Mars Exploration Rovers

“Guess you could consider us the closest thing to paparazzi on Mars”

Pete Baker on August 7, 2012, 4:02 pm

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Another wondrous image from Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). This time the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard snapped the Red Planet’s “newest celebrity” – the Curiosity rover and its 51-foot-wide (almost 16 metre) parachute descending towards Gale Crater. [Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona] From the Nasa/JPL press release “If HiRISE took the image one second before or one second after, we probably would be looking at an empty Martian landscape,” said Sarah Milkovich, HiRISE investigation scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion …

Curiosity: “I’m safely on the surface of Mars”

Pete Baker on August 6, 2012, 2:41 pm

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If you didn’t manage to catch those ‘seven minutes of terror’ earlier this morning for Nasa’s mobile Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the massive 900kg rover Curiosity, here’s how it worked out. From NasaTelevision As the Curiosity Rover said on Twitter I’m safely on the surface of Mars. GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!! #MSL — Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) August 6, 2012 Heh. And the first image from the landing site at Gale Crater. [Images credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech] Another with Curiosity’s shadow visible. …

“Opportunity on Mars – 8 years and counting!”

Pete Baker on January 25, 2012, 7:54 pm

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Nasa’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity landed in Eagle Crater on Mars on Jan. 25, 2004, Universal Time, three weeks after its rover twin, Spirit, had landed halfway around the planet. Opportunity completed its three-month prime mission in April that year, everything else has been bonus, extended missions. Spirit is no longer with us. But Opportunity carries on. [Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.] This mosaic of images taken in mid-January 2012 shows the windswept vista northward (left) to northeastward (right) from the location …

Curiosity heads to Mars

Pete Baker on November 26, 2011, 6:14 pm

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Nasa’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) successfully launched from the Kennedy Space Centre earlier today on an Atlas 5 rocket at the start of its eight and a half month journey to Mars. With its massive 900kg rover, Curiosity, it’s being billed as “the biggest and best Mars mission yet.” Mike Meyer is the lead scientist on Nasa’s Mars exploration effort: “MSL plays a central role in a series of missions of looking at Mars and determining whether or not it has the potential for life. …

“humanity’s first overland expedition on another planet..” – redux

Pete Baker on October 13, 2011, 2:45 pm

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[Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University.] Having completed what once “seemed like a crazy idea”, Nasa have released a video documenting the journey of Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity from Victoria crater to Endeavour crater. A “three-year trek that totaled about 13 miles (21 kilometers) across a Martian plain pocked with smaller craters.” Opportunity arrived on Mars in January 2004 and completed its three-month prime mission in April that year. The rest have been bonus, extended missions. The video is compiled from 309 images taken at …

Opportunity at Endeavour

Pete Baker on August 11, 2011, 8:07 pm

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Last seen, on Slugger, at the edge of the football-field sized crater Santa Maria, Nasa’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has arrived at its next destination – the 22km wide crater Endeavour. 3 years and 13 miles from its first destination, Victoria crater. [Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU] A portion of the west rim of Endeavour crater sweeps southward in this color view from NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. This crater — with a diameter of about 14 miles (22 kilometers) — is more …