What's New

NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity may still have big achievements ahead as they approach the fifth anniversaries of their memorable landings on Mars.
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NASA's Mars rovers are talking to Earth and Earth is talking to the rovers again after a two-week silence. About every 26 months, when Mars and Earth are on opposite sides of the Sun, the Sun blocks communication.
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Like storm chasers on Earth, a NASA spacecraft spends time each day pursuing intense weather on Mars. Speeding along in orbit, it takes images of dust storms. Often, the storms are spiral like giant tornadoes on Earth.
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Researchers using a powerful instrument aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have found a long-sought-after mineral on the Martian surface and, with it, unexpected clues to the Red Planet's watery past.
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The Martian arctic soil that NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander dug into this year is very cold and very dry. However, when long-term climate cycles make the site warmer, the soil may get moist enough to modify the chemistry, producing effects that persist through the colder times.
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NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has completed its primary, two-year science phase. The spacecraft has found signs of a complex Martian history of climate change that produced a diversity of past watery environments.
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The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, team based at The University of Arizona today released 362 three-dimensional images of Mars taken by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
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If the car-size Mars Science Laboratory rover overheats or if it stalls because it's cold, you can't call a tow truck on Mars! To keep the rover running, engineers just installed a pump system similar to a car's radiator.
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Climate cycles persisting for millions of years on ancient Mars left a record of rhythmic patterns in thick stacks of sedimentary rock layers, revealed in three-dimensional detail by a telescopic camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
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NASA's Mars Science Laboratory will launch two years later than previously planned, in the fall of 2011. The mission will send a next-generation rover with unprecedented research tools to study the early environmental history of Mars.
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After nearly a month of daily checks to determine whether Martian NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander would be able to communicate again, the agency has stopped using its Mars orbiters to hail the lander and listen for its beep.
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When you're training for a tough task, role-playing games can prepare you for the real thing. Scientists play "games" too. Sixty Mars scientists from around the world just finished four exercises to practice directing the Mars Science Laboratory rover's activities after it lands.
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On Mars, the stuff we know as "dry ice," or frozen carbon dioxide, is a powerful agent for change. In winter, it forms a polar ice cap. In spring, it becomes an expanding gas that carves channels in the surface and sends loose debris into landslides.
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Electing where to send a rover on the diverse landscape of Mars is no easy task. With a lot at stake, two sides of the Mars team--scientists and engineers--have been lobbying for the best candidate landing site for the Mars Science Laboratory rover.
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Each day, Opportunity picks a route through two kinds of Martian terrain -- one hard and smooth, the other soft and sandy. Paving the way are flat-lying rocks formed long ago with help from liquid water.
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The solar system's most celebrated team of off-planet drivers cheered when they heard the news. Spirit had phoned home from Mars, ending four days of silence.
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NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed vast Martian glaciers of water ice under protective blankets of rocky debris at much lower latitudes than any ice previously identified on the Red Planet.
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On Earth, hikers are set on "bagging peaks," making it all the way to the summits of mountains. On Mars, Opportunity has been bagging craters! They have nicknames like "Eagle," "Endurance," and "Victoria."
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Just as jewelry makers take care to set a gem in a ring, a tireless team has been working late hours to tuck the Mars Science Laboratory rover inside its intricate, protective aeroshell and mount it for the first time on a giant gold "ring" (the cruise structure).
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Four intriguing places on Mars have risen to the final round as NASA selects a landing site for its next Mars mission, the Mars Science Laboratory.
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NASA is looking for the right stuff, or in this case, the right name for the next Mars rover.
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An international team of scientists who analyzed data from the Gamma Ray Spectrometer onboard NASA's Mars Odyssey reports new evidence for the controversial idea that oceans once covered about a third of ancient Mars.
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After assessing data received from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit on Thursday, mission controllers laid out plans for the rover to conserve its modest energy during the next few weeks.
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NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit communicated via the Mars Odyssey orbiter today right at the time when ground controllers had told it to, prompting shouts of "She's talking!" among the rover team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has won recognition from Popular Science magazine as an innovation worthy of the publication's "Best of What's New" Grand Award in the aviation and space category.
