Latest Mars rover Stories

PASADENA, Calif., May 9, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The team operating NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on Mars has selected a second target rock for drilling and sampling. The rover will set course to the drilling location in coming days. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO ) This second drilling target, called "Cumberland," lies about nine feet (2.75 meters) west of the rock where Curiosity's drill first touched Martian stone in February. Curiosity took the...

KENTFIELD, Calif., May 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Adam Steltzner, NASA JPL lead engineer and College of Marin alumnus, led the Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) Team for the NASA Mars Curiosity Rover. He has been a featured guest in variety of print stories, and on television and radio broadcasts, including the New Yorker, NPR, CNN and Nova. WHO: Dr. Adam Steltzner, lead mechanical engineer of the NASA Mars Rover Landing Project, guest lecturer WHAT: College of Marin Grand Opening,...

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory The team in charge of successfully landing NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., received the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's highest group honor at a dinner in Washington on Wednesday night, April 24. The 2013 Trophy for Current Achievement honors outstanding achievements in the fields of aerospace science and technology. The Mars Science Laboratory Project built and operates the rover...

ESA Without hi-tech magnetic sensors, rovers wouldn’t be able to roam around Mars. These same sensors will soon boost terrestrial travel by improving the machinery that molds parts for cars and aircraft here on Earth. These devices will ‘feel’ parts in exquisite detail, noting features like the width and depth of drilled holes, helping to create perfect 3D pictures of each highly complex piece. It takes up to 20 minutes to beam information from Mars to Earth – more than...

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has resumed science investigations after recovery from a computer glitch that prompted the engineers to switch the rover to a redundant main computer on Feb. 28. The rover has been monitoring the weather since March 21 and delivered a new portion of powdered-rock sample for laboratory analysis on March 23, among other activities. "We are back to full science operations," said Curiosity Deputy Project Manager Jim Erickson of...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The European Space Agency (ESA) and Russian federal space agency (Roscosmos) have finally signed a formal agreement to work together on the ExoMars program to determine whether life ever existed on Mars. Under the partnership, ESA agreed to provide the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and the Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module (EDM) in 2016 as well as the carrier and rover in 2018. Roscosmos agreed to be responsible for the 2018...

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory The down-to-Earth persona of NASA's Mars Curiosity rover, expressed on Twitter, Facebook, live streaming on Ustream, viral videos and the first Foursquare check-in from another planet, has captured the 2013 South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Award for best social media campaign. The award, presented last night at the SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas, honors the Mars Curiosity social media campaign for turning NASA's newest Mars rover into an...

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory The ground team for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has switched the rover to a redundant onboard computer in response to a memory issue on the computer that had been active. The intentional swap at about 2:30 a.m. PST today (Thursday, Feb. 28) put the rover, as anticipated, into a minimal-activity precautionary status called "safe mode." The team is shifting the rover from safe mode to operational status over the next few days and is troubleshooting the...

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Two compact laboratories inside NASA's Mars rover Curiosity have ingested portions of the first sample of rock powder ever collected from the interior of a rock on Mars. Curiosity science team members will use the laboratories to analyze the rock powder in the coming days and weeks. The rover's Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) and Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instruments received portions of the sample on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 22 and 23,...

PASADENA, Calif., Feb. 20, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has relayed new images that confirm it has successfully obtained the first sample ever collected from the interior of a rock on another planet. No rover has ever has drilled into a rock beyond Earth and collected a sample from its interior. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Transfer of the powdered-rock sample into an open scoop was visible for the first time in images...