Posted on by Ken Kremer

NASA Robot arrives at ‘New’ Landing Site holding Clues to Ancient Water Flow on Mars

Opportunity investigates Tisdale 2 rock showing indications of ancient Martian water flow. NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used its front hazard-avoidance camera to take this picture showing the rover's arm extended toward a light-toned rock, "Tisdale 2," during Sol 2695 of the rover's work on Mars (Aug. 23, 2011). The composition of Tisdale 2 is unlike any rock studied by Opportunity since landing 7.5 years ago. It is about 12 inches (30 centimeters) tall. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

[/caption]

Opportunity has begun a whole new mission at the vast expanse of Endeavour Crater promising a boatload of new science discoveries.

Scientists directing NASA’s Mars Opportunity rover gushed with excitement as they announced that the aging robot has discovered a rock with a composition unlike anything previously explored on the Red Planet’s surface – since she landed on the exotic Martian plains 7.5 years ago – and which offers indications that liquid water might have percolated or flowed at this spot billions of years ago.

Barely three weeks ago Opportunity arrived at the rim of the gigantic 14 mile ( 22 km) wide crater named Endeavour after an epic multi-year trek, and for the team it’s literally been like a 2nd landing on Mars – and the equivalent of the birth of a whole new mission of exploration at an entirely ‘new’ landing site.

“This is like having a brand new landing site for our veteran rover,” said Dave Lavery, program executive for NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “It is a remarkable bonus that comes from being able to rove on Mars with well-built hardware that lasts.”

Opportunity has traversed an incredible distance of 20.8 miles (33.5 km) across the Meridiani Planum region of Mars since landing on January 24, 2004 for a 3 month mission – now 30 times longer than the original warranty.

“Tisdale 2” is the name of the first rock that Opportunity drove to and investigated after reaching Endeavour crater and climbing up the rim at a low ridge dubbed ‘Cape York’.

This rock, informally named "Tisdale 2," was the first rock the NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity examined in detail on the rim of Endeavour crater. It has textures and composition unlike any rock the rover examined during its first 90 months on Mars. Its characteristics are consistent with the rock being a breccia -- a type of rock fusing together broken fragments of older rocks. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU

Endeavour’s rim is heavily eroded and discontinuous and divided into a series of segmented and beautiful mountainous ridges that offer a bonanza for science.

“This is not like anything we’ve ever seen before. So this is a new kind of rock.” said Steve Squyres, principal investigator for Opportunity at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y at a briefing for reporters on Sept. 1.

“It has a composition similar to some volcanic rocks, but there’s much more zinc and bromine than we’ve typically seen. We are getting confirmation that reaching Endeavour really has given us the equivalent of a second landing site for Opportunity.”

Tisdale 2 is a flat-topped rock about the size of a footstool that was blasted free by the impact that formed the tennis court sized “Odyssey” crater from which it was ejected.

“The other big take-away message, and this is to me the most interesting thing about Tisdale, is that this rock has a huge amount of zinc in it, way more zinc than we have ever seen in any Martian rock. And we are puzzling, we are thinking very hard over what that means,” Squyres speculated.

Bright veins cutting across outcrop in a section of Endeavour crater's rim called "Botany Bay" are visible in the foreground and middle distance of this view assembled from images taken by the navigation camera on Opportunity during Sol 2,681on Mars (Aug. 9, 2011). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Squyres said that high levels of zinc and bromine on Earth are often associated with rocks in contact with flowing water and thus experiencing hydrothermal activity and that the impact is the source of the water.

“When you find rocks on Earth that are rich in zinc, they typically form in a place where you had some kind of hydrothermal activity going on, in other words, you have water that gets heated up and it flows through the rocks and it can dissolve out and it can get redeposited in various places,” Squyres explained.

“So this is a clue, not definitive proof yet, but this is a clue that we may be dealing with a hydrothermal system here, we may be dealing with a situation where water has percolated or flowed or somehow moved through these rocks, maybe as vapor, maybe as liquid, don’t know yet.”

“But it has enhanced the zinc concentration in this rock to levels far in excess of anything we’ve ever seen on Mars before. So that’s the beginning of what we expect is going to be a long and very interesting story about these rocks.”

Endeavour crater was chosen three years ago as the long term destination for Opportunity because it may hold clues to a time billions and billions of years ago when Mars was warmer and wetter and harbored an environment that was far more conducive to the formation of life beyond Earth.

Endeavour Crater Panorama from Opportunity, Sol 2681, August 2011
Opportunity arrived at the rim of Endeavour on Sol 2681, August 9, 2011 and climbed up the ridge known as Cape York. Odyssey crater is visible at left. The rover has driven to Tisdale 2 rock at the outskirts of Odyssey to investigate the ejecta blocks which may hold clues to ancient water flow on Mars. Distant portions of Endeavour’s rim - as far as 13 miles away – visible in the background. The rover will likely drive eventually to the Cape Tribulation rim segment at right which holds a mother lode of clay minerals. This photo mosaic was stitched together from raw images taken by Opportunity on Sol 2681.
Mosaic Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Kenneth Kremer

Signatures of clay minerals, or phyllosilicates, were detected at several spots at Endeavour’s western rim by observations from the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

“The motherlode of clay minerals is on Cape Tribulation. The exposure extends all the way to the top, mainly on the inboard side,” said Ray Arvidson, the rover’s deputy principal investigator at Washington University in St. Louis.

Opportunity Traverse Map: 2004 to 2011. The yellow line on this map shows where NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity has driven from the place where it landed in January 2004 -- inside Eagle crater, at the upper left end of the track -- to a point approaching the rim of Endeavour crater. The map traces the route through the 2,670th Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's work on Mars (July 29, 2011). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/NMMNHS.

Phyllosilicates are clay minerals that form in the presence of pH neutral water and which are far more hospitable to the possible genesis of life compared to the sulfate rich rocks studied in the more highly acidic aqueous environments examined by both the Opportunity and Spirit rovers thus far.

“We can get up the side of Cape Tribulation,” said Arvidson. It’s not unlike Husband Hill for Spirit. We need to finish up first at Cape York, get through the martian winter and then start working our way south along Solander Point.

The general plan is that Opportunity will probably spend the next several months exploring the Cape York region for before going elsewhere. “Just from Tisdale 2 we know that we have something really new and different here,” said Squyres.

“On the final traverses to Cape York, we saw ragged outcrops at Botany Bay unlike anything Opportunity has seen so far, and a bench around the edge of Cape York looks like sedimentary rock that’s been cut and filled with veins of material possibly delivered by water,” said Arvidson. “We made an explicit decision to examine ancient rocks of Cape York first.”

So far at least the terrain at Cape York looks safe for driving with good prospects for mobility.

Opportunity approaches Tisdale 2 rock at Endeavour Crater rim
Opportunity Mars rover climbed up the ridge known as Cape York and drove to the flat topped Tisdale 2 rock at upper left to analyze it with the science instruments on the robotic arm. This photo mosaic was stitched together from raw images taken by Opportunity on Sol 2685, August 2011.
Mosaic Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Kenneth Kremer

“The good news is that, as predicted, we have hard packed soils like the plains at Gusev that Spirit saw before getting to the Columbia Hills,” said Arvidson. “The wheel tracks at Cape York are very, very shallow. So if anything we will have some skid going downhill the slopes of 5 to 10 degrees on the inboard side which we can correct for.”