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Imagine taking a very long 10-month journey with someone you've just recently met! The assembly team successfully introduced the Mars Science Laboratory rover to one of its space travel partners.
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A dust storm that has reduced power to NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is clearing, but the Spirit's status remains unknown on Wednesday.
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A dust storm on Mars has cut into the amount of sunlight reaching the solar array on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, leaving the rover in a vulnerable state.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has ceased communications after operating for more than five months. As anticipated, seasonal decline in sunshine at the robot's arctic landing site is not providing enough sunlight for the solar arrays to collect the power necessary to charge batteries that operate the lander's instruments.
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Humans can't go to Mars (yet), but at least for now, we can send extensions of ourselves. Mars Science Laboratory's rover will be the hardiest geologist the red planet's seen yet, going farther and into rougher terrain than ever before.
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Never one to quit, Spirit has begun driving again for the first time in more than eight months. Spirit's goal is to make it back up the slope where the rover has been parked for the winter.
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Opal is the gemstone for those born in the month of October, but Mars scientists may claim it as the treasure of 2008. Inside the largest canyon in the whole solar system, opal minerals stretch in a pinkish cream swath, just to the right of a crater filled with dunes.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has communicated with controllers daily since Oct. 30 through relays to Mars orbiters. Information received over the weekend indicates Phoenix is running out of power each afternoon or evening but reawakening after its solar arrays catch morning sunlight.
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When you have just one chance to land Mars' biggest rover, you have to practice - a lot. So, how do you copy a high-speed descent on Mars? Strap special sensors to an F/A-18 jet at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center.
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Phoenix communicated with NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter Thursday. The communication reinforced a diagnosis that the spacecraft is in a precautionary mode triggered by low energy. Mission engineers are assessing the lander's condition and steps necessary for returning to science operations.
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NASA'S Phoenix Mars Lander entered safe mode late yesterday in response to a low-power fault brought on by deteriorating weather conditions. While engineers anticipated that a fault could occur due to the diminishing power supply, the lander also unexpectedly switched to the "B" side of its redundant electronics and shut down one of its two batteries.
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In a race against time and the elements, engineers with NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander mission hope to extend the lander's survival by gradually shutting down some of its instruments and heaters, starting today.
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NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has observed a new category of minerals spread across large regions of Mars. This discovery suggests that liquid water remained on the planet's surface a billion years later than scientists believed, and it played an important role in shaping the planet's surface and possibly hosting life.
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Hot off a special delivery truck from Lockheed Martin in Denver comes the aeroshell for the Mars Science Laboratory rover. Like two pieces of a giant clam, the aeroshell's backshell and the heatshield come together to protect the rover and the propulsion stage that safely delivers it to the surface of Mars.
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The National Space Club presented NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander mission team with its Astronautics Engineer Award last night in Huntsville, Ala. Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., accepted the award on behalf of the team at the Space Club's 20th Annual Dr. Wernher von Braun Memorial Dinner.
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When it descends through the Martian sky, the Mars Science Laboratory rover will "hang six," riding the Martian wind. The descent stage will lower the rover to the ground using a "Bridle Umbilical Device."
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has finished scooping soil samples to deliver to its onboard laboratories, and is now preparing to analyze samples already obtained. Scientists are anxious to analyze the samples as the power Phoenix generates continues to drop. The amount of sunlight is waning on Mars' northern plains as late-summer turns to fall.
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The Mars Phoenix Lander's robotic arm successfully delivered soil into oven six of the lander's thermal and evolved-gas analyzer (TEGA) on Monday, Oct. 13, or Martian day (sol) 137 of the mission.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Mission is being honored with a Breakthrough Award by Popular Mechanics magazine today in New York City. In its fourth year, the awards recognize innovators who improve lives and expand possibilities in science, technology, engineering and exploration.
