11 new HiRISE images are available to help search for the Mars Polar Lander. Credit: NASA/JPL
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We had an enthusiastic response to an article we ran in July about searching through images from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to help find the ill-fated Mars Polar Lander. Now, Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog has sent out an alert that a dozen more images are available from the big release of images from HiRISE for additional searches for MPL, including the image above. See this page from the HiRISE site for a links to all the images. On this page, you’ll find an overview of the Mars Polar Lander, its disappearance, the search to find it, and why they want to find it. Emily also has a lengthy post with tips and instructions on how to search for particular objects in the HiRISE images. If you think you have found something of interest, post a comment on this page of the HiRISE Blog, or use this form to contact the HiRISE team. The UnmannedSpaceflight website has a thread discussing the search (serious searchers only).
Ok, phew, I think that’s all the links you’ll need! Let me know if I missed something….
We frequently ooh and aah over the images returned by the HiRISE camera from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and now there’s gonna be a whole lot of oohing and aahing going on. The HiRISE folks have just released more than 1,500 new observations of Mars for the Planetary Data System archive, showing a wide range of gullies, dunes, craters, geological layering and other features on the Red Planet. Take a gander at some of the highlights:
Colliding Sand Dunes in Aonia Terra. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
This is one of my favorites, “Colliding Sand Dunes in Aonia Terra. See a “movie” of it here.
These images were taken during months of April through early August of this year. The camera team at the University of Arizona releases several featured images each week and periodically releases much larger sets of new images, such as the batch just posted.
See all the new images, available here.
Each full image from HiRISE covers a strip of Martian ground 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) wide, about two to four times that long, showing details as small as 1 meter, or yard, across.
Here’s another favorite; patterns in CO2 ice on Mars: Patterns in carbon dioxide ice on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Meanwhile, engineers are still trying to determine what caused MRO to go into safe mode about a week ago. This has happened several times, and mission managers are intent on getting to the bottom of the problem.
To help in identifying a root cause in case of a recurrence, engineers have programmed the spacecraft to send back a higher rate of data, and to frequently record engineering data onto non-volatile memory. That large amount of data now being received could give an improved record of spacecraft events leading up to the latest reboot.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter currently has normal power, temperatures and battery charge. It remains in proper sun-pointed attitude and in high-rate communication with Earth. Safe mode is a precautionary status that spacecraft are programmed to enter when they sense conditions for which they do not know a more specific response. While in this mode, a spacecraft suspends non-essential activities pending further instructions from ground controllers.
“The spacecraft is stable and our priority now is to carefully work our way to understanding this anomaly, with the intent of preventing recurrences,” Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Manager Jim Erickson, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., said Friday.
For more information about the mission, visit the MRO website.
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Now THIS is what I’m talking about! Every year Electrolux holds a competition for students to design concepts for future appliances, and they’ve just announced the eight finalists. My favs: a robotic greenhouse for Mars and a teleporting refrigerator. Le Petit Prince (Little Prince) is a robotic greenhouse concept that is specially designed to help the future exploration and expanding population when we colonize Mars. This intelligent robot carries and cares for a plant inside its glass container, which is functionally mounted on a four-legged self-transporting pod. Not only does it search for the optimum place to receive enough sunlight and other nutrients, it also send reports of its movements and developments to its fellow greenhouse robots through wireless communication. It was designed by Martin Miklica, from the Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic. He said he was inspired by the book The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov and R2-D2 from Star Wars (and surely Wall-E had something to do with this, too.)
See video of Le Petit Prince, below, and of the teleporting fridge.
This one I can’t wait for: The Teleport Fridge by Dulyawat Wongnawa, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. Once we figure out how to beam things up, the Teleport Fridge teleports food, eliminating the time and distance a person has to travel to buy fresh groceries or products from a store or farm. Using touch-screen technology as the interface for the teleportation process, the Teleport Fridge simply teleports food to compartments in its refrigeration and freezer units. If the food spoils, it teleports it to the compost pile. Very cool, but it takes the adventure out of opening those containers in the back of the fridge.