“We are always on the lookout for sand traps. We are particularly sensitized to that after the Spirit situation. So far it’s clear sailing ahead.”

Opportunity will then likely head southwards towards an area dubbed “Botany Bay” and eventually drive some 1.5 km further to the next ridge named Cape Tribulation and hopefully scale the slopes in an uphill search for that mother lode of phyllosilicates.

“My strong hope – if the rover lasts that long – is that we will have a vehicle that is capable of climbing Cape Tribulation just as we climbed Husband Hill with Spirit. So it’s obvious to try if the rover is capable, otherwise we would try something simpler. But even if we lose a wheel we still have a vehicle capable of a lot of science,” Squyres emphasized. “Then we would stick to lower ground and more gently sloping stuff.”

“The clear intention as we finish up at Cape York, and look at what to do next, is that we are going to work our way south. We will focus along the crater’s rim. We will work south along the rim of Endeavour unless some discovery unexpectedly causes us to do something else.”

“We will go where the science takes us !” Squyres stated.

Opportunity is in generally good health but the rover is showing signs of aging.

“All in all, we have a very senior rover that’s showing her age, she has some arthritis and some other issues but generally, she’s in good health, she’s sleeping well at night, her cholesterol levels are excellent and so we look forward to productive scientific exploration for the period ahead,” said John Callas, project manager for Opportunity at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

“This has the potential to be the most revealing destination ever explored by Opportunity,” said Lavery. “This region is substantially different than anything we’ve seen before. We’re looking at this next phase of Opportunity’s exploration as a whole new mission, entering an area that is significantly different in the geologic context than anything we’ve seen with the rovers.”

This image taken from orbit shows the path of the path driven by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity in the weeks around the rover's arrival at the rim of Endeavour crater. The sol number (number of Martian days since the rover landed on Mars) are indicated along the route. Sol 2674 corresponds to Aug. 2, 2011; Sol 2688 corresponds to Aug. 16, 2011. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
Elevated Zinc and Bromine in Tisdale 2 Rock on Endeavour Rim. This graphic presents information gained by examining part of the Martian rock called "Tisdale 2" with the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer on Mars rover Opportunity and comparing the composition measured there with compositions of other targets examined by Opportunity and its rover twin, Spirit. The comparison targets are soil in Gusev crater, examined by Spirit; the relatively fresh basaltic rock Adirondack, examined by Spirit; the stony meteorite Marquette examined by Opportunity; and Gibraltar, an example of sulfate-rich bedrock examined by Opportunity. The target area on Tisdale 2, called "Timmins 1," contains elevated levels of bromine (Br), zinc (Zn), phosphorus (P), sulfur (S) and chlorine (Cl) relative to the non-sulfate-rich comparison rocks, and high levels of zinc and phosphorus relative to Gibraltar. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Max Planck Institute/University of Guelph

Read Ken’s continuing features about Mars starting here
Opportunity Arrives at Huge Martian Crater with Superb Science and Scenic Outlook
Opportunity Snaps Gorgeous Vistas nearing the Foothills of Giant Endeavour Crater
Dramatic New NASA Animation Depicts Next Mars Rover in Action
Opportunity Rover Heads for Spirit Point to Honor Dead Martian Sister; Science Team Tributes
Opportunity Rover Completes Exploration of fascinating Santa Maria Crater
Opportunity Surpasses 30 KM Driving and Snaps Skylab Crater in 3 D

Posted on by Ken Kremer

Opportunity Arrives at Huge Martian Crater with Superb Science and Scenic Outlook

Endeavour Crater Panorama from Opportunity, Sol 2681, August 2011. NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover arrived at the rim of huge Endeavour crater on Sol 2681, August 9, 2011 and climbed up the ridge known as Cape York. A small crater dubbed ‘Odyssey’ is visible in the foreground at left. The rover has now driven to the outskirts of Odyssey to investigate the ejecta blocks which may stem from an ancient and wetter Martian Epoch. Opportunity snapped this soaring panorama showing distant portions of Endeavour’s rim - as far as 13 miles away - in the background. This photo mosaic was stitched together from raw images taken by Opportunity on Sol 2681. Mosaic Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Kenneth Kremer

[/caption]NASA’s Mars Opportunity rover has finally arrived at the huge Martian crater named Endeavour that simultaneously offers a mother lode of superb scenery and potentially the “Mother of all Martian Science”. The epic journey took nearly three years.

The intrepid robogirl is now climbing uphill on a Scientific quest that may well produce bountiful results towards the most important findings ever related to the search for life on Mars. Opportunity arrived at the western rim of the 13 mile (21 km) wide Endeavour crater on the 2681st Sol , or Martian day, of a mission only warrantied to last 90 Sols.

See our new Opportunity panoramic mosaics (Marco Di Lorenzo & Ken Kremer) illustrating the magnificent scenery and science targets now at hand on the surface of the Red Planet, thanks to the diligent work of the science and engineering teams who created the twin Mars Exploration Rover (MER) vehicles – Spirit & Opportunity.

Opportunity made landfall at Endeavour at a ridge of the discontinuous crater rim named Cape York and at a spot dubbed “Spirit Point” – in honor or her twin sister Spirit which stopped communicating with Earth about a year ago following more than six years of active science duty. See traverse map mosaic.

The martian robot quickly started driving northwards up the gnetle slopes of Cape York and has reached a small crater named “Odyssey” – the first science target, Dr. Matt Golembek told Universe Today. Golembek is a Senior Research Scientist with the Mars Exploration Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.

“Large ejecta blocks are clearly visible on the rim of Odyssey crater,” said Golembek. The crater is about 66 feet (20 m) in diameter.

Odyssey is a small impact crater of interest to the team because it features exposed material from Mars ancient Noachian era that was ejected when the crater was excavated long ago. Opportunity carefully drove over several days to one of those ejecta blocks – a flat topped rock nicknamed Tisdale 2.

Endeavour Crater Panorama from Opportunity, Sol 2685, August 2011
NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover arrived at the rim of huge Endeavour crater on Sol 2681, August 9, 2011 and is climbed up the ridge known as Cape York. She drove to the flat topped Tisdale 2 rock at upper left to analyze it with the science instruments on the robotic arm. Opportunity snapped this soaring panorama showing distant portions of Endeavour’s rim - as far as 13 miles away - in the background. This photo mosaic was stitched together from raw images taken by Opportunity on Sol 2685.
Mosaic Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Kenneth Kremer

“Opportunity is at a block of Odyssey crater ejecta called Tisdale 2 and the rock appears different from anything else we have seen,” Golembek explained.

Starting on Sol 2688 (Aug. 16) the rover began a science campaign time to investigate the rock with the instruments at the terminus of its robotic arm or IDD (Instrument Deployment Device) that will continue for some period of time.

“We are about to start an IDD campaign,” Golembek stated.

