How to Drive the Mars Rovers, Part 1: Rover Updates

Rover Driver Scott Maxwell with a model of MER. Photo courtesy Scott Maxwell

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In January of 2004, NASA’s twin robot geologists, the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, landed on the Red Planet. During those nearly five years, the rovers have returned hundreds of thousands of images and enough data to keep scientists busy for decades. But almost nine years ago, Scott Maxwell started working on developing software and techniques for driving the rovers around on Mars surface. Today he’s the Mars Rover Driver Team Lead for MER at JPL, and he says that every day of working on this mission has been incredible. “It’s been an amazing experience,” he said, “and I like to say it’s the best job on two planets.” To celebrate the upcoming fifth anniversary of the rovers on Mars, Universe Today caught up with Scott to get an update on the current status of the two rovers, to find out what the five-year MER mission has been like for a rover driver, and to ask the pressing question, just how do you drive a rover from 150 million kilometers away?

Both rovers have been inactive recently because of solar conjunction, where the sun is between Earth and Mars, which makes communications difficult because the amount of radio noise generated by the Sun. So, when I talked to Scott on Wednesday of this week he was just working on the commands that would be sent to Spirit for the first drive she has taken since several weeks ago. So how is Spirit doing these days?

“Spirit is struggling valiantly to climb up the north face of Home Plate,” Scott said. “As you know, we’ve just come out of solar conjunction, and so we’re picking up where we left off on Spirit’s climb up the face. Her solar array energy levels are not as good as they were before the mini-dust storm we had before the conjunction, so that’s obviously a cause for concern. It’s unfortunate because that means we have less energy for driving. But she’s still alive and that’s a lot better than what we thought she’d be five years into the mission.”

Home Plate is the raised plateau.  Spirit is the dark spot at the 1 o'clock position.  Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Home Plate is the raised plateau. Spirit is the dark spot at the 1 o'clock position. Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Home Plate is a low plateau about 80 meters (260 feet) in diameter. Spirit spent the Martian winter parked on the north side of the plateau with her solar panels slanted towards the low sun in order to stay alive. But Spirit’s solar arrays are severely dust-covered, decreasing the amount of power available for science activities and driving. But the scientists and engineers haven’t given up on Spirit, and still have big plans for her.

“Our longer term goal is to head south from Home Plate to a pair of features called ‘Goddard’ and ‘Von Braun’,” said Scott. “Von Braun is a hill and Goddard is a crater-like feature next to it, and that’s the next area we’d like to explore. As you know, the area around home plate appears to be a region of past hot-springs or volcanic fumarole activity, the kind of place where life might have formed on Earth, so it makes it a particularly exciting place to explore on Mars, as we try to find out more about what was going on here.”

But ‘Goddard’ and ‘Von Braun’ are on the south side of Home Plate and Spirit is on the north side. The easiest route would be to “climb back up on the top of Home Plate and kind of skate across it where the driving is good” Scott said, but if Spirit isn’t able to make the climb, they will drive down the north slope and go around Home Plate the long way. But that might take more time, and time might be getting limited for Spirit.

Bonestell panorama, taken by Spirit during her winter stay on the north side of Home Plate.  Credit:  NASA/JPL/Cornell
Bonestell panorama, taken by Spirit during her winter stay on the north side of Home Plate. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell

So, the shortest way is up and over Home Plate. But Spirit has a bum right front wheel, and is trying to climb up some difficult terrain. “Imagine you’re in the desert, climbing up a sand dune, but every step you take the sand crumbles out from beneath you,” said Scott. “That’s what Spirit is experiencing. So even though we’re commanding the wheels to go several meters, she might only make a few centimeters of progress in a sol (Martian Day).”

But the driving team will keep trying, as ‘Von Braun’ and ‘Goddard’ are of interest to the science team.

Opportunity, on the other hand, is in very different driving conditions. “Right now she’s basically on a parking lot, with only a couple of speed bumps every once in awhile,” Scott said. “Opportunity can drive 100 meters a sol, like the length of a football field every day, without breaking a sweat. We recently had a nearly record-setting drive, with Opportunity where we drove nearly 216 meters in one day,” Scott said proudly. “So that’s our silver medal drive, our second longest drive ever with either of the rovers.” (The longest drive was 220 meters in one day.)