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An odd, solitary hill rising part-way down an eroding slope in Mars' north polar layered terrain may be the remnant of a buried impact crater, suggests a University of Arizona planetary scientist who studied the feature in a new, detailed image from the HiRISE camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
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The Phoenix Lander over the weekend successfully weathered a regional dust storm that temporarily lowered its solar power, and the team is back investigating the Red Planet's northern plains.
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Here is a stereo, panoramic view of various trenches dug by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander. The images that make up this panorama were taken by Phoenix's Surface Stereo Imager at about 4 p.m., local solar time at the landing site, on the 131st, Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Oct. 7, 2008).
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Clear skies and low-angle sunlight are an outdoor photographer's dream. On the shortest day of Martian winter, June 24, 2008, Spirit had both.
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The longest-serving of six spacecraft now studying Mars is up to new tricks for a third two-year extension of its mission to examine the most Earthlike of known foreign planets.
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As fall approaches Mars' northern plains, NASA's Phoenix Lander is busy digging into the Red Planet's soil and scooping it into its onboard science laboratories for analysis
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has detected snow falling from Martian clouds. Spacecraft soil experiments also have provided evidence of past interaction between minerals and liquid water, processes that occur on Earth.
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NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed hundreds of small fractures exposed on the Martian surface that billions of years ago directed flows of water through underground Martian sandstone.
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The robotic arm on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander slid a rock out of the way during the mission's 117th Martian day (Sept. 22, 2008) to gain access to soil that had been underneath the rock.The lander's Surface Stereo Imager took this image later the same day, showing the rock, called "Headless," after the arm pushed it about 40 centimeters (16 inches) from its previous location.
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NASA's Mars rover Opportunity is on the road again. In typical shutterbug fashion, the rover sent a postcard of its travels. This time, the rover added a new touch -- raising its robotic arm in a final salute to "Victoria Crater."
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If the robotic arm on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander can nudge a rock aside today, scientists on the Phoenix team would like to see what's underneath.
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NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity is setting its sights on a crater more than 20 times larger than its home for the past two years.
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This image from the Surface Stereo Imager on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander shows morning frost inside the "Snow White" trench dug by the lander, in addition to subsurface ice exposed by use of a rasp on the floor of the trench. The camera took this image at about 9 a.m. local solar time during the 113th Martian day of the mission (Sept. 18, 2008).
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The Mars tribe has spoken. After searching far and wide for a landing site that can tell them if Mars was ever livable for microscopic life, the tribe of Mars experts has eliminated dozens of contenders. Only seven survive (labeled in white).
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The Phoenix Mars Lander's Surface Stereo Imager took this image of the spacecraft's crumpled heat shield on Sept. 16, 2008, the 111th Martian day of the mission. The 2-1/2 meter (about 8-1/2 feet) heat shield landed southeast of Phoenix, about halfway between the spacecraft and its backshell/parachute.
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This image, taken by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's Surface Stereo Imager, documents the delivery of a soil sample from the "Snow White" trench to the Wet Chemistry Laboratory. A small pile of soil is visible on the lower edge of the second cell from the top.This deck-mounted lab is part of Phoenix's Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA).
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NASA has selected a Mars robotic mission that will provide information about the Red Planet's atmosphere, climate history and potential habitability in greater detail than ever before. Called the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft, the $485 million mission is scheduled for launch in late 2013.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has photographed several dust devils dancing across the arctic plain this week and sensed a dip in air pressure as one passed near the lander. These dust-lofting whirlwinds had been expected in the area, but none had been detected in earlier Phoenix images.
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The next soil sample that NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander will deliver to its deck instruments will go to the fourth of the four cells of Phoenix's wet chemistry laboratory, according to the Phoenix team's current plans.
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Like talk show hosts, NASA's Mars rovers broadcast their findings at television frequencies. They record their observations and send them to the Mars Odyssey orbiter once or twice a day. Odyssey then broadcasts the program -- spectacular images and all -- back to Earth.
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Question: What does the Mars rover Opportunity have in common with safe drivers? Answer: The rover doesn't talk on the phone while driving.
