minerals needed to support and possibly preserve microbial life.

Determining how Mount Sharp formed might be a little more difficult with the loss of one of Curiosity’s two wind sensors, designed to measure the speed and direction of the planet’s often unpredictable breezes.

Engineers suspect small pebbles kicked up by the rover’s landing rockets during touchdown may have hit its deck and severed delicate wires on one of the sensor’s exposed circuit boards.

“These are pretty fragile devices,” deputy project scientists Ashwin Vasavada said, adding the damage is believed to be permanent.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

(Editing by Kevin Gray; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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Article source: http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0821/NASA-s-Mars-rover-Curiosity-gears-up-for-test-drive-video

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Categories : Mars News
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New mission to take first look deep inside Mars

By alkaon on August 22, 2012 No Comments

NASA has selected a new mission, set to launch in 2016, that will take the first look into the deep interior of Mars to see why the Red Planet evolved so differently from Earth as one of our solar system’s rocky planets.

The new mission, named InSight, will place instruments on the martian surface to investigate whether the core of Mars is solid or liquid like Earth’s, and why Mars’ crust is not divided into tectonic plates that drift like Earth’s. Detailed knowledge of the interior of Mars in comparison to Earth will help scientists understand better how terrestrial planets form and evolve.

“The exploration of Mars is a top priority for NASA, and the selection of InSight ensures we will continue to unlock the mysteries of the Red Planet and lay the groundwork for a future human mission there,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. “The recent successful landing of the Curiosity rover has galvanized public interest in space exploration, and today’s announcement makes clear there are more exciting Mars missions to come.”

InSight will be led by W. Bruce Banerdt from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. InSight’s science team includes U.S. and international co-investigators from universities, industry, and government agencies. The French space agency Center National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) are contributing instruments to InSight, which is scheduled to land on Mars in September 2016 to begin its two-year scientific mission.

InSight is the 12th selection in NASA’s series of Discovery-class missions. Created in 1992, the Discovery Program sponsors frequent cost-capped solar system exploration missions with highly focused scientific goals. NASA requested Discovery mission proposals in June 2010 and received 28. InSight was one of three proposed missions selected in May 2011 for funding to conduct preliminary design studies and analyzes. The other two proposals were for missions to a comet and Saturn’s moon Titan.

InSight builds on spacecraft technology used in NASA’s highly successful Phoenix lander mission, which was launched to the Red Planet in 2007 and determined water existed near the surface in the martian polar regions. By incorporating proven systems in the mission, the InSight team demonstrated that the mission concept was low-risk and could stay within the cost-constrained budget of Discovery missions. The cost of the mission, excluding the launch vehicle and related services, is capped at $425 million in 2010 dollars.

“Our Discovery Program enables scientists to use innovative approaches to answering fundamental questions about our solar system in the lowest-cost mission category,” said John Grunsfeld from NASA Headquarters. “InSight will get to the core of the nature of the interior and structure of Mars, well below the observations we’ve been able to make from orbit or the surface.”

InSight will carry four instruments. JPL will provide an onboard geodetic instrument to determine the planet’s rotation axis and a robotic arm and two cameras used to deploy and monitor instruments on the martian surface. CNES is leading an international consortium that is building an instrument to measure seismic waves traveling through the planet’s interior. DLR is building a subsurface heat probe to measure the flow of heat from the interior.

Article source: http://www.astronomy.com/~/link.aspx?_id=ce03bb41-2a94-4336-9f41-57072e7092bc

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Categories : Astronomy News
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NASA Image of the day

Curiosity at 'Cumberland'

 
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity used its front left Hazard-Avoidance Camera for this image of the rover's arm over the drilling target "Cumberland" during the 275th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (May 15, 2013). The rover team plans to use Curiosity's drill to collect a powdered sample from the interior of the rock for analysis by laboratory instruments inside the rover. This is the mission's second rock-drilling target. The rover drove from its position beside the first drilling target, "John Klein," to its position beside Cumberland with drives of 121 inches (308 centimeters) on Sol 273 (May 13) and 26.6 inches (67.5 centimeters) on Sol 275. Curiosity's total odometry on Mars is now 2,385 feet (727 meters). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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