One thing Opportunity does have to watch out for is sand dunes in the region. In 2005, Opportunity became stuck in one of those dunes, and it took the rover driving team over a month to figure out how to maneuver Opportunity out of the sand trap, called Purgatory Dune. In honor of the difficulties and lessons learned from getting stuck, all the potential sand traps in the region are called “Purgatoids.”
The "Purgatory" dunes around Opportunity.  Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell
“Opportunity is in a region where Purgatiods are all around her.” Scott said. “But the good news is that we have better data now, than we did when we first encountered these features.” The MER team now has the benefit of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE Camera in orbit around Mars, looking down at — if not watching over – the rovers and their activities. “So we have the data and images from HiRISE, and we think we have identified a way to pick out these Purgatoids from orbit.” Scott said. “So we take the images from MRO, and use them as part of our path planning for Opportunity every day, and also for our longer scale path planning. On top of that we have other measures we have adopted after that first Purgatory incident, where the rover stops every once in awhile and ‘checks’ itself, gauging whether it is actually moving or if it is stuck and the wheels are just spinning. So even if we get into a Purgatoid, we’ll be able to catch it before too long and have the chance to get ourselves out before we dig in too far.”

But so far, with the new technique of being able to identify Purgatoids from orbit, Opportunity hasn’t run into a single one.

Opportunity's traverse map through Sol 1716 As of sol 1707 (Nov. 11, 2008), Opportunity's total odometry was 13,493.85 meters (8.38 miles).
Opportunity's traverse map through Sol 1716 As of sol 1707 (Nov. 11, 2008), Opportunity's total odometry was 13,493.85 meters (8.38 miles).

“It makes us happy to put the pedal to the metal and just drive,” Scott said, “It’s a lot of fun.”

Opportunity is “putting the hammer down” to reach a crater about 12 kilometers (7 miles) away called Endeavour. The huge crater is 22 kilometers (13.7 miles) across, and scientists expect to see a much deeper stack of rock layers than Opportunity saw while she was in Victoria Crater the past two years. The 12 km driving distance would match the total distance it has traveled from 2004 to mid-2008. Even at the 100-meter plus pace each sol, the journey could take two years.

But Scott Maxwell and the 13 other rover drivers working on the MER mission are up for the challenge.

Tomorrow: Part 2: Just how do you drive a rover on another planet?
How to Drive a Mars Rover, Part 3

“Clumpiness” of Mars Soil Clue to Climate Cycles

The Phoenix lander dug this trench in the Mars artic region. Image NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University

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Scientists from the Phoenix Mars Lander mission say the lander uncovered clues that the Martian arctic soil has been warmer and wetter in the past, and right now Mars may just be in a dry cycle. The biggest clue is the “clumpiness” of the soil in the Mars arctic region that Phoenix encountered, making it difficult for the lander to dump samples into the “ovens” that analyzed the chemistry of the soil. While currently the soil is cold and dry, when long-term climate cycles make the site warmer, the soil may get moist enough to modify the chemistry, producing effects that persist through the colder times. “We have snowfall from the clouds and frost at the surface, with ice just a few inches below, and dry soil in between,” said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona , Tucson . “During a warmer climate several million years ago, the ice would have been deeper, but frost on the surface could have melted and wet the soil.”

With no large moon like Earth’s to stabilize it, Mars goes through known periodic cycles when its tilt becomes much greater than Earth’s. During those high-tilt periods, the sun rises higher in the sky above the Martian poles than it does now, and the arctic plain where Phoenix worked experiences warmer summers.

“The ice under the soil around Phoenix is not a sealed-off deposit left from some ancient ocean,” said Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis , lead scientist for the lander’s robotic arm. “It is in equilibrium with the environment, and the environment changes with the obliquity cycles on scales from hundreds of thousands of years to a few million years. There have probably been dozens of times in the past 10 million years when thin films of water were active in the soil, and probably there will be dozens more times in the next 10 million years.”

Cloddy texture of soil scooped up by Phoenix is one clue to effects of water. The mission’s microscopic examination of the soil shows individual particles characteristic of windblown dust and sand, but clods of the soil hold together more cohesively than expected for unaltered dust and sand. Arvidson said, “It’s not strongly cemented. It would break up in your hand, but the cloddiness tells us that something is taking the windblown material and mildly cementing it.”

That cementing effect could result from water molecules adhering to the surfaces of soil particles. Or it could be from water mobilizing and redepositing salts that Phoenix identified in the soil, such as magnesium perchlorate and calcium carbonate.