The Long Journey of Opportunity form Eagle to Endeavour Crater (2004 to 2011).
This map mosaic shows Opportunity’s epic trek of nearly eight years from landing at Eagle crater on January 24, 2004 to arrival at the giant 13 mile (21 km) diameter Endeavour crater in August 2011. Opportunity arrived the Endeavour’s rim and then drove up a ridge named Cape York. The photomosaic at top right show the outlook from Cape York on Sol 2685 (August 2011).
Mosaic Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Kenneth Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

The team reports that the soil at Cape York is also of a different texture than any that Opportunity has seen so far on her incredible 20 mile (33 km) trek across the Meridiani Planum region of Mars. So far they haven’t seen of the iron-rich concretions, nicknamed “blueberries,” which have been plentiful on the surface along the way at numerous locations Opportunity has stopped at and investigated over the past 90 months. Initially the prime mission was projected to last 3 months – the remainder has been a huge bonus.

The science team is directing Opportunity to hunt for clay minerals, also known as phyllosilicates, that could unlock the secrets of an ancient Epoch on Mars stretching back billions and billions of years ago that was far wetter and very likely more habitable and welcoming to life’s genesis.

Phyllosilicate minerals form in neutral water that would be vastly more friendly to any potential Martian life forms – if they ever existed in the past or present. Signatures for phyllosilicates were detected by the CRISM instrument aboard NASA’s powerful Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft circling Mars

Flat-topped Tisdale 2 rock. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
'Ridout' Rock on Rim of Odyssey Crater. Opportunity looked across small Odyssey crater on the rim of much larger Endeavour crater to capture this raw image from its panoramic camera during the rover's 2,685th Martian day, or sol, of work on Mars (Aug. 13, 2011). From a position south of Odyssey, this view is dominated by a rock informally named "Ridout" on the northeastern rim of Odyssey. The rock is roughly the same size as the rover, which is 4.9 feet (1.5 meters) long. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU

Read my continuing features about Mars starting here
Opportunity Snaps Gorgeous Vistas nearing the Foothills of Giant Endeavour Crater
Dramatic New NASA Animation Depicts Next Mars Rover in Action
Opportunity Rover Heads for Spirit Point to Honor Dead Martian Sister; Science Team Tributes
Opportunity Rover Completes Exploration of fascinating Santa Maria Crater
Opportunity Surpasses 30 KM Driving and Snaps Skylab Crater in 3 D

Posted on by Ken Kremer

Opportunity Snaps Gorgeous Vistas nearing the Foothills of Giant Endeavour Crater

Martian Vista from Opportunity nearing Endeavour Crater on Sol 2678 - August 2011. Large ejecta blocks from the nearby, small Odyssey crater are visible in the middle, foreground and are Opportunity’s next science target in this photo mosaic taken 2 martian days ago on Sol 2678 (Aug. 6). Opportunity is now less than 400 feet from the foothills of Endeavour Crater and will soon make first landfall at Spirit Point - off to the left. At Endeavour, Opportunity will investigate the oldest minerals deposits she has ever visited from billions of years ago and which may hold clues to environments that were potentially habitable for microbial life. This photo mosaic shows portions of the discontinuous crater rim. Mosaic Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Kenneth Kremer

[/caption]

The epic multi-year trek of NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover to the gigantic Endeavour crater is nearly complete as the plucky rover blazes to within a football fields distance and first landfall at a spot dubbed “Spirit Point” – named in honor of her long lived twin sister “Spirit”. Endeavour beckons because it may hold clues to a time billions and billions of years ago when Mars was warmer and wetter and harbored an environment that was far more conducive to the formation of life beyond Earth.

Opportunity is racing towards the western foothills of Endeavour’s rim and is at long last transmitting stunningly clear images of portions of the crater ridges, revealing gorgeous vistas and intriguing details up the sloped walls. See our new photo mosaics above and below.

As of today, Aug. 8 on Sol 2680 of the mission, the Martian robot is less than 400 feet (150 m) away from Endeavour’s rim at Spirit Point – which lies at the southern tip of one of the ridges known as “Cape York,” on the western side of Endeavour (see map and photo below). The humongous crater is 14 miles (22 km) in diameter.

“Our primary goal is to get onto the older material at Cape York with the phyllosilicate signatures in CRISM,” said Dr. Matt Golembek in an interview with Universe Today. Golembek is a Senior Research Scientist with the Mars Exploration Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.

The phyllosilicate signatures are based on observations by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Phyllosilicates are clay minerals that form in the presence of neutral water and that are more far more hospitable to the possible genesis of life compared to the rocks studied from the more highly acidic aqueous environments examined by the rover thus far.

Opportunity Rover Panoramic View nearing Endeavour Crater on Sol 2668
Opportunity was less than 0.3 miles (500 m) from the foothills of Endeavour Crater on Sol 2668 and will soon make first landfall at Spirit Point - off to the left. Endeavour holds minerals deposits from billions of years ago when Mars was far warmer and wetter and potentially more hospitable to the formation of ancient microbial life. This photo mosaic was stitched together to show portions of the discontinuous crater rim with segmented ridges from left to right. Distant Iazu crater is faintly visible at top left. Opportunity is now transmitting highly detailed and clear images of Endeavour’s rim.
Mosaic Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Kenneth Kremer

In mid- 2008, Endeavour crater was chosen as the long term destination for Opportunity by the rover science team because it offers access to older geological deposits than any Opportunity has visited and investigated before. These mineral deposits include phyllosilicates.

Opportunity has been sprinting across the plains of Meridiani since departing her last major science stop at Santa Maria crater in March 2011. See our APOD here.

Opportunity is now heading to a spot called “Odyssey crater” on the way to Spirit Point. See JPL route map below.

“In the end of drive Navcams [navigation camera] from Sols 2678-9, large ejecta blocks on the rim of Odyssey crater are clearly visible and that is our next target to see what those blocks are made of,” Golembek told me.

“After that we will travel north into Cape York to better understand the older rocks in Cape York.”

The rover team is being very careful to not over plan the science activities to far in advance and are keeping their options open.

Eventually, Opportunity will scale the ridge and become the 2nd Martian mountain climber. Spirit was the first Earthly emissary to climb to the summit of a mountain on Mars.

“As we explore we will make more specific plans depending on what we see,” Golembek added.

Cape York and Spirit Point at Endeavour Crater
This oblique view with moderate vertical exaggeration shows the portion of the rim of Endeavour crater known as Spirit Point. The science and engineering team has driven Opportunity to a spot less than 400 feet from Spirit Point as of early August 2011. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Measurements from orbiting spacecraft like MRO allowed the science team to target Opportunity more precisely toward those ridges of older exposures of rock outcrops and phyllosilicates observed along Endeavour’s western rim.

Given Opportunity’s rapid progress, it’s now almost certain that she will reach the phyllosiliocates before the Curiosity rover is even launched in Nov. 2011.

Endeavour’s crater rim is discontinuous and divided into a series of segmented mountainous ridges – making it all the more beautiful and a bonanza for science. See the new photo mosaics above and below stitched together by Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer, illustrating Opportunity’s current vistas.

The Spirit rover succumbed to the bitter Martian arctic-like cold weather during her 4th winter on Mars after roving nearly seven years across Gusev crater. In May 2011, NASA declared Spirit’s mission had concluded after no further communications were received.

