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The Battalion
Page 3A • Thursday, December 4, 2003
Visiting ‘the death planet’
New rovers prepare for dangerous landing on Mars
By Andrew Bridges
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PASADENA, Calif. — After seven routine months of space-
;ht, NASA is bracing for six minutes of high anxiety in January,
hen the twin rovers it launched earlier this year punch through the
lartian atmosphere to land on the Red Planet.
Each of the unmanned, $400 million rovers must be slowed from
2,000 mph to a complete stop within minutes after first plunging
othe planet’s tenuous atmosphere.
“Just getting to Mars is hard, but landing is more so,” Ed Weiler,
id Perr-iBASA’s associate administrator for space science said Tuesday dur-
lasseneii iganews briefing from Washington, D.C., that was broadcast to
9 andu« ie Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Landing the rovers safely requires the elaborately choreographed
politicalfjlnd fast-paced use of heat shields, parachutes, rockets and air bags,
expenenq t strong gust of wind, or a single sharp rock, could destroy either
f filings]r both rovers.
Two-thirds of all previous Martian missions have failed, includ-
m ngthe last lander NASA launched, 1999’s Polar Lander. A second
are m: lission, the Climate Orbiter satellite, also failed that year.
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Just eight seconds before landing, the rovers will inflate enor-
tous air bags, similar to those successfully used by 1997’s
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ushion their arrival on the planet’s surface.
“We could bounce about as high as a four-story building,” proj-
: them r.: jet manager Peter Theisinger said.
The first of the rovers. Spirit, is scheduled to land Jan. 3 in Gusev
Irater, a Connecticut-sized basin that may have held a brimming
ic raty,s!|ke after it formed 4 billion years ago.
The second six-wheeled robot. Opportunity, should land Jan. 24,
nthe far side of the planet in Meridiani Planum, where mineralog-
al evidence indicates water once was present.
The camera- and instrument-laden rovers are designed to analyze
lartian rocks and soil for additional clues that could reveal whether
Hie planet was ever a wanner, wetter place capable of sustaining life.
“The easy parts of these missions are over. Now the tough part
Dmes. Mars has been a most daunting destination. Some, including
yself, call it ’the death planet,”’ Weiler said.
Once the roving robotic field geologists have landed, NASA may
hear from them again for nearly 24 hours. In the meantime, the
ivers should begin surveying their surroundings.
Even after the first pictures and data are received on Earth, it will
ike each rover at least nine days to become ready to roll off its lan-
lOts'H and begin exploratory work in earnest, project scientist Joy
Lotto IsIfp said.
Steve Squyres, the mission’s lead scientist, said any scientific pay-
^could be months away. Each mission is expected to last 90 days.
“This isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon,” Squyres said. “The best
tiff may come in February, March or April. It may take a while.”
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has taken
ains to publicize the risk inherent in space exploration since the
>ss of the 1999 Mars missions, as well as of the space shuttle
blumbia and its crew earlier this year. It has also beefed up over-
ight of how its spacecraft are designed, built, tested and launched.
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Shedding light on solar
storms
The intense solar activity that erupted in mid-October could flare up
again this week! possibly causing more electrical and radio
disturbances on Earth. Astronomers have studied coronal mass
ejections for decades and sunspots for centuries, but there is still
much to learn about the solar phenomena’s relationships to each
other and to Earth, sunspots j~ Millions of degrees
surface of the ; .l| Solar flares
sun that exist for , rj huge explosions
days or weeks 4 ^ that usually occur
Core —
nuclear reactions
generate energy
Radiative zone
photons transport
energy outward
from the core
Corona
the sun s outer
atmosphere
Magnetosphere
magnetic field
that shields Earth
from solar wind
Coronal mass
ejections (CMEs)
giant magnetically
charged clouds
13 times the size
of Earth
Solar wind
radiates from the
sun at speeds of
up to a million
miles per hour,
enveloping all the
planets in our
solar system;
solar wind can
carry magnetic
clouds created by
flares and CMEs
The solar cycle
The number of sunspots at any one time
rises and falls in roughly 11-year cycles.
With magnetic fields thousands of times
stronger than Earth’s, sunspots are
thought to affect solar activity and even
Earth's climate.
Sunspot number
180
*98 ’99 ’00 ’01 ’02 ’03
Curiously, the recent rash of solar storms — some of the most powerful
on record — occurred three years after the current cycle’s peak.
SOURCE: NASA ..
N. Rapp, P. SantlHf/AP
“Now people ask me, can we guarantee success? Of course not.
We cannot do that. But on the other hand, I would say the team
deserves it. Because they have done everything humanly possible that
we know about to be able to minimize the risk and enhance our pos
sibility of succeeding,” JPL director Charles Elachi told reporters.
The rovers are part of an international armada, including Japanese
and European orbiters and a British lander, all en route to Mars. Two
other NASA satellites are already in orbit around the planet.
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Mars trip encountering
numerous obstacles
By David McHugh
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DARMSTADT, Germany — European space officials on
Wednesday showed off the first pictures of Mars sent back by the
Mars Express spacecraft as it heads for a Christmas rendezvous
with the Red Planet.
The blurry pictures, taken from 3.36 million miles away, show
little more than part of a polar ice cap. Instead, the images prove the
spacecraft’s German-made high-resolution camera is in working
order before it begins orbiting Mars and snapping pictures close up.
The camera test, performed Monday, was one of many checks
and rehearsals ahead of a sequence of intricate navigational maneu
vers starting Dec. 19. That’s when Mars Express will turn loose its
British-built Beagle 2 lander toward the Martian surface on a mis
sion to probe for signs of extraterrestrial life.
Mars Express will then steer away from a collision with the plan
et and on Dec. 25 will fire its main engine for about 30 minutes to
put it into Martian orbit.
“We will have to carry out some very precise navigational oper
ations,” Gaele Winters, the European Space Agency’s director for
technical operations and support, said at the agency’s mission con
trol center in Darmstadt in western Germany. “You will understand
there is a certain level of tension in the center.”
Previous attempts to find signs of life have been inconclusive. Of
34 unmanned American, Soviet and Russian missions to Mars since
1960, two-thirds ended in failure. In 1976, twin U.S. Viking landers
searched for life but sent back inconclusive results.
Beagle 2 is not the only space craft heading to Mars. Two
American Mars rover craft are due to arrive in January, and Japan’s
trouble-plagued Nozomi orbiter, launched in 1998, continues on its
way despite technical problems.
The Mars Explorer, which cost about $345 million, is an
attempt to demonstrate that Europe can have an effective space
exploration program.
The spacecraft, launched June 2 atop a Russian Soyuz-Fregat
rocket from Kazakhstan, has weathered solar eruptions that bom
barded it with high-energy particles last month, temporarily dis
rupting its computers.
In another hitch, solar panels are only generating about 70 per
cent of the electricity they were supposed to, but officials said that
was not expected to derail the mission either.
Flight operations director Michael McKay said controllers have
been using computer simulations to rehearse how to deal with
potential obstacles.
If that happens, controllers figured out, the mission can use the
craft’s smaller maneuvering rockets.
“We have flown every possible contingency, and some impossi
ble ones,” McKay said.
The 143-pound Beagle 2 will use a robotic arm to gather and
sample rocks for evidence of organic matter and water, while Mars
Express orbits overhead.
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