New Mars Forums

A new online map lets visitors explore Mars’ past through a collection of high-resolution observations from one of the most powerful spectrometers ever sent to the Red Planet. Evidence of ancient bodies of water, flowing rivers and groundwater peeks out from beneath layers of hardened magma and dust—testaments to Mars’ progression through wet, volcanic and dry eras.

The data come from the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM), on board NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. CRISM’s primary mission is to search for signs that liquid water once existed on Mars by identifying minerals that form only in the presence of water. Molecules of water trapped in these minerals leave particular patterns in the sunlight that reflects off of them and into CRISM, which senses up to 544 “colors,” or wavelengths, of light.

A team of researchers at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), which built and operates the instrument, has converted the complex CRISM data into easy-to-understand composite images. “The images clearly show the distribution of certain minerals, which tells us about the planet’s history,” says Scott Murchie of APL, CRISM’s principal investigator. “This map moves the information out of the domain of specialists and makes the very latest Mars research accessible to anyone with an interest in the planet.” The online collection currently includes more than 900 observations, and more are being added as the team prepares them.

The high-resolution map can be found on the “CRISM Data Products: Viewing Features on Mars” Web site, at http://crism-map.jhuapl.edu/, and is best viewed with Firefox 2.0, Netscape 7.2, or Internet Explorer 7.0, or better.

*  Robotic Arm (RA), provided by JPL: The RA (configured with a scoop) allows digging down to 0.5 m into the soil
    * Robotic Arm Camera (RAC), provided by the Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung (MPS), Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, in collaboration with the University of Arizona
    * Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA), provided by JPL with support from University of Neuchatel, Switzerland and MPS, Germany
    * Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA) from University of Arizona and University of Texas, Dallas
    * Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) from Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS), California
    * Surface Stereoscopic Imager (SSI) from the University of Arizona with three radiometric calibration targets from the Niels Bohr Institute, Denmark
    * Meteorological Station (MET) including a Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) instrument and pressure/temperature sensors from the Canadian Space Agency as well as a Telltale (wind gauge) from the University of Aarhus, Denmark

A small motor in the robotic arm of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity that began stalling occasionally more than two years ago has become more troublesome recently.

Rover engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are diagnosing why the motor, one of five in the robotic arm, stalled on April 14 after much less motion that day than in the case of several earlier stalls. They are also examining whether the motor can be used and assessing the impact on Opportunity's work if the motor were no longer usable.

The motor controls sideways motion at the shoulder joint of the rover robotic arm. Other motors provide up-and-down motion at the shoulder and maneuverability at the elbow and wrist. A turret at the end of the arm has four tools that the arm places in contact with rocks and soils to study their composition and texture.

"Even under the worst-case scenario for this motor, Opportunity still has the capability to do some contact science with the arm," said JPL's John Callas, project manager for the twin rovers Opportunity and Spirit. "The vehicle has quite a bit of versatility to continue the high-priority investigations in Victoria Crater and back out on the Meridiani plains after exiting the crater."

The performance of the motor in the past week is consistent with increased resistance in the electrical circuit, such as from degrading of wire in the winding, rather than a mechanical jam. Additional tests are planned for checking whether the apparent resistance is localized or intermittent.

Opportunity and Spirit landed on Mars in January 2004 to begin missions originally planned for three months. They have continued operating for more than four years, though each with some signs of aging.

Opportunity's balky shoulder motor began stalling occasionally in November 2005. The motor could still be operated by applying increased voltage. Engineers assessed it has an increased likelihood of becoming unusable, however, so the team changed its standard procedures for stowing and unstowing the arm.

Until then, on days when the arm would not be used, the team kept it stowed, resting on a hook under the front of the rover deck. Motion of the stall-prone shoulder motor is necessary to unstow the arm, so if the motor were to become unusable with the arm in the stowed position, the arm could not be deployed again. With diminished confidence in the balky motor, the team began unstowing the arm at the end of each day's drive rather than leaving it stowed overnight. This keeps the arm available for use even if the motor then stops working.

This spring, Opportunity is crossing an inner slope of Victoria Crater to reach the base of a cliff portion of the crater rim, a promontory called "Cape Verde." On April 14, Opportunity was backing out of a sandy patch encountered on the path toward Cape Verde from the area where the rover descended into the crater. As usual, the commands included unstowing the arm at the end of the day's short drive. The shoulder motor barely got the arm unstowed before stalling.

"We'll hold off backing out of the sand until after we've completed the diagnostic tests on the motor," Callas said. "The rover is stable and safe in its current situation, and not under any urgency. So we will take the time to act cautiously."

Earth is so rare with so many freak occurrences as to be a one of a kind in the universe.
Life is very difficult to start and such a random freak event that this is the only place it has happened or will ever happen in this universe.

It is true that if the spacecraft footpad perches on a rock or is otherwise unstable, then the RA (ed: Robotic Arm) has the strength to move the lander. We often joke that landing on ice in low gravity will allow us to pull ourselves along the surface using the RA from rock to rock.

Discovering Martian life is beyond the goal of this mission. We are looking first to see if the Martian arctic is habitable: periodic liquid water, organic material (it could be from meteors), and energy sources available for power an organism.