Opportunity remains healthy, generates sufficient solar power and has traversed an unbelievable 20.6 miles or 33.2 km since landing on Jan. 24, 2004.

Opportunity Rover Traverse map to Sol 2676 – August 2011

Opportunity Rover Traverse map to Sol 2676 – August 2011

Read my continuing features about Mars starting here
Dramatic New NASA Animation Depicts Next Mars Rover in Action
Opportunity Rover Heads for Spirit Point to Honor Dead Martian Sister; Science Team Tributes
Opportunity Rover Completes Exploration of fascinating Santa Maria Crater
Opportunity Surpasses 30 KM Driving and Snaps Skylab Crater in 3 D

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Celebrating the Spirit Rover

Last week scientists, engineers and others who work on the Mars Exploration Rover mission paid tribute to the Spirit rover which explored Mars for six years before succumbing to the harsh Martian winter in 2010. I was away at a conference last week and missed it, but fortunately the event was recorded and you (and I!) can watch it below. Above is a video photo diary of Spirit’s accomplishments on Mars.

Continue reading “Celebrating the Spirit Rover”

Posted on by Ken Kremer

Dramatic New NASA Animation Depicts Next Mars Rover in Action

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover. Curiosity is a mobile robot for investigating Mars' past or present ability to sustain microbial life. Curiosity is being tested in preparation for launch in the fall of 2011. The mast, or rover's "head," rises to about 2.1 meters (6.9 feet) above ground level, about as tall as a basketball player. This mast supports two remote-sensing instruments: the Mast Camera, or "eyes," for stereo color viewing of surrounding terrain and material collected by the arm; and, the ChemCam instrument, which is a laser that vaporizes material from rocks up to about 9 meters (30 feet) away and determines what elements the rocks are made of. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. New NASA High Resolution Curiosity Animations below

[/caption]

NASA’s next Mars rover, the Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory, will soon embark on a quantum leap in humankind’s scientific exploration of the Martian surface -the most Earthlike planet in our Solar System.

To get a birds eye understanding of Curiosity’s magnificent capabilities, check out the dramatic new high resolution animation below which depicts NASA’s next Mars rover traversing tantalizing terrain for clues to whether Martian microbial life may have existed, evolved and been sustained in past or present times.


The new action packed animation is 11 minutes in length. It depicts sequences starting with Earth departure, smashing through the Martian atmosphere, the nail biting terror of the never before used rocket-backpack sky crane landing system and then progressing through the assorted science instrument capabilities that Curiosity will bring to bear during its minimum two year expedition across hitherto unseen and unexplored Martian landscapes, mountains and craters.

Curiosity is equipped with 10 science instruments. The three meter long robot is five times the weight of any previous Mars rover.

Those who closely follow the adventures of NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity rovers, like myself, will quickly recognize several of the panoramic scenes which have been included to give a realistic feeling of vistas to expect from the car sized Curiosity rover.

Here is a shorter 4 minute animation with expert narration


Along the way you’ll experience Curiosity zapping rocks with a laser, deftly maneuvering her robotic arm and camera mast and retrieving and analyzing Martian soil samples.

“It is a treat for the 2,000 or more people who have worked on the Mars Science Laboratory during the past eight years to watch these action scenes of the hardware the project has developed and assembled,” said Mars Science Laboratory Project Manager Pete Theisinger at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif, in a NASA statement. “The animation also provides an exciting view of this mission for any fan of adventure and exploration.”

Curiosity - The Next Mars Rover analyzes Martian rocks
Curiosity rover examines a rock on Mars with a set of tools at the end of the rover's arm, which extends about 2 meters (7 feet). Two instruments on the arm can study rocks up close. Also, a drill can collect sample material from inside of rocks and a scoop can pick up samples of soil. The arm can sieve the samples and deliver fine powder to instruments inside the rover for thorough analysis. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Curiosity was flown this week from her birthplace at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California to her future launch site in Florida aboard a C-17 military cargo transport aircraft.

She arrived at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at the Kennedy Space Center on June 22. The SLF is the same landing strip where I watched the STS-135 crew arrive for NASA’s final shuttle mission just days earlier days for their final launch countdown training.

NASA has scheduled Curiosity to blast off for the red planet on Nov. 25, 2011 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard an Atlas V rocket. Curiosity will touchdown in August 2012 at a landing site that will be announced soon by Ed Weiler, NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C.

Curiosity rover traverses new Martian terrain in search of habitats for microbial life. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Read my prior features about Curiosity
Packing a Mars Rover for the Trip to Florida; Time Lapse Video
Test Roving NASA’s Curiosity on Earth
Curiosity Mars Rover Almost Complete
Curiosity Rover Testing in Harsh Mars-like Environment

Posted on by Ken Kremer

Test Roving NASA’s Curiosity on Earth

Mars Rover Curiosity, Front View during mobility testing on June 3, 2011. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

[/caption]

Just over a year from now, NASA’s Curiosity rover should be driving across fascinating new landscapes on the surface of Mars if all goes well. Curiosity is NASA next Mars rover – the Mars Science Laboratory – and is targeted to launch during a three week window that extends from Nov. 25 to Dec. 18, 2011 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla..

At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., engineering specialists have been putting Curiosity through the final phase of mobility tests to check out the driving capability, robotic arm movements and sample collection maneuvers that the robot will carry out while traversing the landing site after plummeting through the Martian atmosphere in August 2012.

Take a good look at this album of newly released images from JPL showing Curiosity from the front and sides, maneuvering all six wheels, climbing obstacles and flexing the robotic arm and turret for science sample collection activities as it will do while exploring the red planet’s surface.

Mars Rover Curiosity's Arm Held High

Curiosity is following in the footsteps of the legendary Spirit and Opportunity rovers which landed on opposite side of Mars in 2004.

“The rover and descent stage will be delivered to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) later in June,” Guy Webster, public affairs officer at JPL, told me. An Air Force C-17 transport plane has already delivered the heat shield, back shell and cruise stage on May 12, 2011.

“The testing remaining in California is with engineering models and many operational readiness tests,” Webster elaborated. “Lots of testing remains to be done on the flight system at KSC, including checkouts after shipping, a system test, a fit check with the RTG, tests during final stacking.”

Mars Rover Curiosity, Turning in Place during mobility testin. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The three meter long rover will explore new terrain that will hopefully provide clues as to whether Mars harbored environmental conditions that may have been favorable to the formation of microbial life beyond Earth and preserved evidence of whether left ever existed in the past and continued through dramatic alterations in Mars history.

NASA is evaluating a list of four potential landing sites that will offer the highest science return and the best chance of finding a potentially habitable zone in a previously unexplored site on the red planet.

Mars Rover Curiosity Raising Turret

Mars Rover Curiosity, Left Side View
Mars Rover Curiosity with Wheel on Ramp
Mars Rover Curiosity, Right Side View
Posted on by Ken Kremer

Opportunity Rover Heads for Spirit Point to Honor Dead Martian Sister; Science Team Tributes

Spirit’s last panoramic from Mars was taken during February 2010 before her death. Featured on Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) on 30 May 2011. Spirit’s final panoramic picture show from Mars was snapped on Sol 2175 in February 2010 before entering hibernation mode in March 2010 just prior to the onset of her 4th Martian winter. Spirit was just 500 feet from her next science target - dubbed Von Braun – center of the mosaic. The Columbia Hills form the backdrop to the mosaic from Spirits final resting place. Spirit never awoke. NASA ceased all communications attempts with Spirit on May 25, 2011. Credit: Mosaic by Marco De Lorenzo and Ken Kremer, images NASA/JPL/Cornell University.

