NASA’s Mars rover reaches new grounds

Channel 6 News ^ | 10 Aug 2011

[mandaladon]

WASHINGTON, D.C. (BNO NEWS) -- NASA on Wednesday announced that its Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has reached the planet's Endeavour crater to study rocks never seen before.

On Monday, the golf cart-sized rover relayed its arrival at a location named Spirit Point on the crater's rim, after a journey of almost three years. Opportunity was able to drive approximately 13 miles (21 kilometers) after climbing out of the Victoria crater, NASA said.

Endeavour crater is more than 25 times wider than Victoria crater, being 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. At Endeavour, scientists expect to see much older rocks and terrains than those examined by Opportunity during its first seven years on Mars.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter first detected clay minerals that may have formed in an early warmer and wetter period, making Endeavour an intriguing destination.

"NASA is continuing to write remarkable chapters in our nation's story of exploration with discoveries on Mars and trips to an array of challenging new destinations," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "Opportunity's findings and data from the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory will play a key role in making possible future human missions to Mars and other places where humans have not yet been," he added.

Matthew Golombek, Mars Exploration Rover science team member at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said the exploration will allow sampling of a rock type the rovers had not seen before. "Clay minerals form in wet conditions so we may learn about a potentially habitable environment that appears to have been very different from those responsible for the rocks comprising the plains."

[LibLieSlayer]

I love Capitalism!!!

LLS

[NCC-1701]

If you can come up with the mill$, it’s your’s. Shipping and handling is extra.

[dragnet2]

Since this is about Opportunity:

Been there wandering around a long time now. I believe this image is from 2005.

This October 9 image taken by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is a portion of a mosaic acquired by the panoramic camera. The picture highlights the light-toned outcrop on the rim of "Erebus Crater" and large, dark, wind-deposited drifts that have filled the center of the crater. The rover is driving west, avoiding the large drifts and crossing the low ripples and outcrop to the right. Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell

[ProtectOurFreedom]

That is cool...the first widely-adopted and successful electric digital transmission code being imprinted on Mars by the tires of Curiosity. Gotta love that.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I tried and tried to combine the left eye stereo photo in Post 5 with this right eye stereo photo. But, try as I might, I just can’t get them to merge into a good stereo image. What’s wrong?

[spokeshave]

.......best bent wire............

[MediaMole]

This sort of exploration should be the focus of NASA. We should be sending robot explorers to all the planets to expand our knowledge.

Low Earth orbit should be in the hands of the private sector. As long as the government is in charge, we’ll be able to count the number of space ships on one hand.

[dragnet2]

Not sure. There is another site, where I’ve seen it work...See if I can find it.

[LibLieSlayer]

:-)!

LLS

[dragnet2]

Yep I tend to agree about the low orbit thing. It think the space shuttle program did about 26,000 earth orbits, while giving rides to all kinds of people.

Who could forget this image from Mars rover Opportunity.

I fell out of my chair when seeing this for the first time.

[LibLieSlayer]

I keep up with that project... amazing stuff... and to think it has a 90 day lifespan criteria.

LLS

[LibLieSlayer]

Way cool... the first digital mode... binary.

LLS

[LibLieSlayer]

Indeed!

LLS

[ConservativeMind]

But all that will be left as it moves forward will be “L”.

[LibLieSlayer]

I have seen the foot print... they stagger them so that it indeed reads as intended. Gets weird in turns though.

LLS

[Kickass Conservative]

I would have been more impressed if it spelled out N-O-B-A-M-A.

[LibLieSlayer]

That would definitely be a conservative rover!

LLS

[dragnet2]

For those that want to see how we’re going to get this rover, nearly the size of a Humvee on the surface of mars, watch this.

It’s well work the 11 minute video.

Be sure to enlarge to screen.

Enjoy the journey!

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=97780842

This 11-minute animation depicts key events of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission, which will launch in late 2011 and land a rover, Curiosity, on Mars in August 2012.

[Kickass Conservative]

If the Rover was Liberal, it would have taken a year off after the 90 days were up and waited for its Pension Check.

[Lancey Howard]

Wow! That looks just like the cliff Arnold fell out of in ‘Total Recall’, when his eyes were popping out and he looked like he was about to explode, and suddenly the alien machine kicked in and converted the Martian atmosphere to earth-like atmosphere, saving Arnold from certain demise.