The first week of the mission consists of taking images and preparing for gathering samples. At the end of the first week we expect to have delivered a surface sample to our TEGA instrument. The summer is our prime science opportunity and we expect to meet all our mission goals by September. As you might expect, the mission will continue longer than this up until solar conjunction in mid-November. Recovering operations after that in late December will be very difficult as the Sun is setting in this high arctic region. By February we expect that carbon dioxide ice is forming a thick layer around the lander and without heat Phoenix will not survive.

We have found a safe site with few boulders to insure a safe landing. However, it will not be free of cobbles and smaller pebbles. I am curious to see how these stones have weathered over time and whether they are aligned with the polygonal boundaries.

There are few slopes in the neighborhood and the horizon should look extremely flat, no hills. However, the site is far from boring. We are near a 10 km crater and should be on the ejecta blanket containing material brought to the surface from depth. We are also on the slope of a large volcano, Alba Patera and may encounter ash blown from the interior. Finally, the site is a shallow valley and has undergone erosion which may leave signatures.

We land just before summer solstice and the first few months of the mission have plenty of sunlight altho our power generation depends on the tilt of the lander which we cannot control. Our science team has many arguments about how ice might react when the overburden of soil is removed. We will try to force some of the ice to melt by putting it in the warmest place we can find--the lander deck, then imaging it as solar heating tries to melt it. The question is will it sublimate before melting?

Phoenix uses another variant of the Wind River VXWorks real time OS software, not the same as the MER mission. Missions try to gather as much heritage as possible in their designs--no one wants to start over again from the beginning. However, when new space-qualified computers come available sometimes there is little software heritage to be found.

We are flying an atomic force microscope built in Switzerland by Urs Staufer for the first time ever. This is a difficult instrument to fly because it is sensitive to vibration even the tiny vibes caused by temperature change and wind. It has worked well in the lab and during environmental tests giving a resolution of an amazing 100 nm per pixel.

More than 10 percent of the surface area north of 65 degrees North on Mars has some type of cover by windblown sand dunes. This HiRISE image shows large barchan (crescent-shaped), barchanoid and some smaller dome-shaped dunes.

The image is of a location where the first significant change to sand dunes was reported on Mars (Bourke et al, 2008). That study used a time series of MOC images taken over a period of three Mars years and showed that two 20 meter-wide dome dunes disappeared and a third shrank by an estimated 15 percent. The HiRISE image confirms that the dune forms no longer exist but, interestingly, suggests that the sediment removal is ongoing as the third dune has been reduced in volume.

Other, larger dunes in the location do not show apparent change: more time or more precise measurements to display evidence of change is needed. Alternately, the sediment in the larger dunes may be unavailable for transport at the present time due to induration. Nevertheless, the change observed in the small dome dunes indicates that not all dunes on Mars are effectively stabilized and immobile.

WASHINGTON -- NASA has awarded Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, a NASA Launch Services contract for the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles.

The NASA Launch Services contracts are multiple awards to multiple launch service providers. Twice per year, there is an opportunity for existing and emerging domestic launch service providers to submit proposals if their vehicles meet the minimum contract requirements.

The contract is an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract where NASA may order launch services through June 30, 2010, for launches to occur through December 2012. Under the NASA Launch Services IDIQ contracts, the potential total contract value is between $20,000 and $1 billion, depending on the number of missions awarded.

The contract seeks a launch capability for payloads weighing 551 pounds or heavier into a circular orbit of 124 miles at an orbital inclination of 28.5 degrees. Payloads would be launched to support three NASA mission directorates: Science, Space Operations and Exploration Systems.

Because an IDIQ contract has been awarded to SpaceX, it can compete for NASA missions using the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles as specified by the NASA Launch Services contract process.

ATV Reboost Test:   The single-burn reboost firing test of the ATV “Jules Verne” overnight at 12:10am-1:52am was conducted successfully.  Burn duration was 4m 33s, with a delta-V of 1.04 m/s (3.41 ft/sec).  Mean altitude gain was ~1.49 km.  The purpose of the reboost was to test the ATV main engines prior to the scheduled reboost on 4/25 (Friday).  ISS attitude control authority was handed over to the Russian MCS (Motion Control System) thrusters at ~12:00am and returned to US momentum management at ~2:47am.

Should the mission controllers feel there is a need to change the landing site, there is still time for critical corrections to be made.

(From Rob Coppinger's blog)

Speaking to the European Space Agency's human spaceflight directorate’s head of strategy and architecture office, Bernhard Hufenbach today (21 April) he spoke enthusiastically of commercial services for a lunar outpost

The use of commercial services for exploration seems to be gaining ground and we might see it recommended as part of a report to be produced by NASA and ESA in mid-May. It will summarise their progress thus far in finding common ground between their respective architectures for the Moon, and beyond

NASA has certainly been thinking about how it can extend its forays into the commercial world to the wider exploration initiative and the British National Space Centre has said it has been an advocate of commercial services in its bilateral talks with the US space agency

Hufenbach spoke of initial commercial services focusing on broadband communications between the Moon and the Earth with the possible use of optical, i.e. laser, systems for sending data back and forth

Following that he envisaged wider commercial services that could encompass surface activities, I am guessing habitats. But he didn't rule out, either, in the much longer term, commercial crew transportation