The Thermal and Electrical Conductivity Probe on Phoenix detected electrical-property changes consistent with accumulation of water molecules on surfaces of soil grains during daily cycles of water vapor moving through the soil, reported Aaron Zent of NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., lead scientist for that probe.

“There’s exchange between the atmosphere and the subsurface ice,” Zent said. “A film of water molecules accumulates on the surfaces of mineral particles. It’s not enough right now to transform the chemistry, but the measurements are providing verification that these molecular films are occurring when you would expect them to, and this gives us more confidence in predicting the way they would behave in other parts of the obliquity cycles.”

Phoenix worked on Mars this year from May 25 until November 2.The Phoenix science team will be analyzing data and running comparison experiments for months to come. Today, they reported on some of their progress at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Source: NASA

Groundwater May Have Played Important Role in Shaping Mars

Herbes Chasma and LTDs. Credit: ESA

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Scientists have been intrigued and puzzled by light-toned layered deposits on Mars since the Mariner spacecraft flybys in the early 1970s. Known as LTDs (Light Toned Deposits), they are Martian sediments that most closely resemble sediments on Earth and are some of the most mysterious features on Mars. Causes for their origin remain unknown, and different mechanisms, including volcanic processes, have been proposed for their formation. But recently data and images from Mars Express suggest that several LTDs were formed when large amounts of groundwater burst on to the surface. Scientists propose that groundwater had a greater role in shaping the Martian surface than previously believed, and may have sheltered primitive life forms as the planet started drying up.

LTDs were some of the first features seen on Mars, because they showed up even in the black and white images sent back by the first spacecraft to flyby Mars. But they are also some of the least understood features on the Red Planet, and have been highly debated. These deposits occur on a large scale in Arabia Terra, Chaotic Terrain and Valles Marineris, close to the Tharsis volcanic bulge.
Crommelin Crater LTDs. Credit: ESA
Now, based on Mars Express data, scientists propose that these sediments are actually younger than originally believed. Angelo Rossi and several colleagues report their findings in a paper published in September of this year in Geophysical Research. They have proposed that several LTDs may have been deposited by large-scale springs of groundwater that burst on to the surface, possibly at different times.

Analysis also indicates that ground water had a more wide-ranging and important role in Martian history than previously believed. Hydrated minerals, relatively young in age, have been found in the region.

Given that the deposits are relatively young in age, and associated with water, they may also have sheltered microbial life from the drier and harsher climate in more recent times on Mars, possibly eliminating the need for a stable atmosphere or a permanent water body.

Complimentary studies by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter also have indicated LTDs were formed by water.

Source: ESA

Time Magazine Top 10 Scientific Discoveries of 2008: Space and Physics Dominate

Direct observation of an exoplanet orbiting the star Fomalhaut - Number 6 in the top 10 (NASA/HST)

[/caption]2008 has been an astounding year of scientific discovery. To celebrate this fact, Time Magazine has listed the “Top 10 Scientific Discoveries” where space exploration and physics dominate. Other disciplines are also listed; including zoology, microbiology, technology and biochemistry, but the number 1 slot goes to the most ambitious physics experiment of our time. Can you guess what it is? Also, of all our endeavours in space, can you pick out three that Time Magazine has singled out as being the most important?

As we approach the end of the year, ready to welcome in 2009, it is good to take stock and celebrate the mind-blowing achievements mankind has accomplished. Read on for the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2008

The best thing about writing for a leading space news blog is that you gain wonderful overview to all our endeavours in astronomy, space flight, physics, politics (yes, space exploration has everything to do with politics), space commercialization and science in general. 2008 has been such a rich year for space exploration; we’ve landed probes on other worlds, studied other worlds orbiting distant stars, peered deep into the quantum world, learnt profound things about our own planet, developed cutting-edge instrumentation and redefined the human existence in the cosmos. We might not have all the answers (in fact, I think we are only just beginning to scratch the surface of our understanding of the Universe), but we have embarked on an enlightening journey on which we hope to build strong foundations for the next year of scientific discovery.

