Browse All : Mars from 2003

NASA KSNN - Are You An Explo …

Are You An Explorer? This se …

6/1/03

Description	Are You An Explorer? This segment describes the future plans NASA has for space exploration.
Date	6/1/03

NASA KSNN - Manned Mars Miss …

Manned Mars Mission. This se …

6/1/03

Description	Manned Mars Mission. This segment describes what astronauts will need when they make manned missions to Mars.
Date	6/1/03

NASA KSNN - Mars Odyssey

NASA Kids Science News segme …

6/1/03

Description	NASA Kids Science News segment explaining NASA's Mars Odyssey mission.
Date	6/1/03

NASA KSNN - Mars Records

NASA Kids Science News segme …

6/1/03

Description	NASA Kids Science News segment explaining how Mars breaks records.
Date	6/1/03

NASA KSNN - Mars Rovers

NASA Kids Science News segme …

6/1/03

Description	NASA Kids Science News segment explaining what the Mars Rover is and what it did.
Date	6/1/03

NASA Destination Tomorrow - DT17 - Food Tech in Long Space Trip

NASA Destination Tomorrow - …

Second segment of episode 17 …

6/1/03

Description	Second segment of episode 17 that contains the Behind the Scenes segment that describes the technology and goals for food on space missions. The Food Tech in Long Space Trip segment describes how food is stored, and the challenges of providing food in space. The Food Tech in Long Space Trip segment next describes the processing and preparing of food on the planet Mars. The Food Tech in Long Space Tripsegment also discusses some of the issues with food like food preparation time, food preparation tools, weight of food, weight of food processing machines, what nutrition astronauts will need to maintain healthy bodies and the effects of radiation on food. The Food Tech in Long Space Trip segment ends with a Did You Know? segment describing the first time solid food was eaten in space.
Date	6/1/03

NASA Destination Tomorrow - …

NASA Destination Tomorrow vi …

6/1/03

Description	NASA Destination Tomorrow video containing three segments as described below. NASA Destination Tomorrow Future Space Food Concerns segment desribes the problems with long duration space travel such as bone loss, food stability, food nutrition and the need for astronauts to have alternative food sources once they reach their destination. The Future Space Food Concerns segment ends with a Did You Know? segment about astronaut ice cream. NASA Destination Tomorrow Food Tech in Long Space Trip segment contains the Behind the Scenes segment that describes the technology and goals for food on space missions. The Food Tech in Long Space Trip segment describes how food is stored, and the challenges of providing food in space. The Food Tech in Long Space Trip segment next describes the processing and preparing of food on the planet Mars. The Food Tech in Long Space Tripsegment also discusses some of the issues with food like food preparation time, food preparation tools, weight of food, weight of food processing machines, what nutrition astronauts will need to maintain healthy bodies and the effects of radiation on food. The Food Tech in Long Space Trip segment ends with a Did You Know? segment describing the first time solid food was eaten in space. NASA Destination Tomorrow Eating In Space segment contains the How it Works segment in which Astronaut Michael Foale describes what eating in space is like. This video is part two of a two part series discussing Food Technology and how it is used by NASA.
Date	6/1/03

NASA Destination Tomorrow - DT18 - Future Missions to Mars

NASA Destination Tomorrow - …

Fourth segment of NASA Desti …

6/1/03

Description	Fourth segment of NASA Destination Tomorrow episode 18 explaining the challenges that astronauts face with living and working on other planets. This segment also explores issues such as radiation, gravity, duration of missions and food supply.
Date	6/1/03

NASA Destination Tomorrow - DT18 - Robotic Missions

NASA Destination Tomorrow - …

Second segment of NASA Desti …

6/1/03

Description	Second segment of NASA Destination Tomorrow episode 18 beginning with a look at NASA history. The segment next describes the robotic missions to Mars and discusses some of the concerns with space travel.
Date	6/1/03

NASA Destination Tomorrow - …

NASA Destination Tomorrow vi …

6/1/03

Description	NASA Destination Tomorrow video containing four segments as described below. NASA Destination Tomorrow segment describing the different parts of NASA missions to prepare for the exploration of space. NASA Destination Tomorrow segment beginning with a look at NASA history. The segment next describes the robotic missions to Mars and discusses some of the concerns with space travel. NASA Destination Tomorrow segment explaining the challenges that astronauts face with prolonged exposure to the space environment. This segment also explores issues such as radiation, gravity, duration of missions and food supply. NASA Destination Tomorrow segment explaining the challenges that astronauts face with living and working on other planets.
Date	6/1/03

