Rover on EARTH Magazine

Wrangling the data to choose Mars landing sites

Thu, 17 Jan 2019 14:14:33 -0500

An ancient, water-carved delta in Jezero Crater — the landing site chosen for the Mars 2020 rover mission — is seen in this false color image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL/MSSS/Brown University.

NASA has sent four rovers to Mars, and the fifth — the Mars 2020 Rover — is slated to launch in summer 2020 for an early 2021 arrival. Selecting suitable landing sites is a critical and painstaking pre-launch step in ensuring both the technical and scientific success of these missions.

Down to Earth With: Planetary scientist Steven Squyres

Fri, 17 Jun 2016 12:35:58 -0400

Steven Squyres is the James A. Weeks Professor of Physical Sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and the principal investigator of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission, which landed the rovers Spirit and Opportunity on Mars in 2004. Credit: NASA.

Squyres already considered himself a scientist, and, with his father’s help, would conduct rudimentary experiments with a chemistry kit. By the time he was 10, he had become fascinated by meteorology and erected a weather station in his backyard. He vividly remembers building an anemometer out of funnels, and realizing that his device would need to be calibrated in order to accurately measure wind speed. So, he asked his father to drive the family car up and down their street. While perplexed neighbors looked on, Squyres excitedly hung the instrument out the window, shouting to his dad to drive 5 miles per hour as he counted how many times the kitchen funnels spun around. Next, Squyres asked his dad to drive 10 miles per hour, and then even faster, repeating his counts at each speed until the calibration was complete.

Blogging on EARTH: Curious to watch Curiosity land on Mars?

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 18:58:49 -0400

Sunday night will bring excitement to households around the world, not only because of the Olympics (and the GEOlympics), but also because the Mars Science Laboratory, also known as the Curiosity rover, will touch down on the Red Planet.

Blogging on EARTH: Yellow submarine robot debuts at AGU meeting

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

The robotic submersible in flight mode. It will be tested in March in Lake Tahoe and will head to Antarctica late in 2011. DOER Marine

The submersible ROV looks a lot like a big yellow cigar; it opens up once beneath the ice. DOER Marine

Geologist Ross Powell stands with the DOER submarine ROV that will dive beneath Antarctica in coming years. Northern Illinois University

Geologist Reed Scherer with the submersible ROV at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco this week. Northern Illinois University

The rover is on display at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco this week. Northern Illinois University

McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Photograph by Steven Profaizer, National Science Foundation

It doesn’t look like a typical robot. About half a meter across and 9 meters long, a new, super-high-tech submarine ROV, unveiled Tuesday in San Francisco at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting, strongly resembles … well, a big yellow cigar.