In an effort to assemble some of the most profound scientific endeavours of this year, Time Magazine has somehow narrowed the focus down to just 10 discoveries. Out of the ten, four are space and physics related, so here they are:

6. Brave New Worlds: First direct observations of exoplanets

Infrared observations of a multi-exoplanet star system HR 8799 (Keck Observatory)
Infrared observations of a multi-exoplanet star system HR 8799 (Keck Observatory)
In November, we saw a flood of images of alien worlds orbiting distant stars. On the same day, Hubble publicised strikingly sharp images of an exoplanet orbiting a star called Fomalhaut (pictured top) and then a ground-based Keck-Gemini campaign made the first direct observations of a multi-exoplanet system around a star called HR8799 (pictured left). A few days later, yet another image came in from another research group at the European Southern Observatory, spotting the very compact orbit of an exoplanet around the star Beta Pictorus.

Considering there have never been any direct observations of exoplanets before November 2008–although we have known about the presence of worlds orbiting other stars for many years via indirect methods–this has been a revolutionary year for exoplanet hunters.

4. China Soars into Space: First taikonaut carries out successful spacewalk

Zhai Zhigang exits the Shenzhou-7 capsule with Earth overhead (Xinhua/BBC)
Zhai Zhigang exits the Shenzhou-7 capsule with Earth overhead (Xinhua/BBC)
Following hot on the heels of one of the biggest Olympic Games in Beijing, China launched a three-man crew into space to make history. The taikonauts inside Shenzhou-7 were blasted into space by a Long March II-F rocket on September 25th.

Despite early controversy surrounding recorded spaceship transmissions before the rocket had even launched, and then the sustained efforts by conspiracy theorists to convince the world that the whole thing was staged, mission commander Zhai Zhigang did indeed become the first ever Chinese citizen to carry out a spacewalk. Zhai spent 16 minutes outside of the capsule, attached by an umbilical cable, to triumphantly wave the Chinese flag and retrieve a test sample of solid lubricant attached to the outside of the module. His crew mate Liu Boming was also able to do some spacewalking.

Probably the most incredible thing about the first Chinese spacewalk wasn’t necessarily the spacewalk itself, it was the speed at which China managed to achieve this goal in such a short space of time. The first one-man mission into space was in 2003, the second in 2005, and the third was this year. Getting man into space is no easy task, to build an entire manned program in such a short space of time, from the ground-up, is an outstanding achievement.

2. The North Pole – of Mars: The Phoenix Mars Lander

Phoenix (NASA/UA)
Capturing the world's attention: Phoenix (NASA/UA)
Phoenix studied the surface of the Red Planet for five months. It was intended to only last for three. In that time, this robotic explorer captured the hearts and minds of the world; everybody seemed to be talking about the daily trials and tribulations of this highly successful mission. Perhaps it was because of the constant news updates via the University of Arizona website, or the rapid micro-blogging via Twitter; whatever the reason, Phoenix was a short-lived space celebrity.

During the few weeks on Mars, Phoenix discovered water, studied atmospheric phenomena, plus it characterized the regolith to find it is more “soil-like” than we gave it credit for. However, Phoenix also discovered a chemical called perchlorate that could be hazardous to life on the Martian surface, but there is a flip-side to that coin; the chemical may provide energy for basic forms of life.

Like all good adventures there were twists and turns in Phoenix’s progress, with the odd conspiracy thrown in for good measure. Even during Phoenix’s sad, slow death, the lander had some surprises in store before it slowly slipped into a Sun-deprived, low energy coma.

To give the highly communicative lander the last word, MarsPhoenix on Twitter has recently announced: “Look who made Time Mag’s Top 10 list for Scientific Discoveries in 2008: http://tinyurl.com/5mwt2l

1. Large Hadron Collider

The complexity of the Large Hadron Collider (CERN/LHC/GridPP)
The complexity of the Large Hadron Collider (CERN/LHC/GridPP)

Speaking of “capturing the hearts and minds” of the world, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has done just that, but not always in a positive way (although common sense seems to be winning). So, in the #1 spot of Time Magazine’s Top 10 Scientific Discoveries of 2008, the LHC is a clear winner.

In the run-up to the switch-on of the LHC in September, the world’s media focused its attention on the grandest physics experiment ever constructed. The LHC will ultimately probe deep into the world of subatomic particles to help to explain some of the fundamental questions of our Universe. Primarily, the LHC has been designed to hunt for the elusive Higgs boson, but the quest will influence many facets of science. From designing an ultra-fast method of data transmission to unfolding the theoretical microscopic dimensions curled up in space-time, the LHC is a diverse science, with applications we won’t fully appreciate for many years.