NASA Destination Tomorrow - DT20 - Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

NASA Destination Tomorrow - …

First segment of episode 20 …

6/1/03

Description	First segment of episode 20 that contains the Behind the Scenes segment in which Scott Striepe discusses how the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will pave the way for future missions to Mars. The first segment of episode 20 discusses the technology behind the MRO and how aerobraking will be used to decrease the amount of fuel necessary for the mission. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter segment ends with a Did You Know? segment describing the concern NASA scientists have with Martian dust.
Date	6/1/03

NASA Destination Tomorrow - …

NASA Destination Tomorrow vi …

6/1/03

Description	NASA Destination Tomorrow video containing four segments as described below. First segment of episode 20 that contains the Behind the Scenes segment in which Scott Striepe discusses how the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will pave the way for future missions to Mars. The first segment of episode 20 discusses the technology behind the MRO and how aerobraking will be used to decrease the amount of fuel necessary for the mission. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter segment ends with a Did You Know? segment describing the concern NASA scientists have with Martian dust. Second segment of episode 20 contains the TechWatch segment which describes how NASA research has been the driving force behind new medical technology. The second segment of episode 20 begins with a brief flashback of how the practice of medicine has evolved from X rays to current Cat scans. The Advances in Medical Tech segment describes how the ARTEMIS technology combines CAT scans with virtual imaging technology to provide doctors with greater precision in their operations. Third segment of episode 20 contains the Retrospective segment which describes the development and history of reusable vehicles for space. The Space Shuttle Program covers the history, testing, and achievements of the Space Shuttles and their crew. The Space Shuttle Program segment ends with a Did You Know? segment on the Space Shuttle Enterprise. Fourth segment of episode 20 contains the How It Works segment which describes NASA research on sonic booms. The Sonic Booms segment describe the research underway aimed at making super sonic over land flight possible.
Date	6/1/03

NASA Destination Tomorrow - DT6 - Mars Exploration

NASA Destination Tomorrow - …

NASA Destination Tomorrow Se …

6/1/03

Description	NASA Destination Tomorrow Segment highlighting NASA's contemporary exploration of Mars.
Date	6/1/03

NASA SCI Files - Mars

NASA Sci Files segment explo …

5/14/03

Description	NASA Sci Files segment exploring Mars and how it is similar and different than the Earth.
Date	5/14/03

Leaving Earth

title	Leaving Earth
date	06.10.2003
description	This spectacular shot of solid rocket motors separating from a Delta II rocket over Florida was captured during the June 10 liftoff of the Mars Exploration Rover, Spirit. The rover and its twin, Opportunity, will arrive at Mars in January 2004.

Hubble Snaps Mars

title	Hubble Snaps Mars
date	08.27.2003
description	NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took this close-up of the red planet Mars when it was just 55,760,220 km (34,648,840 miles) away. The picture was taken only 11 hours before Mars made its closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years. The next closest approach is in 2287. Image Credit: NASA

Rocketing to Mars

title	Rocketing to Mars
date	07.07.2003
description	This video sequence shows NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity separating from a lower booster and rocketing towards Mars. Opportunity landed on Mars on Jan. 25, 2004 and went on to discover convincing evidence that Mars once had liquid water on its surface. Image Credit: NASA

Mars Over Moon

title	Mars Over Moon
date	07.18.2003
description	Ron Wayman of Tampa, Fla., captured this crisp picture of Mars emerging from behind the Moon with an 8-inch telescope and a digital camera. Mars was briefly occulted - hidden from view - by Earth's Moon early on July 17, 2003. Image Credit/Copyright: Ron Wayman, Tampa, Fla.

Mars Exploration Rover "Spirit" Launches

Mars Exploration Rover "Spir …

title	Mars Exploration Rover "Spirit" Launches
date	06.10.2003
description	Amid billows of smoke and steam, the Delta II rocket with its Mars Exploration Rover (MER-A) payload lifts off the pad on time at 1:58 p.m. EDT from Launch Complex 17-A, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. MER-A, known as "Spirit," is the first of two rovers being launched to Mars. When the two rovers arrive at the red planet in 2004, they will bounce to airbag-cushioned landings at sites offering a balance of favorable conditions for safe landings and interesting science. The rovers see sharper images, can explore farther and examine rocks better than anything that has ever landed on Mars. The designated site for the MER-A mission is Gusev Crater, which appears to have been a crater lake. The second rover, MER-B, is scheduled to launch June 25. Image Credit: NASA