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See the other six design concepts and vote for your favorite here.
Artists concept of the Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter. Credit: NASA/JPL
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NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter put itself into a safe mode Wednesday morning, Aug. 26, for the fourth time this year. While in safe mode, the spacecraft can communicate normally with Earth, but aborts its scheduled activities, and awaits further instructions from ground controllers. “We hope to gain a better understanding of what is triggering these events and then have the spacecraft safely resume its study of Mars by next week,” said MRO Project Manager Jim Erickson.
Engineers have begun the process of diagnosing the problem prior to restoring the orbiter to normal science operations, a process expected to take several days. They will watch for engineering data from the spacecraft that might aid in identifying the cause of event and possibly of previous ones.
A possible cause for the frequent anomalies is cosmic ray hits. But the spacecraft has reacted differently with the various safe mode entries. The orbiter spontaneously rebooted its computer Wednesday, as it did in February and June, but did not switch to a redundant computer, as it did in early August.
To help in investigating a root cause of the three previous anomalies, engineers had programmed the spacecraft to frequently record engineering data onto non-volatile memory. That could give an improved record of spacecraft events leading up to the reboot.
MRO has been in Mars orbit since 2006, and has returned more data than all other current and past Mars missions combined.
This full-circle view from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit shows the terrain surrounding the location called "Troy," where Spirit became embedded in soft soil during the spring of 2009. Credit: NASA/JPL
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The Spirit rover has been stuck in loose soil on Mars for several months now, and just as the rover team is preparing to execute maneuvers to attempt to free Spirit, a dust storm hits. Is Mars an unforgiving planet or what? The amount of electricity generated by the solar panels on Spirit has been declining for the past several Martian days, or sols, because of the storm, and Spirit’s daily activities have been trimmed. Those watching over the rover are keeping an eye on weather reports from observations by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. While the rover team at JPL are keeping their “spirits” up, a recent image from the rover indicates Spirit herself might be getting frustrated with her string of bad luck:
Get me out of here! Credit: NASA/JPL, image enhancement by Stuart Atkinson
Thanks to Stuart Atkinson from Cumbrian Sky for his image spoof!
Spirit’s solar panels generated 392 watt-hours during the mission’s Sol 2006 (Aug. 24, 2009), down from 744 watt-hours five sols earlier, but still generous compared with the 240 watt-hours per sol that was typical before a series of panel-cleaning events about four months ago.
“We expect that power will improve again as this storm passes, but we will continue to watch this vigilantly,” said JPL’s John Callas, project manager for Spirit and its twin, Opportunity. “Spirit remains power positive with healthy energy margins and charged batteries. The weather prediction from the Mars Color Imager team is that the storm is abating, but skies will remain dusty over Spirit for the next few sols.”
Recent images from the Mars Color Imager camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showed this regional storm becoming less extensive Monday even as it shifted southward so that its southern edge covered the Gusev Crater area where Spirit is working. Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, which operates that camera, provides frequent weather updates to the rover team. Check out weekly weather reports here.
Meanwhile, in JPL’s In-Situ Instrument Laboratory, the rover team is continuing testing of strategies for getting Spirit out of a patch of soft soil where it is embedded on Mars. On Sol 2005 (Aug. 23, 2009) Spirit used its panoramic camera to examine the nature of how soil at the site has stuck to the rover’s middle wheels. The team has also used Spirit’s rock abrasion tool as a penetrometer to measure physical properties of the soil around Spirit by pressing into the soil with three different levels of force. The team is aiming to start sending drive commands to Spirit in September.
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Another milestone for the Mars Exploration Rovers: Spirit has been operating on Mars for 2000 sols, or Martian days. Who would have ever thought the rovers would last this long? But here they are, still going, um, pretty strong. Even though she’s got plenty of electrical power, Spirit is currently stuck in loose soil at her location, called Troy. But engineers are working hard to figure out how to set her free. Check out the latest on the efforts at the Free Spirit website.