Unfortunately, as you may be wondering, the LHC hasn’t actually discovered anything yet, but the high-energy collisions of protons and other, larger subatomic particles, will revolutionize physics. I’d argue that the simple fact the multi-billion euro machine has been built is a discovery of how advanced our technological ability is becoming.

Although the first particles were circulated on that historic day on September 10th, we’ll have to wait for the first particle collisions to occur some time in the summer of 2009. Engineers are currently working hard to repair the estimated £14 million (~$20 million) damage caused by the “quench” that knocked out a number of superconducting electromagnets on September 19th.

For more, check out the Top 10 Scientific Discoveries in Time Magazine, there’s another six that aren’t related to space or physics

HiRISE Wows Again, This Time in 3-D

Arabia Terra in 3-D. Credit: NASA/JPL/UA

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Grab your 3-D glasses and prepare to be amazed (and addicted!) The team from the remarkable HiRISE Camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has released a collection of 3-D images — 362 of ’em — of Mars surface. The incredible power of this camera can resolve features as small as one meter, or 40 inches, across, and in looking at these 3-D images, it’s almost like being there. Above is one of my favorites from this collection, Arabia Terra. “It’s really remarkable to see Martian rocks and features on the scale of a person in 3-D,” said Alfred McEwen of UA’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, HiRISE principal investigator. “The level of detail is just much, much greater than anything previously seen from orbit.”

How was the team able to create so many 3-D images? And how can you get or make a pair of 3-D glasses?

Usually, creating 3-D anaglyphs is a tedious and time-consuming process. But the HiRISE team was able to automate some of the software used in processing the images so two images of a stereo pair could be fed into the software “pipeline” and correlated automatically. So look for even more 3-D images in the future. But 362 should keep most of us busy, for awhile anyway!
Candor Chasma.  Credit: NASA/JPL/UA
Here, spectacular layers are exposed on the floor of a large canyon in the Valles Marineris system called Candor Chasma which is about 2-and-a-half miles, or 4 kilometers deep. The canyon may once have been filled to its rim by sedimentary layers of sand and dust-sized particles, but these have since eroded, leaving patterns of elongated hills and layered terrain that has been turned and folded in many angles and directions.

If you don’t have a pair of 3-D glasses, here’s a link to a list of several sources of finding some, or you can even make your own. Sometimes, 3-D glasses can be found for free on cereal boxes, or in children’s books or other sources.

Find out how 3-D images are made, and learn how to make your own 3-D images here.

Becquerel Crater. Credit: NASA/JPL/UA
Becquerel Crater. Credit: NASA/JPL/UA

Here is a 3-D version of Becquerel Crater, and the layered terrain of which we wrote about last week, which was formed by cyclical climate change.

See the entire collection of HiRISE 3-D’s here.

Source: U of Arizona

“Stairways” on Mars Lead to Clues on Cyclical, Moderate Climate

Rhythmic bedding in sedimentary bedrock within Becquerel crater on Mars is suggested by the patterns in this image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image credit: Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

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We see evidence on Mars’ surface of a violent past: massive volcanic eruptions, catastrophic floods, and a surface scarred with craters. But new images of rock formations on Mars resembling stairs suggest Mars at one time had a regular pattern of predictable and even moderate climate cycles persisting for millions of years. Three-dimensional images from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show patterns in thick stacks of sedimentary rock layers, formed by a cyclical climate that is likely tied to the wobble of Mars on its axis.

Combining several images of the rock formations from different perspectives, scientists were able to produce three dimensional images, as well as a dramatic flyby movie of the layered sediments. Based on a pattern of layers within layers found at an area called Becquerel crater, the scientists propose that each layer was formed over a period of about 100,000 years and that these layers were produced by cyclical climate changes. The outcrops have been eroded into mounds on the floors of the craters, with many of the layered deposits showing a stair-stepped shape. Each layer has exactly the same thickness.

Sequences of cyclic sedimentary rock layers exposed in an unnamed crater in Arabia Terra, Mars. (Credit, both images: Topography, Caltech; HiRISE Images, NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)
Sequences of cyclic sedimentary rock layers exposed in an unnamed crater in Arabia Terra, Mars. (Credit, both images: Topography, Caltech; HiRISE Images, NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

Every 10 of the “staircase” layers are bundled into a larger unit, which the team, led by Kevin Lewis of the California Institute of Technology, calculates was laid down over a million-year period, and Becquerel contains 10 of these bundles. One million years is the same duration as the periodic variations in Mars’ tilt, suggesting that climate variations induced by the tilt produced the layering. Each bundle, then, represents climate processes as the planet tilted. This tilt periodically cooled the equatorial region and warmed the poles as they received more sunlight.