[/caption]

Scientists leading NASA’s Mars rover team have selected “Spirit Point” as the name for the spot where the “Opportunity” Mars rover will arrive at her next destination – Endeavour Crater. The site was named in honor of the death of the “Spirit” Mars Exploration Rover, which NASA recently declared has ceased all communications with Earth.

Spirit’s passing comes after more than six highly productive years roving the surface of the red planet as humankind’s surrogate. NASA concluded the last attempt to communicate with Spirit in a transmission on May 25, 2011.

“First landfall at Endeavour will be at the southern end of Cape York [at Spirit Point],” Steve Squyres told me. Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., is principal investigator for the rovers.
Read tributes from the Spirit rover science team below.

In memory of Spirit, the last panorama she snapped on Sol 2175 in February 2010 was featured on Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) on May 30, 2011 and is the lead image here. The photo mosaic was created by Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer and shows some of the last scenes that Spirit ever photographed.

Spirit approaches von Braun mound in April 2009
This mosaic of images was collected on Sol 1869 in April 2009 as Spirit approached a mysterious circular volcanic mound known as Von Braun, at left. Foreground at center, left ahead shows where Spirit became stuck in a concealed sand trap of slippery, water related sulfate minerals lying adjacent to the eroded volcanic plateau named Home Plate. Columbia Hills in the background.
Mosaic Credit: Kenneth Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo/NASA/JPL/Cornell

Endeavour’s massive rim consists of a series of ridges. Cape York is a 400 foot wide (120 meters) rim fragment at the western edge of Endeavour. Opportunity should reach “Spirit Point” before the end of this year, 2011.

“Spirit Point” was chosen as the site at Endeavour to commemorate the scientific achievements of Opportunity’s twin sister “Spirit”. Endeavour Crater was determined to be Opportunity’s long term destination nearly three ago after she departed the environs of Victoria crater.

“The Initial exploration plan will be decided when we get closer. The [science] priorities will depend on what we find,” Squyres added.

Since August 2008, the blistering pace of Opportunity’s long overland trek of about 11 miles (18 kilometers) has brought the golf cart sized robot to within about 2 miles (3 kilometers) of the rim of the humongous Endeavour crater – some 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. Endeavour is more than 20 times wider than Victoria crater and by far the largest feature the Opportunity will ever explore – see route maps below.

This oblique view with moderate vertical exaggeration shows the portion of the rim of Endeavour crater given the informal name "Spirit Point." This is the location where the team operating NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity plans to drive the rover to its arrival at the Endeavour rim. As of mid-June 2011, Opportunity was about 2 miles away from the rim of Endeavour. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

“Spirit achieved far more than we ever could have hoped when we designed her,” according to Squyres in a NASA statement. “This name will be a reminder that we need to keep pushing as hard as we can to make new discoveries with Opportunity. The exploration of Spirit Point is the next major goal for us to strive for.”

The imaging team of Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer created a series of Spirit photomosaics from publically available images to illustrate the location and hazardous nature of Spirits final resting place – which fortuitously turned out to be a scientific goldmine revealing new insights into the flow of liquid water on Mars billions of years ago.

Mosaic of microscopic images of Spirit’s underbelly on Sol 1925 in June 2009
Mosaic shows predicament of being stuck at Troy with wheels buried in the sulfate-rich Martian soil. This false color mosaic has been enhanced and stretched to bring out additional details about the surrounding terrain and embedded wheels and distinctly shows a pointy rock perhaps in contact with the underbelly.
Mosaic Credit: Marco Di Lorenzo/ Kenneth Kremer/NASA/JPL/Cornell

The western rim of Endeavour possesses geological deposits far older than any Opportunity has investigated before and which may feature environmental conditions that were more conducive to the potential formation of ancient Martian life forms.

Spirits last transmissions to Earth took place in March 2010, before she entered hibernation mode due to ebbing solar power and succumbed to the likely damaging effects of her 4th Martian winter.

Spirit was closing in on her next science target, a mysterious volcanic feature named Von Braun, when she became mired in a sand trap named “Troy” on the outskirts of the eroded volcano named “Home Plate, just about 500 feet away. See our mosaics.

Spirit embedded at sand trap in February 2010 on Sol 2174
Numerous attempts by the rover team failed to extricate Spirit from the sand trap at Troy in which she became mired in May 2009 on the western edge of Home Plate. Mosaic shows last robotic arm maneuver before hibernation and above bright toned soil containing hydrated sulfates. Mosaic Credit: Marco Di Lorenzo/ Kenneth Kremer/ NASA/JPL/Cornell

Unable to escape and absent of sufficient power to run critical survival heaters, Spirit experienced temperatures colder than ever before that probably crippled fragile electronics components and connections and prevented further communications – although no one knows for sure.

NASA’s twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity have been exploring the Martian terrain on opposite sides of the red planet since the dynamic duo successfully landed over 7 years ago in January 2004.

Both robots were expected to last just three months but have accumulated a vast bonus time of exploration and discovery in numerous extended mission phases.

*** Several top members of the rover science team kindly provided me some comments (below) to sum up Spirits achievements and legacy and what’s ahead for Opportunity at Endeavour.

Ray Arvidson of Washington University, St Louis, Deputy Principal Investigator for the rovers:

“Spirit’s last communication with Earth was in March 2010 as the southern hemisphere winter season began to set in, the sun was low on the horizon, and the rover presumably stopped communicating to use all available solar power to charge the batteries.

Von Braun was one of the two destinations Spirit was traveling to when the rover became embedded in soft sands in the valley to the west of Home Plate.

Von Braun is a conically-shaped hill to the south of Home Plate, Inner Basin, Columbia Hills. Goddard is an oval-shaped shallow depression to the west of von Braun and was the second area to be visited by Spirit. Both von Braun and Goddard are suspected to be volcanic features.

Spirit is the brightest spot in this image taken on 31 March 2011 from Mars orbit. Spirit is gleaming in the sun beside Home Plate inside Gusev Crater. The solar panels are not covered by an optically thick layer of dust. Spirit last communicated on 22 March 2010. Credit: NASA/JPL/UA

During Spirit’s six year and two month mission the vehicle acquired remote sensing and in-situ observations that conclusively demonstrated that the ancient Columbia Hills in Gusev Crater expose materials that have been altered in water-related environments, including ground water corrosion and generation of sulfate and opaline minerals in volcanic steam vents and perhaps hydrothermal pools.

Together with its sister rover, Opportunity, the Mars Exploration Rover Mission, was designed to “follow the water” and return data that would allow us to test the hypothesis that water was at and near the surface during previous epochs.

Opportunity is still exploring the evidence in Meridiani for ancient shallow lakes and is on the way to outcrops on the rim of Endeavour crater, a ~20 km wide crater that exposes the old Noachian crust that shows evidence from orbital data for hydrated clay minerals.