Interesting Crater in Meridiani Planum. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
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I was just thinking it had been awhile since we featured images from the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, so I moseyed over to the HiRISE website only to be blown away by their newest releases. This incredible crater in Meridiani Planum shows a possible double whammy of impacts. It looks as though material filled in the original crater only to be blown out a second time. Another option is that the material in the crater could have collapsed, giving the appearance of a second impact. You can bet the HiRISE team will be looking more closely at this one. Before we move on to more great images, an update on MRO, which unexpectedly went into “safe” mode last week: MRO has now been restored to full operations, after switching to its backup computer. Engineers successfully transitioned the orbiter out of limited-activity “safe” mode on Saturday, Aug. 8, and resumed use of the spacecraft’s science instruments on Monday, Aug. 10. This has happened a few times, and engineers are trying to figure out the root cause of this.
This view of a rock called "Block Island," the largest meteorite yet found on Mars, comes from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. Credit: NASA/JPL
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One of the great things about the Mars Exploration Rovers is that we get to see these scrappy little vehicles ramble across the surface of Mars, and watch science in action. Case in point: the meteorite found by Opportunity, dubbed “Block Island.” Scientists are debating all sorts of things about this watermelon-sized rock. How old is it? What is it made of? Where could it have come from? But not only are we learning about this alien rock, we’re also learning about the Red Planet itself and its environmental history.
See below for a new 3-D version of Block Island created by Stu Atkinson.
3-D Block Island created by Stuart Atkinson.
Scientists calculate Block Island is too massive to have hit the ground without disintegrating unless Mars had a much thicker atmosphere than it has now when the rock fell. An atmosphere slows the descent of meteorites, and with today’s thin Martian atmosphere, this heavy rock would have plummeted to the surface.
Block Island is approximately 60 centimeters (2 feet) in length, half that in height, probably weighs about a half ton, and has a bluish tint that distinguishes it from other rocks in the area.
Opportunity found a smaller iron-nickel meteorite, called “Heat Shield Rock,” in late 2004. Block Island is roughly 10 times as massive as Heat Shield Rock and several times too big to have landed intact without more braking than today’s Martian atmosphere could provide.
“Consideration of existing model results indicates a meteorite this size requires a thicker atmosphere,” said rover team member Matt Golombek of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Either Mars has hidden reserves of carbon-dioxide ice that can supply large amounts of carbon-dioxide gas into the atmosphere during warm periods of more recent climate cycles, or Block Island fell billions of years ago.”
Additional studies also may provide clues about how weathering has affected the rock since it fell.
“There’s no question that it is an iron-nickel meteorite,” said Ralf Gellert of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Gellert is the lead scientist for the rover’s alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, an instrument on the arm used for identifying key elements in an object. “We already investigated several spots that showed elemental variations on the surface. This might tell us if and how the metal was altered since it landed on Mars.” The triangular pattern of small ridges seen at the upper right in this image and elsewhere on the rock is characteristic of iron-nickel meteorites found on Earth, especially after they have been cut, polished and etched.
The microscopic imager on the arm revealed a distinctive triangular pattern in Block Island’s surface texture, matching a pattern common in iron-nickel meteorites found on Earth.
“Normally this pattern is exposed when the meteorite is cut, polished and etched with acid,” said Tim McCoy, a rover team member from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. “Sometimes it shows up on the surface of meteorites that have been eroded by windblown sand in deserts, and that appears to be what we see with Block Island.”
Spectrometer observations have already identified variations in the composition of Block Island at different points on the rock’s surface. The differences could result from interaction of the rock with the Martian environment, where the metal becomes more rusted from weathering with longer exposures to water vapor or liquid.
“We have lots of iron-nickel meteorites on Earth. We’re using this meteorite as a way to study Mars,” said Albert Yen, a rover team member at JPL. “Before we drive away from Block Island, we intend to examine more targets on this rock where the images show variations in color and texture. We’re looking to see how extensively the rock surface has been altered, which helps us understand the history of the Martian climate since it fell.”