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The Robotic Arm Camera on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander took this image on Sept. 1, 2008, at about 4 a.m. local solar time during the 97th Martian day, or sol, since landing. The view underneath the lander shows growth of the clumps adhering to leg strut (upper left) compared with what was present when a similar image was taken about three months earlier.
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Like talk show hosts, NASA's Mars rovers broadcast their findings at television frequencies. They record their observations and send them to the Mars Odyssey orbiter once or twice a day. Odyssey then broadcasts the program -- spectacular images and all -- back to Earth.
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A fork-like conductivity probe has sensed humidity rising and falling beside NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, but when stuck into the ground, its measurements so far indicate soil that is thoroughly and perplexingly dry.
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Like space shuttle pilots, Mars navigators need to know what the atmosphere will be like during landing. When Phoenix arrived, it barely missed a dust storm. Now scientists are evaluating what conditions may be like when the Mars Science Laboratory rover arrives in two years. That's one Mars year, or one change of seasons.
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Scientists have begun to analyze a sample of soil delivered to NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's wet chemistry experiment from the deepest trench dug so far in the Martian arctic plains. Phoenix has also been observing movement of clouds overhead.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, having completed its 90-day primary mission, is continuing its science collection activities. Science and engineering teams are looking forward to at least another month of Martian exploration.
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NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has climbed out of the large crater that it had been examining from the inside since last September.
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As Americans celebrate Labor Day 2008, six flags stand in silent salute to the U.S. workforce on Mars. Three of the flags are on spacecraft still exploring Mars.
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NASA's Mars Exploration rover Opportunity is heading back out to the Red Planet's surrounding plains nearly a year after descending into a large Martian crater to examine exposed ancient rock layers.
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From the location of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, above the Martian arctic circle, the sun does not set during the peak of the Martian summer. This period of maximum solar energy is past -- on Sol 86, the 86th Martian day after the Phoenix landing, the sun fully set behind a slight rise to the north for about half an hour.
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The next sample of Martian soil being grabbed for analysis is coming from a trench about three times deeper than any other trench NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has dug.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has scooped up a soil sample from an intermediate depth between the ground surface and a subsurface icy layer. The sample was delivered to a laboratory oven on the spacecraft.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander scientists and engineers are continuing to dig into the area around the lander with the spacecraft's robotic arm, looking for new materials to analyze and examining the soil and ice subsurface structure.
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Like a racecar in need of high-performance tires, the next rover to explore Mars needs a rugged set of wheels. Like the racing tires, the off-road wheels must perform flawlessly. Together with a rugged suspension system, they must be lightweight, strong, and agile enough to handle extreme terrain. takes a lot of drilling to prepare to use a drill 100 million miles away, beyond the reach of humans. The Mars Science Laboratory rover is wasting no time doing just that. With an industrial-strength drill, the rover will pulverize the inside of hard, volcanic rocks on Mars and study the powder.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has taken the first-ever image of a single particle of Mars' ubiquitous dust, using its atomic force microscope. The particle -- shown at higher magnification than anything ever seen from another world -- is a rounded particle about one micrometer, or one millionth of a meter, across.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has continued studies of its landing site by widening a trench, making overnight measurements of conductivity in the Martian soil and depositing a sample of surface soil into a gap between partially opened doors to an analytical oven on the lander.
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Layers of clay-rich rock have been found in Mars’ Mawrth Vallis, a potential landing site for future rovers. This work, published in the August 8 issue of Science, suggests that abundant water was once present on Mars and that hydrothermal activity may have occurred.
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Phoenix Mars mission scientists spoke today on research in progress concerning an ongoing investigation of perchlorate salts detected in soil analyzed by the wet chemistry laboratory aboard NASA's Phoenix Lander.
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Scientists are analyzing results from soil samples delivered several weeks ago to science instruments on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander to understand the landing site's soil chemistry and mineralogy.
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Laboratory tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.
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A distinctive hard-surface feature called "Snow Queen" beneath NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander visibly changed sometime between mid-June and mid-July, close-up images from the Robotic Arm Camera show.
