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Space Science

NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Lifts Off 155

Posted by michael from the lawn-dart dept.
Joost Schuur writes "At 11:18 PM EDT on Monday, Opportunity, the second of 2 NASA Mars Exploration Rovers took off aboard a Boeing Delta 2 Heavy rocket after several delays and begun its 305 million mile trip to the Red Planet, where it will join its sister vehicle Spirit, which launched June 10th. Spirit and Opportunity will land on opposite sides of Mars, travelling up to 40 meters a day, and use a series of instruments to search for water, including the Rock Abrasion Tool, which will grind into rocks to give scientists a peak inside. Things are going to get crowded next January in orbit, as both NASA missions join the European Mars Express mission also launched this month and the Japanese Nozomi probe, which would finally complete its troublesome 5 year journey. Those stuck on Earth can take advantage of the closest Mars opposition in 60,000 years and watch with a telescope, or follow the images provided by the International MarsWatch 2003 group."
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NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Lifts Off More

NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Lifts Off

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  • Poor martians (Score:5, Funny)

    by kinnell ( 607819 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @06:06AM (#6399074)
    With all these alien robots landing and wandering around probing things, they'll think it's an invasion.

  • WebCast on Mars Exploration (Score:5, Informative)

    by C0deJunkie ( 309293 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @06:09AM (#6399082) Homepage Journal
    On the 7th of August there will we a Webcast [nasa.gov] on "Mars Exploration".

  • Terrorist metric system will crush NASA mission ! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hehehe.

  • Probe Names (Score:5, Funny)

    by dcw3 ( 649211 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @06:15AM (#6399098) Journal
    So, we've got Red Rover, I suppose we'll be sending Goofy to Pluto, and Lincoln to Mercury, Chevy to Saturn, and I'm afraid to ask what kind of probe well be using on Uranus.

  • Best /. article I've seen in a while! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LeoDV ( 653216 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @06:16AM (#6399104) Journal
    So many links from so many different sources, and so thorough, congrats to the poster!

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @06:19AM (#6399113)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • good to see nasa doing some serious science (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PhysicsExpert ( 665793 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @06:22AM (#6399122) Homepage Journal
    Its good to see NASA responding well with some serious missions after the Atlantis disaster. After all the cutbacks during the Clinton era I really thought it might get to the point where they did nothing but put satellites into orbit.

    What would really interest me however would be if they switched their attention from Mars to Venus. Most scientists agree that life on Mars is not feasable wheras Venus, which is closer to the sun, has a far more interesting chemical makeup. Although too hot for any carbon based lifeforms to be found, many scientists have thought that in Venus's rich ammonia lakes a Silicon based life could have emerged. Although these would be very basic forms of life (not as advanced a monkeys) discovering them would mean that we could no longer view ourselves as being at the center of the universe.

    • Atlantis? What happened to Atlantis? I thought it was Challenger, then Columbia, right?

    • Mod parent up! Man, that was funny! I almost went for it...

    • Re:good to see nasa doing some serious science (Score:5, Informative)

      by nshravan ( 652679 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @07:00AM (#6399239)

      I guess as the others pointed out, you were referring to Columbia and STS-107.

      Actually I am pretty sure this mission has been in the books for quite sometime. Especially since Earth and Mars are supposed to be in the closest configuration with respect to their orbits. A trip to Mars right now will take approximately 7-8 months and the two rovers(Spirit and Opportunity) should get to Mars by January.

      Also, its not just NASA which has used the current orbit position as an advantage; the European Space Agency(ESA) and the Japanese Space Agency(NASDA i think) have also launched their respective payloads to Mars.

      About Venus, I doubt if NASA will come out with a program. A whole load of factors , not the least scientific goes into allocating budget to programs. And especially right now, I would think it would be really hard for NASA to convince the govt., to fund a program to Venus. The question of selling it to the public ranks high up there among the criteria and seems tough to me.

    • Although these would be very basic forms of life (not as advanced a monkeys) discovering them would mean that we could no longer view ourselves as being at the center of the universe.

      Oh, finding some extraterrestrial robo-bacteria would somehow unseat us from the center of the universe?? What are they going to do, throw a mitochrondria at us? Now, if we found Unicron or something, I'd be more interested.