When the investigation of Block Island concludes, the team plans to resume driving Opportunity on a route from Victoria Crater, which the rover explored for two years, toward the much larger Endeavour Crater. Opportunity has covered about one-fifth of the 19-kilometer (12-mile) route plotted for safe travel to Endeavour since the rover left Victoria nearly a year ago.
While the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit was taking exposures with different color filters during the 1,919th Martian day of the rover's mission (May 27, 2009), dust devils moved across the field of view.
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The Spirit rover has had memory problems, arthritic-like symptoms in her wheels, as well as her current dilemma of being stuck in loose Martian soil. But now, is she having psychedelic visions, too?! No, not to worry; she’s not having hallucinations or smoking any mind-altering Martian weed. This image is just a combination of three images taken seconds apart through different colored filters to create a special-effects portrait of a huge, moving dust devil on Mars. It shows the dust devil in different colors, according to where it was on the horizon when each exposure was taken.
Images from May 27, 2009 of a huge dust devil near Spirit. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University/ASU
Amazingly, Spirit has recorded over 650 dust devils during her mission on Mars. This one is a whopper. Dust devils occur most frequently during the Martian springtime, when solar energy heats the surface, resulting in a layer of warm air just above the surface. Since the warmed air is less dense than the cooler atmosphere above it, it rises, making a swirling thermal plume that picks up the fine dust from the surface and carries it up into the atmosphere.
The rover team is working on creating a large color panorama of the area and these are three of the shots, which happened to catch the dust devil in action. The dust devils are interesting, and also have provided enough breeze to clean off Spirit’s solar panels, giving her a huge boost in energy. She’s been staying awake at night, taking astronomical images while stuck in her current location at “Troy.”
Back on Earth, the attempts to “Free Spirit” are proceeding at JPL. Using the engineering rover in a simulated test bed, engineers are trying out different ways to move the rover to best get her out, including a crablike backward drive, with the wheels turned indifferent directions. Keep current with the ongoing tests at the Free Spirit website.
The Mars 500 crew at the halfway point of their mission. Credit: ESA
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Six crewmembers emerged from 105 days of isolation on Tuesday, completing a simulated Mars mission. This experiment was the first phase of the Mars 500 program to help understand the psychological and medical aspects of long spaceflights. “We have successfully completed our mission,” said crew member Oliver Knickel. “This is a big accomplishment that I am very proud of. I hope that the scientific data we have provided over the last months will help to make a mission to Mars possible.”
The simulated mission began on March 31 of this year. Inside the isolation facility in Moscow, Russia the crew participated in a range of scenarios as if they really were traveling to the Red Planet – including launch, the outward journey, arrival, transfer to and from the Martian surface, simulated emergencies, and finally the long journey home.
All communications with anyone outside the facility had a delay of up to 20 minutes each way, just as a real mission to Mars would have. The only thing missing was microgravity during the simulated flight and one-third of Earth’s gravity during the simulated time on Mars. Plus, of course, the crew never faced any of the real dangers of launch, spaceflight, landing or living on a planet hostile to human life.
The crew includes Knickel, a mechanical engineer in the German army, Cyrille Fournier, an airline pilot from France and four Russians: cosmonauts Sergei Ryazansky (commander) and Oleg Artemyev, Alexei Baranov, a medical doctor, and Alexei Shpakov, a sports physiologist. An external view of the Module for Mars 500 Image Credit: ESA
The crew grew some of their own food to supplement the usual space-style pre-packaged meals. Any spare time was spent reading, watching films and playing music and games together.
“We had an outstanding team spirit throughout the entire 105 days,” said Cyrille Fournier. “Living for that long in a confined environment can only work if the crew is really getting along with each other. The crew is the crucial key to mission success, which became very evident to me during the 105 days.”
This initial 105-day study is the precursor to a complete simulation of a fully-fledged mission to Mars and back due to start in early 2010. That exercise will see another six-member crew sealed in the same chamber to experience a complete 520-day Mars mission.