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If you've ever gotten stuck while driving on a sandy beach or road, you can imagine Opportunity's recent experience on Mars. At times, the rover's wheels have done more slipping than advancing. Like a hardy dune buggy, the rover keeps driving.
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Scientists and engineers on NASA's Phoenix Mars Mission spent the weekend examining how the icy soil on Mars interacts with the scoop on the lander's robotic arm, while trying different techniques to deliver a sample to one of the instruments.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's robotic arm will use a revised collection-and-delivery sequence overnight Sunday with the goal of depositing an icy soil sample in the lander's oven.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's robotic arm collected a more than adequate amount of icy soil for baking in one of the lander's ovens but will need to adjust how it delivers samples.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's robotic arm scoop is primed and ready to collect a soil sample from the northern region of Mars to analyze for the presence of water and other possible ingredients.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has groomed the bottom of a shallow trench to prepare for collecting a sample to be analyzed from a hard subsurface layer where the soil may contain frozen water.
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The latest activities of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have moved the mission closer to analyzing a sample of material, possibly icy soil, from a hard layer at the bottom of a shallow trench beside the lander.
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Phoenix early Tuesday finished its longest work shift of the mission. The lander stayed awake for 33 hours, completing tasks that included rasping and scraping by the robotic arm, in addition to atmosphere observations in coordination with simultaneous observations by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
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Later this month, NASA’s Spaceward Bound program will send a team of scientists and teachers to explore the permanently frozen landscape of Axel Heiberg Island in the Canadian high Arctic.
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To coordinate with observations made by an orbiter flying repeatedly overhead, NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is working a schedule Monday that includes staying awake all night for the first time.
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The team operating NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander plans to tell the lander today to do a second, larger test of using a motorized rasp to produce and gather shavings of frozen ground.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Mission has released stereo images of the Martian surface near the Phoenix lander. The images in the new 3-D Gallery combine views from the left and right "eyes" of the lander's Surface Stereo Imager (SSI) so that they appear three-dimensional when viewed through red-blue glasses.
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A powered rasp on the back of the robotic arm scoop of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander successfully drilled into the frozen soil and loosened material that was collected in the lander's scoop.
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A powered rasp on the back of the robotic arm scoop of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is being tested for the first time on Mars in gathering sample shavings of ice.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is using its Robotic Arm to enlarge an exposure of hard subsurface material expected to yield a sample of ice-rich soil for analysis in one of the lander's ovens.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has touched Martian soil with a fork-like probe for the first time and begun using a microscope that examines shapes of tiny particles by touching them.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's science and engineering teams are testing methods to get an icy sample into the Robotic Arm scoop for delivery to the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA).
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander used its Robotic Arm to deliver a second sample of soil for analysis by the spacecraft's wet chemistry laboratory, data received from Phoenix on Sunday night confirmed.
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The next sample delivered to NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA) will be ice-rich. A team of engineers and scientists assembled to assess TEGA after a short circuit was discovered in the instrument has concluded that another short circuit could occur when the oven is used again.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander enlarged the "Snow White" trench and scraped up little piles of icy soil on Saturday, June 28, the 33rd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Scientists say that the scrapings are ideal for the lander's analytical instruments.
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It takes a lot of drilling to prepare to use a drill 100 million miles away, beyond the reach of humans. The Mars Science Laboratory rover is wasting no time doing just that. With an industrial-strength drill, the rover will pulverize the inside of hard, volcanic rocks on Mars and study the powder.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander scraped to icy soil in the "Wonderland" area on Thursday, June 26, confirming that surface soil, subsurface soil and icy soil can be sampled at a single trench.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander performed its first wet chemistry experiment on Martian soil flawlessly yesterday, returning a wealth of data that for Phoenix scientists was like winning the lottery.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander placed a sample of Martian soil in the spacecraft's wet chemistry laboratory today for the first time. Results from that instrument, part of Phoenix's Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer, are expected to provide the first measurement of the acidity or alkalinity of the planet's soil.