These two rovers have performed far beyond expectations, unveiled the early, wet history of Mars, and have made an enormous scientific return on investment.”

Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., Principal Investigator for the rovers:
“Our best hope for hearing from Spirit was last fall. When that didn’t happen, we began a long, careful process of trying every possible approach to re-establishing contact. But it slowly became clear that it was unlikely, and I personally got used to the idea that Spirit’s mission was probably over several months ago.

Once that right front wheel failed, Spirit’s days were numbered in that kind of terrain. It wouldn’t have made any difference if we had tried to move Spirit sooner. We were very lucky to have survived as long as we did.

One of the lessons learned is to try to keep the wheels from failing.

It’s very sad to lose Spirit. But two things have softened the blow. First we’ve had a long time to get used to the idea. Second, even though Spirit is dead, she died an honorable death. If we’d lost her early in the mission, before she accomplished so much, it would have been much harder. But she accomplished so much more than any of us expected, the sadness is very much tempered with satisfaction and pride.

The big scientific accomplishments are the silica deposits at Home Plate, the carbonates at Comanche, and all the evidence for hydrothermal systems and explosive volcanism. What we’ve learned is that early Mars at Spirit’s site was a hot, violent place, with hot springs, steam vents, and volcanic explosions. It was extraordinarily different from the Mars of today.

Opportunity is heading at high speed for the rim of Endeavour Crater. First landfall will be at the southern end of Cape York. She should be there in not too many more months.

It hasn’t yet been decided where Opportunity will attempt to climb up Endeavour… we’ll see when we get there.

The phyllosilicates are a high priority, but the top priority depends on what we find.

The yellow line on this map shows where NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity has driven from the place where it landed in January 2004 -- inside Eagle crater, at the upper left end of the track -- to a point about 2.2 miles (3.5 kilometers) away from reaching the rim of Endeavour crater. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

I hope Spirits legacy will be the inspiration that people, especially kids, will take away from Spirit’s mission. I have had long, thoughtful conversations about Spirit with kids who have had a rover on Mars as long as they can remember. And my fondest hope for Spirit is that somewhere there are kids who will look at what we did with her, and say to themselves “well, that’s pretty cool… but I bet when I grow up I can do better. That’s what we need for the future of space exploration.

Spirit existed, and did what she did, because of the extraordinary team of engineers and scientists who worked so hard to make it possible. It’s a team that I’m incredibly proud to have been a small part of. Working with them has been quite literally the adventure of a lifetime.”

Jim Bell of Arizona State University, lead scientist for the rovers Pancam stereo panoramic camera:

“It is with a bittersweet sense of both sadness and pride that NASA announced the official end of the mission for the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit.

The Spirit team has seen the end coming since communications were lost with the rover in March 2010. Mission engineers made heroic efforts to reestablish contact. In the end Spirit was conquered by the extremely cold Martian winter and its two broken wheels, which prevented its dusty solar panels from pointing toward the Sun.

But what a mission! Designed to last 90 days, Spirit kept going for more than six years, with the team driving the rover almost 5 miles (8 km) across rocky volcanic plains, climbing rugged ancient hills, and scurrying past giant sand-dune fields. It eventually spent most of the mission near the region known as Home Plate, which is full of layered, hydrated minerals.

Data from the rover enabled dozens of scientific discoveries, but three stand out to me as most important:

Hydrated sulfate and high-silica soils in the Columbia Hills and around Home Plate.
These minerals, and the environment in which they occur (Home Plate is a circular-shaped, finely layered plateau that may be the eroded remains of a volcanic cone or other hydrothermal deposit), tell us that at some point in the past history of Gusev there was liquid water and there were heat sources — two key ingredients needed to consider the area habitable for life as we know it.

Carbonate minerals in some of the rocks within the Columbia Hills.
Carbonates were expected on Mars, if indeed the climate was warmer and wetter in the past. However, their detection has been elusive so far. Indeed, the Spirit team had to work hard to uncover the signature of carbonates years after the rover made the measurements. As the analysis continues the results for Mars in general could be profound.

An incredible diversity of rock types, from all over Mars, that Spirit was able to sample in Gusev crater.
Some of the rocks appear to be from local volcanic lava flows or ash deposits. But others have likely been flung in to the area over time by distant impacts or volcanoes, and a few even appear to be meteorites, flung in from outer space. Spirit’s instruments provided the team with the ability to recognize this amazing diversity, and thus to learn much more about Mars in general, not just Gusev in particular.

Spirit also helped us test an experiment: If we put all the rover’s images out on the Web for everyone in the world to see, in near real-time, would people follow along? They did!

I wonder if, maybe 10 or 15 years from now, I’ll meet some young colleagues who were turned on to space exploration by being able to check out the latest Spirit images from Mars from their classroom, or living room, every day when they were a kid. That would be extremely satisfying — and a great testament to the power of openly sharing data from space exploration missions like Spirit’s.

Meanwhile, Opportunity continues to rove on to city-size Endeavour crater, where orbital measurements have identified, for the first time in either rover’s mission, the signatures of clay minerals in the crater’s rim. Clays are also formed in water, but in less acidic, perhaps more life-friendly water than the sulfates that Opportunity has been mapping thus far.”

Rob Manning, Jet Propulsion laboratory, Pasadena, CA., Mars Rover Spacecraft System Engineering team lead
“Although Opportunity has proven her endurance, Spirit was the one we struggled with the hardest to get what she earned. Suffering from late repair and modification, a blown fuse in her power system and with possibly damaged circuits, she was very late getting out the door and onto the pad in Florida.

Unlike Opportunity, whose Hematite-laden Meridiani destination had been established long before launch, Spirit was launched with a great deal of uncertainty on where she would find herself on Mars. Would it be the flat and safe plains of Elysium? Would the intriguing but rough ancient Gusev crater with what appears to have been an ancient river flowing into a giant but now dry lake?

If Opportunity failed to get on her way to Mars, would her destination become Meridiani? Would Spirit have also been as lucky to find herself bouncing into a tiny rock-outcropped crater as Opportunity had?

Only after the successful launch of Opportunity followed by further successful rocket and airbag tests to confirm that the landing system design would work in the rougher terrain inside Gusev crater allowed us to seal her fate and her permanent home.

She would go Gusev and test the Gusev lake hypothesis. Sadly the surface of Gusev where she came to rest revealed a meteor impact-tilled lake of ancient lava. Any signs of ancient water lake beds and other fantastic discoveries would have to wait until she surmounted many more obstacles including summiting a formidable hill her designers never intended her to attempt.

Spirit, her designers, her builders, her testers, her handlers and I have a lot to be thankful for.

That NASA, the congress and the public were willing to trust us with this daunting feat is perhaps a statement about the persistent spirit of discovery that remains in all of us.

I think that Spirit is alive and well.”