“Due to the scale of the layers, small variations in Mars’s orbit are the best candidate for the implied climate changes,” said Kevin Lewis of the California Institute of Technology, who led the study. “These are the very same changes that have been shown to set the pacing of ice ages on the Earth and can also lead to cyclic layering of sediments.”

This image shows sedimentary-rock layering in which a series of layers are all approximately the same thickness. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
This image shows sedimentary-rock layering in which a series of layers are all approximately the same thickness. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

The tilt of Earth on its axis varies between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees over a 41,000-year period. The tilt itself is responsible for seasonal variation in climate, because the portion of the Earth that is tipped toward the sun–and that receives more sunlight hours during a day–gradually changes throughout the year. During phases of lower obliquity, polar regions are less subject to seasonal variations, leading to periods of glaciation.

Mars’s tilt varies by tens of degrees over a 100,000-year cycle, producing even more dramatic variation. When the obliquity is low, the poles are the coldest places on the planet, while the sun is located near the equator all the time. This could cause volatiles in the atmosphere, like water and carbon dioxide, to migrate poleward, where they’d be locked up as ice.

“It’s easy to be fooled without knowing the topography and measuring the layers in three dimensions,” said Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson, principal investigator for the camera and a co-author of the paper. “With the stereo information, it is clear there’s a repeating pattern to these layers.”

Sources: JPL, Caltech

Mars Science Laboratory Mission Delayed Two Years

Mars Science Lab rover. Credit: NASA

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NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory has been delayed for two years and will now launch in the fall of 2011. The decision to delay is based on various technical problems the MSL team has encountered and having enough time to work through the problems, as well as provide adequate time for testing all the systems on the car-sized rover. The main problems are the actuators, the gear boxes for all the moving parts. Mars program manager Doug McCuistion said the team is actually only a few months behind schedule, but in going to Mars, that doesn’t matter since a launch window to the Red Planet only comes once every 26 months. “We know these actuator motors must work on Mars and we’ve got anomalies on some of them we don’t understand,” said McCuistion. “It’s the right thing to delay the mission to take the appropriate time to understand the technical issues and test everything thoroughly.”

“Failure is not an option for this mission,” said Ed Weiler, NASA’s associate administrator for science.

The MSL mission will send a next-generation rover with unprecedented research tools to study the early environmental history of Mar, with the fundamental purpose to explore if the conditions for microbial life on Mars ever existed, or if they exist now.

The slip to 2011 will cost $400 million, making the total cost the mission about 2.2-2.3 billion in life cycle costs.

Weiler said there will some “pain” in planetary science and other Mars missions, but there will be paybacks, and no cancelations of any missions or programs are expected. There could be subsequent delays in other missions, however.

“There’s nobody who would like to launch in 2009 more than this team,” said JPL Director Charles Elachi. “These are the same people who put the face of NASA on the front page of newspapers the past few years with our other Mars missions. Unfortunately despite full support by NASA headquarters and the contractors, we just came a little short on time. The plan is to understand these technical issues, look for solution and do a very comprehensive test program. You can’t rely on luck to be successful on Mars.”

The vast majority of the hardware for the rover has been completed, but not everything is working well, particularly the actuators. NASA officials at today’s press conference all said they can’t send MSL to Mars without knowing everything they can about the issues with the actuators.

“The actuators are basically motors in a gear box,” said McCuistion. “All our landers have robotic actuators, and they enable the rover to do what they do: to drive and stop, they run the elbow and wrist join for the robotic arm and drills in sample handling devices. That’s why they are absolutely crucial to these missions. If the actuators can’t move, we essentially have junk on the surface of Mars.”

There are 31 different actuators on MSL, and 60 flight actuators and 45 engineering actuators are being built. Some of the problems have come from the manufacturing side with workmanship, and the most recent issue is drag torque issues within the devices. “The criticality and the number of these actuators is key,” said Elachi. “These actuators are much more massive than for MER mission since the MSL rover is about 8 times bigger, and they are very sophisticated.”