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Imagine having only enough energy to run a microwave oven for seven minutes each day. Think of it as your energy diet -- it's all you have to survive. Basically, that's what NASA's Mars rover, Spirit, experienced in June 2008.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander repositioned its robotic arm slightly today and is now poised to deliver Martian soil to its wet chemistry laboratory. Sample delivery and analysis is planned as the science highlight tomorrow, June 25, the 30th Martian day of the mission.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has delivered a scoop of Martian soil from the "Snow White" trenches to the optical microscope for analysis tomorrow, June 24, the 29th Martian day of the mission, or Sol 29.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander Saturday beamed back images showing that Phoenix's Robotic Arm successfully sprinkled soil onto the delivery port of the lander's Optical Microscope.
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Scientists relishing confirmation of water ice near the surface beside NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander anticipate even bigger discoveries from the robotic mission in the weeks ahead.
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Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it.
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Let's say you live in Miami. If Earth's weather were as predictable as Mars' weather, you could expect a hurricane similar in magnitude to hit Miami year after year, within about two weeks of the same date.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Mission generated an unusually high volume of spacecraft housekeeping data on Tuesday causing the loss of some non-critical science data. Phoenix engineers are analyzing why this anomaly occurred. The science team is planning spacecraft activities for Thursday that will not rely on Phoenix storing science data overnight but will make use of multiple communication relays to gain extra data quantity.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander began digging in an area called "Wonderland" early Tuesday, taking its first scoop of soil from a polygonal surface feature within the "national park" region that mission scientists have been preserving for science.
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One of the ovens on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander continued baking its first sample of Martian soil over the weekend, while the Robotic Arm dug deeper into the soil to learn more about white material first revealed on June 3.
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New observations from NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander provide the most magnified view ever seen of Martian soil, showing particles clumping together even at the smallest visible scale.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander sprinkled a spoonful of Martian soil Wednesday onto the sample wheel of the spacecraft's robotic microscope station, images received early Thursday confirmed.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has filled its first oven with Martian soil. "We have an oven full," Phoenix co-investigator Bill Boynton of the University of Arizona, Tucson, said today. "It took 10 seconds to fill the oven. The ground moved."
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The team operating NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander plans to instruct the spacecraft in the next few days to use its Robotic Arm to sprinkle a spoonful of Martian soil onto a wheel that will rotate the sample into place for viewing by the spacecraft's Optical Microscope.
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Engineers operating the Robotic Arm on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander are testing a revised method for delivering soil samples to laboratory instruments on Phoenix's deck now that researchers appreciate how clumpy the soil is at the landing site.
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On Sunday, Sol 14 of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander mission, mechanical shakers inside the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer will attempt to loosen clumped soils on the device's screens to allow material to fall into the oven for analysis later in the week.
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The arm of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander released a handful of clumpy Martian soil onto a screened opening of a laboratory instrument on the spacecraft Friday, but the instrument did not confirm that any of the sample passed through the screen.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander made its first dig into Martian soil for science studies and is poised to deliver the scoopful to a laboratory instrument on the lander deck.
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A microscope on NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander has taken images of dust and sand particles with the greatest resolution ever returned from another planet.
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Members of the science team, who will help validate measurements made from instruments aboard the Phoenix Mars Lander in a laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center, will be available to media June 9.
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Two practice rounds of digging and dumping the clumpy soil at the Martian arctic site this week gave scientists and engineers gathered at the University of Arizona confidence to begin using Phoenix's Robotic Arm to deliver soil samples to instruments on the lander deck.
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Engineers and scientists operating NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander decided early today to repeat a practice test of releasing Martian soil from the scoop on the lander's Robotic Arm.
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One week after landing on far-northern Mars, NASA Phoenix spacecraft lifted its first scoop of Martian soil as a test of the lander's Robotic Arm. The practice scoop was emptied onto a designated dump area on the ground after the Robotic Arm Camera photographed the soil inside the scoop.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander reached out and touched the Martian soil for the first time on Saturday, May 31, the first step in a series of actions expected to bring soil and ice to the lander's experiments.
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A view of the ground underneath NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander adds to evidence that descent thrusters dispersed overlying soil and exposed a harder substrate that may be ice.