Map mosaic shows 7 Year and 30 Kilometer Long Journey of Opportunity approaching Endeavour Crater. Opportunity is being targeted to Spirit Point on the rim of Endeavour Crater, to honor her now dead sister. Photo mosaic of Santa Maria crater at top right was featured on Astronomy Picture of the Day on 29 January 2011. Mosaic shows Opportunity self portrait at the rim of Santa Maria where she investigated signatures of hydrated mineral deposits.
Mosaic Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Kenneth Kremer
Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Spirit’s Last Panorama

The Spirit rover's last panoramic image, taken before its fourth Martian winter on on Sol 2175, or February, 2010. Credit: Mosaic by Marco De Lorenzo and Ken Kremer, image NASA/JPL/Cornell University.

[/caption]

Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) features an image mosaic put together in part by Universe Today’s Ken Kremer, along with his imaging partner Marco De Lorenzo. It’s the last thing the Spirit rover ever saw: a panoramic view of the Home Plate region of Gusev Crater where the rover now silently sits. In the background are the Columbia Hills, where Spirit climbed and investigated Husband Hill. Visible are parts of Spirit herself and the stark but enticing landscape where Spirit will be forever mired in sand.

Congrats to Ken and Marco for being featured on APOD!

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

In Memoriam: Spirit Rover, 2004-2010

Mars
The sun has set for the Spirit rover on Mars. Credit: NASA

If you’re feeling a little sad today at the news that the Spirit rover is “dead,” you’re not alone. And we all know we’re anthropomorphizing here, but it is hard not to. As MER project manager John Callas said at yesterday’s press conference, the MER rovers are “the cutest darn things out in the solar system,” and yes, we’ve become attached to them. Below are a few quotes we’ve gathered from Steve Squyres, Scott Maxwell, and some of the other people who have been involved with the MER mission in various capacities.

Feel free to add your best memories of Spirit’s mission in the comment section.

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

Rover Driver Scott Maxwell. Maxwell has been part of the rover driving team since before the MER rovers lauched. He is publishing the diary he has kept, five years delayed on his Mars and Me blog.

“My take on this is that I know I’m supposed to be sad and I know that at some point I will be really sad, but at the moment it is hard to be sad because that feeling is overwhelmed by the pride of what Spirit accomplished,” Maxwell told Universe Today. “She accomplished an enormous amount in the six years plus that she was active on Mars, and we have every good reason to be proud of her. That is dominating my reaction to this announcement today. It terrible that she’s gone but I’m so proud of her, she did so much, she lived so long and accomplished such great things it’s hard to feel any other way.”

Will Spirit’s official loss put a big hole in Maxwell’s day?

“In terms of my practical day to day operations, not so much,” he said. “My day is filled with taking care of Opportunity and working on the upcoming Mar Science Lab mission, so actually I didn’t have that much to do with Spirit the past year. The way it will affect me is that I won’t be getting the weekly planning schedule for Spirit anymore, so in that way Spirit is going to disappear out of my world.”

Maxwell’s cat died a few months ago he finds he sometimes has an unconscious expectation that the cat will greet him when Maxwell returns home, but then he realizes the cat isn’t there anymore. “That’s the kind of hole that Spirit will leave in my life, where I’ll be unconsciously looking for scheduling emails, or data or information about Spirit, and it is not going to be there, and that place that she has occupied in my life is just not going to be there anymore. I’ve had time to get used to that over the past year, of not actively driving her, so I’ve gone through that transition and I’ll go through this transition next.”

MER PI Steve Squyres. Credit: NASA

Steve Squyres, MER Principal Investigator

“What’s most remarkable to me about Spirit’s mission is just how extensive her accomplishments became,” Squyres said in a JPL press release. “What we initially conceived as a fairly simple geologic experiment on Mars ultimately turned into humanity’s first real overland expedition across another planet. Spirit explored just as we would have, seeing a distant hill, climbing it, and showing us the vista from the summit. And she did it in a way that allowed everyone on Earth to be part of the adventure.”

Squyres said Spirit’s unexpected discovery of concentrated silica deposits was one of the most important findings by either rover.

“It showed that there were once hot springs or steam vents at the Spirit site, which could have provided favorable conditions for microbial life,” he said.

The silica-rich soil was next to a low plateau called Home Plate, which was Spirit’s main destination after the traverse long distances and climbed up and down Husband Hill. “What Spirit showed us at Home Plate was that early Mars could be a violent place, with water and hot rock interacting to make what must have been spectacular volcanic explosions. It was a dramatically different world than the cold, dry Mars of today,” said Squyres.

Chris Potts points to Gusev Crater on Mars on January 4, 2004, after the MER navigation team landed the Spirit rover on Mars with unprecedented accuracy. Photo courtesy of Chris Potts

Chris Potts was the Deputy Navigation Team Chief for both MER rovers.

“My thoughts immediately go back to the night Spirit landed in Gusev Crater on Jan. 3, 2004,” Potts told Universe Today. “It was a nerve wracking evening, thinking about the dangers involved with bringing Spirit from 12,000 mph to a safe landing via menacing bounces inside the airbags. No one could dare imagine that Spirit would continue on to explore Mars for over 6 years. Such an engineering feat requires the best from everyone involved, from the early designers to the operations team that extracted every last bit that Spirit had to offer. Spirit overcame so many obstacles on the journey, that the rover seemed to have a destiny that would not be denied. Spirit has finally reached the inevitable mission end, but I like to imagine the future when space tourists will follow Spirit’s tracks and continue to marvel at what the rover was able to accomplish.”

Doug Ellison, founder of UnmannedSpaceflight.com, where imaging enthusiasts get together to work with data being produced by robotic missions. He started the website, in part, because of the remarkable images being returned by the MER mission.

“I’ve been trying to figure out the words to describe how it feels,” Ellison told Universe Today. “Like losing a family member isn’t that short of the mark. When those early raw JPG’s were put onto their website so quickly I just couldn’t help myself. I found myself making color composites, panoramas, anaglyphs…and that’s what triggered the making of what became UMSF. It’s been a 7 year adventure that’s been shared through more than 125,000 images. We all lived that adventure through those pictures, together.”

Ellison said it is heartbreaking to see Spirit’s part of the mission come to an end. “Mars always had the power to end things, and she did, on her terms and not ours,” he said. “That’s as it should be, Spirit went down fighting in the battle against freezing temperatures on a barren near airless planet. My only regret is that we’ll never truly know exactly what caused Spirit to stay quiet.”

“We think of ‘Spirit’ as that robot on Mars,” he continued. “Without the team of scientists and engineers here on the ground who figured out what to do with that robot, the adventure we’ve been on, together, would never have happened. She’s part of this large team. She’s the teams feet with every drive she made. She’s their eyes with every picture she took. She’s their hands with every rock she studied. And, for many of us, she’s also its heart. The sol-to-sol rhythm of seeing new pictures and planning new adventures was the heartbeat of this large family that wasn’t just the mission personnel at JPL, Cornell and elsewhere – it wasn’t even just Spirit – it was all of us. That family was the thousands and thousands of people who followed along all over the world, it was the robot that did the dirty work, the engineers who kept her safe and the scientists who made the most of her. That family is now one member short – but it still exists. It formed around this little robot called Spirit, and will carry on through other projects.”

“Spirit didn’t die. She just moved on. I feel so very very sorry for the engineers who spent so long designing, building, and then for more than 6 years, using that little robot. But most of all, I feel sorry for Curiosity. As someone at UMSF suggested – that rover’s now sat in the clean room thinking ‘How the heck am I supposed to follow an act like that?'”