Columbia Memorial

title	Columbia Memorial
date	01.06.2004
description	The landing site of the Mars Spirit rover in honor of the astronauts who died in the tragic accident of the Space Shuttle Columbia in February. The area in the vast flatland of the Gusev Crater where Spirit landed this weekend will be called the Columbia Memorial Station. Since its historic landing, Spirit has been sending extraordinary images of its new surroundings on the red planet over the past few days. Among them, an image of a memorial plaque placed on the spacecraft to Columbia's astronauts and the STS-107 mission. The plaque is mounted on the back of Spirit's high-gain antenna, a disc-shaped tool used for communicating directly with Earth. The plaque is aluminum and approximately six inches in diameter. The memorial plaque was attached March 28, 2003, at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla. Chris Voorhees and Peter Illsley, Mars Exploration Rover engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., designed the plaque. Image Credit: NASA

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at Nilosyrtis

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter …

title	Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at Nilosyrtis
date	12.10.2003
description	The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter passes above Nilosyrtis Mensae in this illustration. NASA plans to launch this multipurpose spacecraft in August 2005 to advance our understanding of Mars through detailed observation, to examine potential landing sites for future surface missions and to provide a high-data-rate communications relay for those missions. Image Credit: NASA/JPL

Mars Reconaissance Orbiter A …

title	Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Aerobraking
date	12.10.2003
description	NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter dips into the thin Martian atmosphere to adjust its orbit in this illustration. NASA plans to launch this multipurpose spacecraft in August 2005 for arrival at Mars in March 2006. The plans call for controlled use of atmospheric friction in a process called aerobraking for about six months after arrival to change the initial, very elongated orbit into a rounder shape optimal for science operations. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is designed to advance our understanding of Mars through detailed observation, to examine potential landing sites for future surface missions and to provide a high-data-rate communications relay for those missions. Image Credit: NASA/JPL

Mars Express

title	Mars Express
description	The European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft is depicted in orbit around Mars in this artist's illustration. The spacecraft was launched June 2, 2003, from Baikonur, Kazakhstan and entered Mars orbit in December 2003. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/ESA

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at Martian South Pole

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter …

title	Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at Martian South Pole
date	12.10.2003
description	NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter passes over the planet's south polar region in this artist's concept illustration. NASA plans to launch this multipurpose spacecraft in August 2005 to advance our understanding of Mars through detailed observation, to examine potential landing sites for future surface missions and to provide a high-data-rate communications relay for those missions. The orbiter's shallow radar experiment, one of six science instruments on board, is designed to probe the internal structure of Mars' polar ice caps, as well as to gather information planet-wide about underground layers of ice, rock and, perhaps, liquid water that might be accessible from the surface. Phobos, one of Mars' two moons, appears in the upper left corner of the illustration Image Credit: NASA/JPL

Lander Petals of Rover 2

title	Lander Petals of Rover 2
date	04.15.2003
description	In the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, technicians reopen the lander petals of the Mars Exploration Rover 2 (MER-2) to allow access to one of the spacecraft's circuit boards. A concern arose during prelaunch testing regarding how the spacecraft interprets signals sent from its main computer to peripherals in the cruise stage, lander and small deep space transponder. The MER Mission consists of two identical rovers set to launch in June 2003. The problem will be fixed on both rovers. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/KSC

Spirit Launch

title	Spirit Launch
date	06.10.2003
description	A trail of smoke is all that identifies the Delta II rocket with the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit aboard as it hurtles into space. Liftoff occurred on time at 1:58 p.m. EDT from Launch Complex 17-A, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Spirit was the first of two rovers launched to Mars in the summer of 2003. Spirit and its twin, Opportunity, landed on opposite sides of the planet in January 2004. The rovers see sharper images, can explore farther and examine rocks better than anything that has ever landed on Mars. Spirit's destination was Gusev Crater, which appears to have been a crater lake. Image Credit: NASA

Mars Exploration Rover

title	Mars Exploration Rover
date	12.15.2003
description	An artist's concept portrays a NASA Mars Exploration Rover on the surface of Mars. Two rovers, Spirit and Opportunitylanded on Mars in January 2004. Each has the mobility and toolkit to function as a robotic geologist. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell University/Maas Digital

Ready for Liftoff

title	Ready for Liftoff
date	06.08.2003
description	The Delta II rocket carrying the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is prepared for launch at Kennedy Space Center in Jun3 2003. NASA's twin Mars Exploration Rovers are designed to study the history of water on Mars. These robotic geologists are equipped with a robotic arm, a drilling tool, three spectrometers, and four pairs of cameras that allow them to have a human-like, 3D view of the terrain. Each rover could travel as far as 100 meters in one day to act as Mars scientists' eyes and hands, exploring an environment where humans are not yet able to go. Image Credit: NASA

Opportunity Fix

title	Opportunity Fix
date	04.15.2003
description	Technicians remove one of the circuit boards on Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. To gain access to the spacecraft, its lander petals were reopened and its solar panels deployed. A concern arose during prelaunch testing regarding how the spacecraft interprets signals sent from its main computer to peripherals in the cruise stage, lander and small deep space transponder. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/KSC

Mars River Delta?

title	Mars River Delta?
description	A high-resolution TIFF file of this image is available at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA04869. Details in a fan-shaped deposit discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter provide evidence that some ancient rivers on Mars flowed for a long time, not just in brief, intense floods. The apron of debris filling the middle of this picture from the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera is a hardened and eroded distributory fan, a type of geological feature that includes river deltas and alluvial fans. Sediments transported through valleys by water on early Mars formed the 13-kilometer-long (8-mile) deposit in the distant past, when it was still possible for liquid water to flow across the martian surface. Mars Orbiter Camera team members published discovery of this feature in the online edition of the journal Science. What is important about it? First, it provides unequivocal evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow over considerable periods of time, as rivers do on Earth. Second, because the fan is today a deposit of sedimentary rock, it demonstrates that some sedimentary rocks on Mars were deposited in a liquid environment. Third, the fan's general shape, the pattern of its channels, and its low slopes provide circumstantial evidence that the feature was an actual delta -- that is, a deposit made when a river or stream enters a body of water. If so, this landform is a strong indicator that some craters and basins on Mars once held lakes. Hundreds of other locations on Mars where valleys enter craters and basins have been imaged by the Mars Orbiter Camera, but none has shown landforms like those presented here. The picture is a mosaic of images acquired between August 2000 and September 2003. The area covered 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) by 19.3 kilometers (12 miles). North is up. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera takes grayscale images, the color added is based on information from a camera on Mars Odyssey. The fan is in an unnamed crater that is 64 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter, at 24.3 degrees south latitude, 33.5 degrees west longitude. The crater lies northeast of a larger one named Holden Crater. The fan is a fossil landform. That is, it is an eroded remnant of a somewhat larger and thicker deposit. The originally loose sediment was turned to rock and then eroded over time to present the features seen today. The channels through which sediment was transported are no longer present. Instead, only their floors remain, and these have been elevated by erosion so that former channels now stand as ridges. The floors of former channels became inverted in this way because they were more resistant to the forces of erosion, indicating they either were more strongly cemented than surrounding materials, or they have more coarse grains (which are harder to remove), or both. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

An Asteroid's Sky Trek

title	An Asteroid's Sky Trek
description	While analyzing NASA Hubble Space Telescope images of the Sagittarius dwarf irregular galaxy (SagDIG), an international team of astronomers led by Simone Marchi, Yazan Momany, and Luigi Bedin were surprised to see the trail of a faint asteroid that had drifted across the field of view during the exposures. The trail is seen as a series of 13 reddish arcs on the right in this August 2003 Advanced Camera for Surveys image. As the Hubble telescope orbits around the Earth, and the Earth moves around the Sun, a nearby asteroid in our solar system will appear to move with respect to the vastly more distant background stars, due to an effect called parallax. It is somewhat similar to the effect you see from a moving car, in which trees by the side of the road appear to be moving much more rapidly than background objects at much larger distances. If the Hubble exposure were a continuous one, the asteroid trail would appear like a continuous wavy line. However, the exposure with Hubble's camera was actually broken up into more than a dozen separate exposures. After each exposure, the camera's shutter was closed while the image was transferred from the electronic detector into the camera's computer memory, this accounts for the many interruptions in the asteroid's trail. Since the trajectory of the Hubble spacecraft around the Earth is known very accurately, it is possible to triangulate the distance to the asteroid in a manner similar to that used by terrestrial surveyors. It turns out to be a previously unknown asteroid, located 169 million miles from Earth at the time of observation. The distance places the new object, most likely, in the main asteroid belt, lying between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Based on the observed brightness of the asteroid, the astronomers estimate that it has a diameter of about 1.5 miles. The brightest stars in the picture (easily distinguished by the spikes radiating from their images, produced by optical effects within the telescope), are foreground stars lying within our own Milky Way galaxy. Their distances from Earth are typically a few thousand light-years. The faint, bluish SagDIG stars lie at about 3.5 million light-years (1.1 Megaparsecs) from us. Lastly, background galaxies (reddish/brown extended objects with spiral arms and halos) are located even further beyond SagDIG at several tens of millions parsecs away. There is thus a vast range of distances among the objects visible in this photo, ranging from about 169 million miles for the asteroid, up to many quadrillions of miles for the faint, small galaxies. The team reported their science findings about the asteroid in the October 2004 issue of New Astronomy. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and Y. Momany (University of Padua)

Mars: Closest Encounter

Title	Mars: Closest Encounter

Mars: Closest Encounter

Title	Mars: Closest Encounter

Mars: Closest Encounter

Title	Mars: Closest Encounter

Mars: Closest Encounter

Title	Mars: Closest Encounter

Mars: Closest Encounter

Title	Mars: Closest Encounter

Mars: Closest Encounter

Title	Mars: Closest Encounter

Mars: Closest Encounter

Title	Mars: Closest Encounter

Mars: Closest Encounter

Title	Mars: Closest Encounter

Mars: Closest Encounter

Title	Mars: Closest Encounter

Mars Kicks Up the Dust as it Makes Closest Approach to Earth

Mars Kicks Up the Dust as it …

Title	Mars Kicks Up the Dust as it Makes Closest Approach to Earth
General Information	What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope snapped this picture of Mars on October 28, within a day of its closest approach to Earth on the night of October 29. The large regional dust storm appears as the brighter, redder cloudy region in the middle of the planet's disk. This storm, which measures 930 miles (1500 km) has been churning in the planet's equatorial regions for several weeks now, and it is likely responsible for the reddish, dusty haze and other dust clouds seen across this hemisphere of the planet. Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys High Resolution Imager took this image when the red planet was 43 million miles (69 million km) from Earth. Mars won't be this close again to Earth until 2018. Mars is now in its warmest months, closest to the Sun in its orbit, resulting in a smaller than normal south polar ice cap which has largely sublimated with the approaching summer.

Hubble Images of Asteroids Help Astronomers Prepare for Spacecraft Visit

Hubble Images of Asteroids H …

Title	Hubble Images of Asteroids Help Astronomers Prepare for Spacecraft Visit

Mars: Closest Approach 2007

Title	Mars: Closest Approach 2007
General Information	What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took this close-up of the red planet Mars when it was just 55 million miles ? 88 million kilometers ? away. This color image was assembled from a series of exposures taken within 36 hours of the Mars closest approach with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. Mars will be closest to Earth on December 18, at 11:45 p.m. Universal Time (6:45 p.m. EST).

Largest Asteroid May Be 'Mini Planet' with Water Ice

Largest Asteroid May Be 'Min …

Title	Largest Asteroid May Be 'Mini Planet' with Water Ice

Mars Kicks Up the Dust as it …

Title	Mars Kicks Up the Dust as it Makes Closest Approach to Earth
General Information	What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope snapped this picture of Mars on October 28, within a day of its closest approach to Earth on the night of October 29. The large regional dust storm appears as the brighter, redder cloudy region in the middle of the planet's disk. This storm, which measures 930 miles (1500 km) has been churning in the planet's equatorial regions for several weeks now, and it is likely responsible for the reddish, dusty haze and other dust clouds seen across this hemisphere of the planet. Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys High Resolution Imager took this image when the red planet was 43 million miles (69 million km) from Earth. Mars won't be this close again to Earth until 2018. Mars is now in its warmest months, closest to the Sun in its orbit, resulting in a smaller than normal south polar ice cap which has largely sublimated with the approaching summer.

Mars: Closest Approach 2007

Title	Mars: Closest Approach 2007
General Information	What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took this close-up of the red planet Mars when it was just 55 million miles ? 88 million kilometers ? away. This color image was assembled from a series of exposures taken within 36 hours of the Mars closest approach with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. Mars will be closest to Earth on December 18, at 11:45 p.m. Universal Time (6:45 p.m. EST).