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Scientists have discovered what may be ice that was exposed when soil was blown away as NASA's Phoenix spacecraft landed on Mars last Sunday, May 25. The possible ice appears in an image the robotic arm camera took underneath the lander, near a footpad.
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NASA's Mars lander is returning more detailed images from the Martian surface and is now preparing its instruments for science operations.
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Scientists leading NASA's Phoenix Mars mission from the University of Arizona in Tucson sent commands to unstow its robotic arm and take more images of its landing site early today.
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NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter successfully received information from the Phoenix Mars Lander Tuesday evening and relayed the information to Earth. The relayed transmission included images and other data collected by Phoenix during the mission's second day after landing on Mars.
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NASA's Phoenix Lander is ready to begin moving its robotic arm, first unlatching its wrist and then flexing its elbow.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander communicates with Earth using the Odyssey orbiter as a two-way communications link in the Martian sky.
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A telescopic camera in orbit around Mars caught a view of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suspended from its parachute during the lander's successful arrival at Mars Sunday evening, May 25.
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A NASA spacecraft today sent pictures showing itself in good condition after making the first successful landing in a polar region of Mars.
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NASA's Phoenix spacecraft landed in the northern polar region of Mars today to begin three months of examining a site chosen for its likelihood of having frozen water within reach of the lander's robotic arm.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is targeted to land in a flat valley in the arctic plains of Mars, at the center of the blue ellipse shown here. It is most likely to touch down at the very center, and least likely to land at the ellipse's edges. The ellipse is approximately 60 kilometers (37 miles) long and 20 kilometers (12 miles) wide.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander will reach Mars this evening with no further adjustments to its flight path. Mission controllers decided early Sunday not to use the last possible time for a trajectory correction maneuver, eight hours before landing.
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Mission controllers for NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander decided Saturday afternoon, May 24, to forgo the second-to-last opportunity for adjusting the spacecraft's flight path.
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When NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander prepares for landing on May 25, 2008, it won't be alone. Three spacecraft in orbit will serve as a welcome committee.
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With three days and 3 million miles left to fly before arriving at Mars, NASA's Phoenix spacecraft is on track for its destination in the Martian arctic.
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Just as migrating birds herald the changing seasons on Earth, sand dunes show seasonal change on the fourth rock from the Sun. From a distance, crescent-shaped dunes near the north pole of Mars can even resemble birds in flight.
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NASA’s Ames Research Center will celebrate the Phoenix Mars landing at the Ames Exploration Center on May 25, 2008 with robotic demonstrations, Phoenix animations and presentations about the mission from Ames' scientists.
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NASA scientists and engineers expect to have an out of this world Memorial Day weekend, even though they'll be hard at work. Their mission is to land a spacecraft safely on Mars Sunday evening. Three researchers from NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. are part of the team working to guide the Mars Phoenix Lander to a soft landing on the northern polar regions of Mars, a never-before explored area of the Red Planet.
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NASA news briefings, live commentary and updates before and after the scheduled Sunday, May 25 arrival of the agency's Phoenix Mars Lander will be available on NASA Television and on the Web.
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New observations from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter indicate that the crust and upper mantle of Mars are stiffer and colder than previously thought.
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Phoenix landing events schedule for Thursday, May 22, 2008 through Friday, May 30, 2008.
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Mars rovers appear to be shrinking with age! The biggest, baddest, newest rover being built is the Mars Science Laboratory rover (right). It's the size of a small sport-utility vehicle. Still exploring Mars four years after landing are the dune-buggy-sized rovers Spirit and Opportunity (left). The first-generation rover, Sojourner, is the size of a microwave oven.
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NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander continues on course for its May 25 arrival at Mars. After targeting its certified landing site with a trajectory, or flight path, correction maneuver on April 10, the spacecraft's performance has been stable enough for the mission's operators to forgo the scheduled opportunity for an additional trajectory correction maneuver on May 10 and focus on the next such opportunity, on May 17.
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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.
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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.
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The next set of "eyes" to journey to Mars are already busy observing people and objects on Earth. Keen vision will be essential to keeping the Mars Science Laboratory rover, a vehicle the size of a small SUV, out of trouble amid the red planet's cliffs, sand, and boulders.
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If Mars had an on-line Web site for ads, one of them might say something like this: "Wanted: Gentle space-age dust removal system to clean solar cells without leaving grit behind. Please direct inquiries to NASA."
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A radar instrument co-sponsored by NASA on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter has looked beneath the surface of Mars and opened up a new dimension for planetary exploration.
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Though they're not attached to creatures of the deep, fins made of rock poke up above the surface and suggest past water on Mars. NASA's Opportunity rover took images of a thin fin on the edge of a rock in "Victoria Crater." The fin was rich in hematite, a mineral that often forms in the presence of water.
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If you smacked a frozen chocolate bar on a table, it would break into bite-size pieces resembling the terrain in this Martian crater. To a planetary scientist, this pattern is a tantalizing clue that the ground once contained water ice. When the frozen terrain cracked, in some places the ice melted into flows chock full of sediment. Perhaps the ground is still filled with layers of near-surface ice.
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NASA engineers have adjusted the flight path of the Phoenix Mars Lander, setting the spacecraft on course for its May 25 landing on the Red Planet.
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Instead of taking spots out, NASA's Mars rovers put spots in! While driving backward down the north rim of "Home Plate," Spirit used its robotic arm to clear away grit from flat rocks under its wheels. Upon taking a second look, Spirit discovered not only spots but stripes.
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The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took these images of the larger of Mars' two moons, Phobos, on March 23, 2008.
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A new stereo view of Phobos, the larger and inner of Mars' two tiny moons, has been captured by a NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars.
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It's a good thing there's no speed limit on Mars, because the next parachute to fly to the red planet deploys faster than you can legally drive on a California freeway!
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While most kids can only read about Mars exploration, four groups of high school students from around the country are getting the chance to plan observations of the Red Planet and join the science team analyzing data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission.
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Opportunity turned its rover eyes skyward to observe clouds drifting overhead that look like cirrus clouds on Earth -- featherlike formations composed mostly of ice crystals.
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NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter has found evidence of salt deposits. These deposits point to places where water once was abundant and where evidence might exist of possible Martian life from the Red Planet's past.
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Nowadays it's not unusual to find a woman at the helm -- leading a corporation, commanding a space shuttle, or even operating a rover on Mars, but it's rare to have a supermajority of women in some technical fields.
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Engineers worked late on March 7th, "keeping time" with an aggressive schedule for building the Mars Science Laboratory rover. Getting into a new rhythm of hard work to come, the mission team was upbeat as they kicked off a mission phase called ATLO (Assembly, Testing, and Launch Operations).
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Imagine having a backyard telescope so powerful you could easily see details on another planet. NASA has such an instrument at Mars and recently pointed it at Earth!
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NASA's next mission to Mars gets rolling, as engineers on the mobility team cross a finish line of their own.
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A NASA spacecraft in orbit around Mars has taken the first ever image of active avalanches near the Red Planet's north pole. The image shows tan clouds billowing away from the foot of a towering slope, where ice and dust have just cascaded down.
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Three Mars spacecraft are adjusting their orbits to be over the right place at the right time to listen to NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander as it enters the Martian atmosphere on May 25.
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Like salt used as a preservative, high concentrations of dissolved minerals in the wet, early-Mars environment known from discoveries by NASA's Opportunity rover may have thwarted any microbes from developing or surviving.
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Like salt used as a preservative, high concentrations of dissolved minerals in the wet, early-Mars environment known from discoveries by NASA's Opportunity rover may have thwarted any microbes from developing or surviving.
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Mars has an ethereal, tenuous atmosphere with less than one-percent the surface pressure of Earth, which challenges scientists to explain complex, wind-sculpted landforms seen with unprecedented detail in images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
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Steep terrain can be a hindrance on Mars as well as Earth. NASA's Mars rover Opportunity recently encountered a band of darker rocks inside "Victoria Crater" that increased in steepness.
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