Neil Mottinger.

Neil Mottinger from JPL worked on the navigation team for the launch and trajectory of the two spacecraft that brought Spirit and Opportunity to Mars.

“It’s an incredible testimony to engineering that this plucky little craft survived 3 winters, when it wasn’t designed to survive any such weather conditions at all,” Mottinger told Universe Today. “Dust storms didn’t drown its ability to generate electricity thanks to the dust devils that repeatedly cleaned the panels. May its tenacity remind us all to strive for greater goals and push on way beyond the immediate horizons before us.”

Stu Atkinson, member of UMSF, poet and writer penned this poem about the end of Spirit’s mission. You can also read a short story he wrote about a year ago of what could have happened in some households when Spirit died.

MER Project Manager John Callas. Credit: JPL

John Callas has written a letter to his MER team, and in part said, “But let’s remember the adventure we have had. Spirit has climbed mountains, survived rover-killing dust storms, rode out three cold, dark winters and made some of the most spectacular discoveries on Mars. She has told us that Mars was once like Earth. There was water and hot springs, the conditions that could have supported life. She has given us a foundation to further explore the Red Planet and to understand ourselves and our place in the universe.

“But in addition to all the scientific discoveries Spirit has given us in her long, productive rover life, she has also given us a great intangible. Mars is no longer a strange, distant and unknown place. Mars is now our neighborhood. And we all go to work on Mars every day. Thank you, Spirit. Well done, little rover. And to all of you, well done, too.”

We’ll be adding more quotes about Spirit as they come in.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

End of the Road for Spirit Rover

A composite image of how the Spirit rover probably looks, stuck in Gusev Crater. Credit: NASA, image editing by Stu Atkinson.

[/caption]

In the wee hours of May 25, 2011 the scientists and engineers of the Mars Exploration Rover team will send the last command in attempt to contact the Spirit rover. Over the past year, they have sent over 1,200 commands and haven’t heard anything in reply from the stuck and likely frozen rover. “We have exhausted all the likely scenarios for contacting Spirit, and the likelihood of success is now practically zero,” said John Callas, Project Manager for the Mars Exploration Rover mission. “And at this point, the season is declining and we couldn’t do any of the planned science objectives even if we heard from her now. The Deep Space Network will occasionally listen for Spirit when resources permit, but we have decided not to do anything past the last commands that will done tonight.”

The Spirit rover, as seen by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Credit: NASA, image enhanced by Stu Atkinson.

Spirit, the plucky rover that landed on Mars on January 3, 2004, overcame many difficulties and endured waaay past her 90-day warranty. For nearly six years, she traveled long distances, climbed hills — something the rovers weren’t really designed to do — she roved and stopped at interesting rocks along the way, all the while beaming back the information she garnered, enlightening us all about the nature of Mars, past and present.

Spirit became embedded in soft Martian soil in May of 2009 and that was the beginning of the end. The team spent months planning for her extrication, and then months again attempting to drive her out, but they ran out of time and power in the approaching Martian winter. The team was unable to put the rover in a favorable position to catch rays of sunlight on her solar panels, and after another freezing, grueling winter, Spirit has now likely succumbed to the harsh environment on Mars.

“We drove it, literally, until its wheels came off and at the beginning of the mission, we never expected that would be the way this project would end up,” said Dave Lavery, MER program director at NASA Headquarters.

The last commands will be sent early on May 25, 0700 UTC, which is just after midnight at JPL in Pasadena, California.

So, this is it. This is end of the Spirit rover mission.

“We always knew we would get to this point,” Callas said during a teleconference with the press, “and really, that’s what we wanted to do, to utilize these rovers as much as possible and wear them out. We are here today because we really wore Spirit out. If on sol 90 (the 90th Martian day of the mission) someone would have said this was going to last another 6 years, we just wouldn’t have believed it.”

The MER Spirit Rover (credit: NASA)

Asked what Spirit’s lasting legacy would be, Callas told Universe Today, “In addition to the great exploration and scientific discoveries, I think the great intangible that goes with Spirit is that she has made Mars a familiar place for us. It is no longer a mysterious location. For six years we’ve had people who go to work on Mars every day, via the rovers.”

The original plan was to try and contact Spirit once a week through the end of 2011, but the team has come to realize that the probability of success was practically zero and they would be wasting valuable resources, both human time and listening resources from the DSN. So the decision was made to end the attempts to contact Spirit.

The Spirit rover's solar panels were covered with dust until a gust of wind blew it off in 2006. Credit: NASA.

One of the challenges that Spirit faced is that it always had dust on the solar arrays, Callas said, even during the first winter on the Columbia Hills. After a timely dust cleaning event by a dust devil, the team was able tilt Spirit to gather sunshine and she survived. The second winter she achieved a 10% tilt and survived; the third winter, the team was able to find a 30% tilt – again she survived. But the 4th winter, there just wasn’t the right geography in the sand pits of Troy that would enable Spirit to survive after it became embedded.

What is the mood of the rover team? “We all are taking realistic look, as this mission was originally supposed to last only 90 sols, and we thought if we were extraordinarily lucky we’d get twice that much time and that the first Martian winter would be the end of the mission” said Lavery. “Realistically, in every possible definition of the word, we looking at this as a massive success in terms of longevity and the massive science return we got out of the project. As this particular chapter of Spirit’s mission comes to a close, this is very much a celebration of the accomplishments of the rover and the success it has had, and looking forward to the next steps of Mars exploration.”

Lavery added that the teams are not looking at this as a funeral, but more like an Irish wake. “I’m sure we’ll be telling stories of when Spirit was a wee little rover,” he said. There will be a science team meeting in July and they will use that opportunity to bring together all who were involved in development and science planning to come together and have some sort of event at that time.

“They are cutest darn things out in the solar system,” Callas said. “Yes, we are attached to these beautiful, accomplished little proxies out on the surface of Mars. We have sadness that we have to say goodbye to Spirit, but we have to remember the great accomplishments and the blessings we’ve received for having this rover operate for all this time, for over six years.”

A look at the nearly buried wheels on the Spirit rover on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL

Spirit made many discoveries – finding carbonates which told scientists much about the past habitability of Mars and that it likely had a thicker atmosphere at one point. Then, even failure brought discovery, as the malfunction of the right front wheel in 2004 meant the team had to relearn to drive the rover, driving it backwards, dragging the wheel behind. This churned up the top soil and revealed what was under the surface: amorphous silica, which is evidence for an ancient hydrothermal system on Mars, which means not only water but an energy source that could have been driving a type of ecosystem in one particular location on Mars.

“There’s an enormous amount that can and still will be written about Spirit and the discoveries she’s made. The science team will be writing papers for a long while,” said Lavery. “But there’s also the inspiration that the rover provided to the team and really to the entire country that we were able to put together a project that went to another planet and survived well past its designed lifetime. The sense of wonder and sense of accomplishments go well beyond the mission itself.”

Yes, we knew this day was coming. Spirit roved her way into our hearts and into the science books. She will not be forgotten.

Spirit at work on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL