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Showing Articles for: Mars Pathfinder Total Articles: 46 Newest: Jul 24, 2004 |
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It's been two years since the Pathfinder spacecraft bounced to a stop on the surface of the Ares Valley on Mars, released its toy-sized but highly competent rover Sojourner, and inaugurated a major change in the way we explore the Solar System.
The Mars Pathfinder mission was launched on December 4, 1996, and landed safely on Mars July 4, 1997. Intended mainly as a demonstration of a low cost entry, descent, and landing technique, Pathfinder operated for over three months, well beyond the one month period that had been planned for the lander and one week for Sojourner, the first rover vehicle to explore Mars.
The Mars Pathfinder probe may be finished, and its saga may already be the subject of history books and CD-ROMs. But Pathfinder’s project scientist, Matt Golombek, sees no end to the scientific work ahead ... which is just fine by him.
One year ago, the Mars Pathfinder mission turned a little rover into an international media star. But the allure of the Red Planet goes far beyond one space mission. NBC’s Jay Barbree, co-author of the book “Destination Mars,” puts Pathfinder in a wider perspective.
The Mars Pathfinder mission is still providing scientific surprises, one year after the spacecraft bounced to the surface of the Red Planet and nine months after it went mute. After a detailed analysis, scientists say the Martian landscape appears to have been frozen in time for billions of years.
Out in the cold and dark between worlds NASA scientists listened in vain Tuesday for a sign that the tiny Mars Pathfinder lander was still alive on the dusty red planet. But after four hours of waiting in vain, space officials declared the historic mission over. "The official 'Time of Death' was 1:21pm PST", said Jennifer Harris at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Harris was one of the original Pathfinder mission Flight Directors. And while most of her team had long ago been disbursed to other projects, Harris was present Tuesday when the last attempt at contacting the craft was made.
After studying more than 9,500 images taken during the acclaimed Mars Pathfinder mission, scientists report in today's journal Science (Dec. 5) that surface photographs provide strong geological and geochemical evidence that fluid water was once present on the red planet.
The Pathfinder robot uncovered evidence that Mars was once warm, moist and more like Earth than its forbidding surface might now suggest. All of this is "a shot in the arm for the possibility of finding evidence of life" on the Red Planet, said one researcher.
Mars has clouds. A molten core much like the Earth’s center swirls within. Water used to flow along its surface.
After operating on the surface of Mars three times longer than expected and returning a tremendous amount of new information about the red planet, NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission is winding down.
After operating on the surface of Mars three times longer than expected and returning a tremendous amount of new information about the red planet, NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission is winding down.
NASA's Mars Pathfinder spacecraft - a novel mission to send an inexpensive lander and roving prospector to the surface of Mars - has concluded its primary mission, fulfilling all of its objectives and returning a wealth of new information about the red planet.
For some people, a spacecraft flying 310 million miles and beaming back pictures of an alien Martian world is just half the marvel of NASA's voyage to the Red Planet. The other half is that the images can immediately pop up in their dens and bedrooms on home computers.
Just try and find somebody who hasn't seen at least some of the stunning alien landscapes sent back by the Mars Pathfinder mission.
What do you do when your rover gets stuck on Mars? Why, get it unstuck, of course. That's what NASA scientists were doing Friday to the Sojourner rover, which got jammed on a rock when one of its six wheels rolled up the side. The mishap occurred when a controller on Earth miscalculated the distance to the rock.
Perhaps it wasn't a surprise that a Mars Pathfinder exhibit was one of the biggest draws at Planetfest last weekend, drawing crowds eight and 10 deep around a wall of video screens showing a rover's-eye view of the Martian landscape.
The NASA Pathfinder Web site, which is running pictures, video and audio "live from Mars," may be approaching a popularity record. The site, which has topped 100 million "hits" since July 4, has proven so in-demand that NASA had to set up 20 "mirror" pages around the world, running the same information from different addresses, said Rich Pavlovsky of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
NASA's pint-sized Mars Pathfinder rover was on alien territory early Sunday EDT after engineers fixed a communications link that threatened to ruin its exploration of the Red Planet.
In a tribute to the late astronomer who turned on millions around the planet to the wonders of space, NASA on Saturday renamed the Mars Pathfinder lander the Carl Sagan Memorial Station.
By God, it worked! Against long odds, NASA's Mars Pathfinder spacecraft survived a dive onto the Red Planet on Friday and began reeling off panoramic pictures of a burnt-orange river valley full of rocks, boulders, and ancient mountains.
A piece of the airbag that cushioned the intense arrival of Mars Pathfinder today has forced a one-day delay in the Sojourner rover’s deployment from the lander.
On this important day, the American people celebrate another exciting milestone in our nation's long heritage of progress, discovery, and exploration: the first landing on the surface of Mars in over 20 years.
On its 221st birthday, the nation that revolutionized life on Earth with the automobile will put a motor vehicle on Mars. At 1:07 p.m. EDT on Friday, Independence Day, America's Mars Pathfinder spacecraft will slam into the Red Planet, then bounce and roll to a halt in a cocoon of airbags. Then, over the weekend, a rover the size of a microwave oven will roll out onto the surface of Mars.
Hubble Space Telescope pictures of Mars, taken on June 27 in preparation for the July 4 landing of the Pathfinder spacecraft, show a dust storm churning through the deep canyons of Valles Marineris, just 600 miles (1000 km) south of the Pathfinder spacecraft landing site.
Barring space junk and little green men America will celebrate its 221st Independence Day this Friday, with a tiny visitor, slightly larger than a beach ball, will literally bounce down onto the surface of Mars and begin a new era of low cost exploration of the Red Planet. The NASA Mars Pathfinder spacecraft, a three foot tall landing craft nestled inside a disc-shaped entry shield, will conclude a seven month cruise of the inner Solar System and streak across a darkened Mars atmosphere.
Crash landing at best, suicide dive at worst: NASA is ready for an Independence Day invasion of Mars, and it's enough to make the most secular scientist get religion.
Start with the world's largest vacuum chamber, where air pressure can be regulated to simulate the thin atmosphere on Mars. Erect a 50-foot wall within the chamber, tilt it at a 60 degree angle, and bolt jagged rocks all over it so it resembles a steep Martian slope.
If all goes well, on the Fourth of July the mysterious Red Planet will reveal some of its secrets to a NASA probe that will snap pictures, sniff the atmosphere and dispatch a robot pal named Sojourner to check out rock samples.
Launched into space from Cape Canaveral late last year, two spacecraft are now millions of miles from home - and getting a lot closer to danger.
Even as you read this, a spaceship is hurtling toward Earth's most celebrated intergalactic neighbor. When the NASA Pathfinder probe finally sets down on Mars on Independence Day, it might help answer once and for all one of the most intriguing questions in the annals of science: Is there - or has there ever been - life on The Red Planet?
It was not enough to savor the moment, a moment that was a long time coming. No, on Wednesday morning, just six hours after the inky Florida sky was dazzled with the launch light of a robotic mission to Mars, a scientist stood in daylight at Cape Canaveral Air Station and was asked by a television reporter: When will man be going to Mars?