When asked if NASA had considered canceling the MSL mission, Griffin said absolutely not. “Before canceling I’d have to believe the project is going badly in a technical sense, but it’s not. When you’re doing things that have never been done before, you’re likely to encounter unforeseen difficulties. But just having difficulties is no cause to cancel. We had problems with Hubble, and we had problems with COBE, but I don’t think today anyone regrets having Nobel prize winning science from these missions. Unless you’re interested in building cookie cutter copies of previous spacecraft, and nobody is interested in doing that, you’ll encounter problems with hardware that’s never been built before.”

Source: NASA TV

Who Listens For Phoenix?

Phoenix. Credit: NASA/JPL/UA

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Phoenix isn’t merely dead; it’s really most sincerely dead. NASA has now stopped listening for any residual beeps sent by the Phoenix lander with the spacecraft orbiting Mars. After nearly a month of daily checks to listen for any last communications from the lander, the Mars Odyssey and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have ended their efforts to listen for Phoenix. The final communication from Phoenix remains a brief signal received via Odyssey on Nov. 2. “The variability of the Martian weather was a contributing factor to our loss of communications, and we were hoping that another variation in weather might give us an opportunity to contact the lander again,” said Phoenix Mission Manager Chris Lewicki of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The last attempt to listen for a signal from Phoenix was when Odyssey passed overhead at 3:49 p.m. PST Saturday, Nov. 29 (4:26 p.m. local Mars solar time on the 182nd Martian day, or sol, since Phoenix landed).

And now, a moment of silence…

The Phoenix lander operated for two overtime months after achieving its science goals during its original three-month mission. It landed on a Martian arctic plain on back on May 25.

As expected, reduced daily sunshine eventually left the solar-powered Phoenix craft without enough energy to keep its batteries charged.

The end of efforts to listen for Phoenix with Odyssey and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter had been planned for the start of solar conjunction, when the sun is almost directly between the Earth and Mars. This makes communications between Earth and Mars-orbiting spacecraft difficult, and so they are therefore minimized from now until mid-December.

Nov. 29 was selected weeks ago as the final date for relay monitoring of Phoenix because it provided several weeks to confirm the lander was really most sincerely dead, and it coincided with the beginning of solar conjunction. When they come out of the conjunction period, weather on far-northern Mars will be far colder, and the declining sunshine will have ruled out any chance of hearing from Phoenix.

Source: JPL

Wood Plank Found on Mars?

Panoramic image with "plank"-like rock. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell

Over the long holiday weekend, Universe Today was flooded with emails from readers who asked us to comment on an image taken by the Opportunity rover that appears to show a plank of wood laying on the surface of Mars. The image, above, (here’s the full resolution image) was taken in May of 2004, about four and a half years ago, in the early part of the Mars Exploration Rover mission. Since the image appears to have caused a bit of excitement across the internet recently, I decided to contact Dr. Jim Bell from Cornell University, who is also the lead scientist for the Panoramic cameras on the rovers. Bell was surprised to hear from me about the image, but happy to offer some insight. “My first reaction,” he said, “is that it’s delightful that there is such public interest in images from Mars.” Bell agreed that, indeed, it does look like a wooden plank. But does that mean it is a piece of wood on Mars? Sadly, no, says Bell.

"Plank" crop image.

“What you’re seeing is a piece of flat, platy, layered sulfur-rich outcrop rock like we’ve seen almost everywhere the Opportunity rover has been in Meridiani Planum,” said Bell. “Sometimes, like in this case, those flat, platy rocks have been tilted or dislodged, this one probably from the forces associated with the huge impact crater that formed nearby.”

See this image of several rocks in the area that have been tilted:

More tilted rocks.  Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell
More tilted rocks. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell

“And this one’s being viewed edge-on,” Bell said, of the rock in question. “That edge-on view, combined with the layered nature of these rocks in general gives the surface a sort of grainy texture. So, indeed, it looks like a wooden plank on Mars.”

So, could it maybe be wood? “No, sadly,” said Bell. “I say ‘sadly’ because personally I think it would be incredible and spectacular to find a wooden plank on Mars! However, in this case, it’s just a trick of the lighting and the viewing angle.”

This image, as other Mars images that have created hubbub and speculation, is another example of our human tendency to see familiar shapes in random patterns. (Phil Plait talks about this pareidolia here.)

In fact, I spent most of the morning scanning through MER images from May 15-29, 2004 to see if I could find more images of this “wooden plank.” There’s plenty, as all of the MER images from all five cameras for both rovers are freely available on the rover website. I believe I found an image of the same rock, taken from the “backside” or opposite view: (see below)

Opportunity rover image from Sol 111.  Credit: NASA/JPL
Opportunity rover image from Sol 111. Credit: NASA/JPL

Here, it appears to be a rock, a tilted rock, but it doesn’t stand out because from this view, the lighting doesn’t make the rock appear as dark as the original view. Again, I’m not sure this is the same rock, but there are several images of tilted rocks in this region, and if this isn’t the same one, it’s one very much like it.

Here’s another image of rocks that have a similar “grainy” look to them:

Rocks with grainy surface.  Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell
Rocks with grainy surface. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell

For those of you who remain convinced that NASA is covering up some sort of “major” finding here, just remember a few things:

1. This image was released back in May of 2004, just a couple of days after it was taken by Opportunity. MER Principal Investigator Steve Squyres made the decision before the mission started to release all the images taken by the rovers and make them freely available to anyone. If NASA was hiding something, they wouldn’t have posted this image, as well as all the other images of the area that are available. Please, go look at them all if you have any doubt.

2. The best planetary geologists on Earth have looked at this image, and have all concluded this is just a rock. It’s an interesting rock, but a rock nonetheless. Think again if you believe some internet sleuths out there have a better understanding of this object than highly trained and experienced planetary scientists.

3. If this object really was a piece of wood, NASA and all the scientists on the MER mission would probably be shouting from the rooftops. As Jim Bell said, it would be incredible and spectacular, and don’t think for a minute these scientists wouldn’t be jumping for joy if they found something as amazing as log on Mars.

And in case you’re wondering about the other interesting feature in the image, the shiny object in the background is Opportunity’s heat shield.

Crazy Mars Craters

Small Crater on the North Polar Deposits Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

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With all the different spacecraft orbiting and roving on the Red Planet, we’re finding that Mars is a wonderfully diverse and dynamic planet, with some unusual landforms. Take craters, for instance, and especially a few images of craters from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera. The image above shows a small impact crater on the bright north polar ice cap, near where the Phoenix lander sits, now silently. The perennial, or permanent, portion of the north polar cap consists almost entirely of water ice, and so this curious-looking crater in the ice has never melted away. And its obvious how differently craters are formed in ice; ice ejecta just doesn’t look the same as soil! This crater is about 66 meters (215 feet) in diameter, and scientists think the slightly elliptical shape of the crater is a result of an oblique, or a sideways impact (instead of straight down.) And if you think this crater is unusual, how about a crater that looks upside down….

Unusual Mound in North Polar Layered Deposits   Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Unusual Mound in North Polar Layered Deposits Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Yes, this mound may actually be a buried impact crater. “The mound may be the remnant of a buried impact crater, which is now being exhumed,” said HiRISE team member Shane Byrne, of the University of Arizona. Byrne said the crater formed as the north polar ice layers were being deposited. The crater itself would have been filled in by ice after it formed.

Most of these craters are buried under the Martian surface and inaccessible to scientists and their instruments. But this crater and its mound were exhumed as erosion formed a trough above and around it. “For reasons that are poorly understood right now, the ice beneath the site of the crater is more resistant to this erosion, so that as the trough is formed, ice beneath the old impact site remained, forming this isolated hill,” Byrne said.

At high resolution, the HiRISE image shows that the mound is made up of polygonal blocks as big as 33 feet (10 meters) across.

Gullies and Light-Toned Outcrops in Crater Wall  Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Gullies and Light-Toned Outcrops in Crater Wall Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Hopefully this crater rim won’t take on monumental connotations and become known as the H on Mars, but, yes, that’s what it looks like. It’s actually just dark colored outcrops in an otherwise light colored area. You can also see gullies in the crater wall just to the left of the “H,” which scientists probably find more interesting and intriguing than the H.

Lineated Valley Fill and Lobate Debris Aprons in Deuteronilus Mensae   Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Lineated Valley Fill and Lobate Debris Aprons in Deuteronilus Mensae Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

And finally, since I have craters on the brain, I’ll call this image the Grey Matter Crater. Doesn’t the texture of this region look like a brain?! Actually, these landforms in the Dueteronilus Mensae region on Mars are made up of complex alignments of small ridges and pits often called “lineated valley fill.” The cause of the texture is not well understood, but may result from patterns in ice-rich soils or ice loss due to sublimation (ice changing into water vapor).

For more HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) mages, browse through the ever-interesting and ever changing HiRISE website.

Source: HiRISE, Fox