What's New

NASA scientists and engineers are testing new technologies using a K9 rover in a newly built ‘Marscape’ test facility in preparation for future missions to Mars.
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With just over a year to go before NASA's twin Mars Exploration Rovers land on the red planet, members of the science team are previewing the mission's goals and candidate landing sites at a special session of the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.
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The latest observations from NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, highlighting water ice distribution and infrared images of the Red Planet's surface, are being released this week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
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NASA selected a Langley Research Center proposal today as one of four candidates for the 2007 "Scout" mission in the agency's Mars Exploration Program.
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A possible mission to Mars in 2007 would scrutinize the martian atmosphere for any chemical traces of life, or even environments supportive of life, anywhere on the planet.
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In June 2008, a lander mission called Phoenix could deliver tools to search for habitable zones and the history of water on Mars.
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NASA has selected a proposal for a mission that would collect samples of martian atmospheric dust as one of four finalists for the first Mars Scout mission.
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Dr. Jeffrey Plaut has been named project scientist for NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey mission, succeeding Dr. R. Stephen Saunders who has retired.
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Like any travelers worth their frequent flyer miles, the twin rovers of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission must prepare for a long journey. Unlike airline passengers, however, the rovers won't have an attentive flight crew to tend to their needs. Instead, the twins face a daunting 460 million kilometer (286 million mile) voyage to Mars.
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NASA's unprecedented work in Space Science and Earth Science captured three of Popular Science's "Best of What's New Awards" for 2002.
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NASA announced a contest, which will give American school kids a chance to make history, by naming two rovers being launched to explore Mars.
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One of the highest-resolution images ever obtained from the red planet-- a view of gullies in a crater in the Newton Basin-- is among an astounding group of 18,812 images being added to NASA's Mars Global Surveyor online image gallery today.
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NASA has released the first set of data taken by the Mars Odyssey spacecraft to the Planetary Data System, which will now make the information available to research scientists through a new online distribution and access system.
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Howard is JPL's own bionic woman who, at the moment, is helping develop an advanced Entry, Descent and Landing software application that can look at virtual terrain on Mars.
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In the latest study of a 4.5 billion-year-old Martian meteorite, researchers have presented new evidence confirming that 25 percent of the magnetic material in the meteorite was produced by ancient bacteria on Mars.
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Just as a toddler uses a set of blocks to build a structure, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., design conceptual space missions using a set of "blocks," each representing a different segment of requirements, to make sure that all aspects of a mission mesh with the final design.
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NASA has chosen the Atlas III expendable vehicle offered in a competitive bid by Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services, Inc. for the launch of NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, scheduled in 2005. Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services is a division of International Launch Services of McLean, Va.
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Flight controllers for NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft completed the last major technical milestone today in support of the science mission by unfurling the boom that holds the gamma ray spectrometer sensor head instrument.
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NASA has selected 28 scientists for participation in the 2003 Mars Exploration Rover Mission, including four from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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There are tantalizing indications emerging from the thousands of infrared images taken so far by NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft that Mars experienced a series of environmental changes during active geological periods in its history.
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Instruments on board NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft have revealed more underground ice on the Red Planet than scientists expected.
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Using instruments on NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft, surprised scientists have found enormous quantities of buried treasure lying just under the surface of Mars-enough water ice to fill Lake Michigan twice over.
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Future trailblazers are taking on the challenge of developing technology that will allow for vegetation growth on the surface of Mars.
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A view of the red planet almost completely enveloped in dust storms is one of 15,251 newly released images from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor. These images bring the total number of snapshots taken by the spacecraft to more than 93,000.
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As an automobile ages, it usually requires more trips to a mechanic. Spacecraft are designed for a primary mission; when all is going well, the mission is often extended to obtain more data for other research objectives. But spacecraft are also subject to the ravages of time and wear.
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As part of the sixth annual Space Day celebration, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe announced today the launch of the Imagine Mars project at the opening ceremony for "Space Day 2002 Adventure to Mars!" at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C.
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Roger Gibbs has been named project manager for NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey mission, succeeding Matt Landano who was appointed the director for the JPL Office of Safety and Mission Success.
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NASA and JPL are sending RATS to Mars to work as field geologists. A RAT is not quite a furry little friend, but rather a high-tech robot with diamond teeth, called a Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT).
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Just one of the many problems in landing on another planet, after it's been determined where to land and the method to get there, is landing safely. For NASA'a Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a safe landing is "the name of the game," as engineers work to prepare two rovers for the journey to Mars.
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A group of small, unnamed craters in the martian southern hemisphere is the first site captured by a group of middle school students who are operating the camera system onboard NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft this week.
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Caught unawares, Odyssey lead navigator Bob Mase mumbled "what?" when Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Office of Space Science announced that Mase and the Odyssey navigation team had won one of Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine's annual Laurel awards.
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Today the Red Planet is dry and barren, but what about tomorrow? New data suggest that the long story of water on Mars isn't over yet.
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Flight controllers for NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft report the martian radiation environment experiment began gathering science data today after their troubleshooting efforts successfully reestablished communications with the instrument.
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After spending a career in planetary exploration, Charley Kohlhase dreams not of the past, but of the future. What does he envision someday? Humans living on Mars, continuing to study the planet in great detail. Of course, NASA has a lot of work to do before human missions are possible, but today's robotic missions are paving the way by helping us understand the Martian environment and its potential impact on human health. Once we learn more, Kohlhase believes, the spirit of exploration will make Mars an irresistible destination for future astronauts.
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Intense discussion, various viewpoints, chairs being scooted around, slightly raised voices, and eventual consensus: just a typical meeting of scientists in the lab; in this case a rover lab at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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Initial science data from NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which began its mapping mission last week, portend some tantalizing findings by the newest Martian visitor, including possible identification of significant amounts of frozen water.
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NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has begun its science mapping mission. The spacecraft turned its science instruments toward Mars on Monday, February 18.
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NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft deployed its high-gain communications antenna last night, marking a major technical milestone prior to the beginning of the science mapping mission.
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NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft is now in its mapping orbit after completing two maneuvers this week to fine-tune its nearly circular orbit and prepare it for the start of the science mission.
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An experiment designed by the Arkansas-Oklahoma Center for Space and Planetary Sciences, now in place on the polar plateau of Antarctica, may help interpret the recent history of Mars.
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NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft completed two maneuvers this week, fine-tuning its orbit in preparation for the science mapping mission that will begin in late February.
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No banks, stock exchanges or other financial institutions are known to exist on Mars. So how does a business and economics graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara end up in a key role on a mission to the red planet?
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eep below the surface of the Beverhead Mountains of Idaho, a research team led by Derek Lovley, head of the microbiology department at the University of Massachusetts, and Francis H. Chappelle of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), has found an unusual community of microoganisms that may hold the key to understanding how life could survive on Mars.
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Canadian and New Zealand scientists have found living microbes buried deeper than perhaps ever before in Antarctica's ice-free Dry Valleys.
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With the successful completion of the aerobraking effort, the Odyssey navigation team is leaving a legacy of well-honed interdisciplinary tools and techniques certain to be used on future missions using aerobraking.
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Flight controllers for NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft sent commands overnight to raise the spacecraft up out of the atmosphere and conclude the aerobraking phase of the mission.
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Insect-like robots may one day swarm over the surface of Mars, helping scientists better study the planet, says a University of Missouri-Rolla researcher developing this new breed of robots.
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