    • Re:good to see nasa doing some serious science (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I do not think that spectacular science is necessarily serious science. My guess is that most "serious science" takes place in anonym places, where scientists work during years on things not as impressive as a rocket launch.

      I'm not saying that the Mars exploration is not important, I'm only worried about science without big budgets and TV cameras being considered "not serious".
    • I wonder if life on Venus would have the same problems as the probes we sent there before - a very limited life span before being destroyed by the conditions on the planet.

      I wonder if we sent something modern if it'd survive longer than the average hour that the Russian landers lasted.

      I'd love to see some good footage from around the planet - would probably rival hollywood's wildest dreams.
    • Mars is much more likely than Venus to have had life in the past. There are definite indications of water, past and present, and while life would be difficult on the surface, just underneath is a definite possibility.

      There is virtually zero chance of life on the surface of Venus, and it's way too hot for any kinds of lakes other than, say, lead. Ammonia, which evaporates at room temperature even on Earth, is right out. However, there is a benign zone in Venus's upper atmosphere, deep enough to avoid nast
    • You mods are on crack. Ammonia lakes on the 900 F surface of Venus? Silicon life forms? Are you all John Edwards fans, or what?
    • discovering them would mean that we could no longer view ourselves as being at the center of the universe.

      Well, until I get a little more cooperation from all of you I must insist that I am at the center of the universe. Now please have all of your scientists conduct long studies and make time-consuming measurements and I'll have mine do the same. Eventually we'll get to the bottom of this, we're predicting the results will be in sometime next century.
    • many scientists have thought that in Venus's rich ammonia lakes a Silicon based life could have emerged

      MANY scientists? Can you name some of them? Silicon-based life is a load of hooey. Call me BiochemistryExpert.

      And there are no lakes of any kind on Venus.

      Where did you get this stuff, some 50's sci-fi magazine?
    • Mars missions are planned at least five years in advance. The 2006 and 2008 ones are being developed. So the Columbia disaster has little immediate impact

    • Re:good to see nasa doing some serious science (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I work for NASA, and yes, these rovers have been in the pipe for years and years.. everything we do takes years and years. We are already planning mars missions through 2009. Interestingly, in 2009 theyre talking about sending a RTG powered (essentially nuclear powered) rover to mars. Can't wait till the press gets ahold of that one.

      (oops?)
    • If it's the chance for extra-terrestrial life your after, the many moons of Jupiter are our best best. For example, Europa [arizona.edu] is thought to be quite seismically active and possibly sports an oxygen based atmosphere. Io [arizona.edu] and Ganymede [arizona.edu] might harbor E.T.'s as well.
    • Well, they are heading back to Mercury [jhuapl.edu], with a launch date of 10 March 2004. This is something the scientific community has been waiting for for long time (the only previous visit were 3 fly-by by Mariner 10 in 1974-1975). As far as I'm concerned, the space probes have been much more exciting profitable (in a scientific sense) than the manned missions (and I do think the Apollo landings were boffo cool), especially the shuttle missions and the space station.

  • Don't Disturb The Natives! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Josuah ( 26407 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @06:23AM (#6399123) Homepage
    Sounds like these rovers are going to do some "damage" to the habitat of those Martians. Is that such a good idea? Grinding into so-called "rocks". Trampling around on big wheels. All going, "Show me the water!" and "Take that, dust-particle sized life-form!" I think we're in for some heavy retaliation. Me, under the bed sounds like a good place right now.

    • Re:Don't Disturb The Natives! (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I can see a little martian saying on martian tv.. "the earthlings are being defeated as we speak. their probes have been destroyed and we are taking over their planet right now." big drill go through his head.. muhahah, the probes with their massive size (compared to them) start being worshiped as gods.

  • Additional media coverage at... (Score:5, Informative)

    by RALE007 ( 445837 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @06:23AM (#6399125)
    Astrobio.net [astrobio.net]

    planetary.org [planetary.org]

    Discovery.com [discovery.com]

    Some of the context is redundant, the first link is the most informative.

  • Please tell me..... (Score:4, Funny)

    by JaJ_D ( 652372 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @06:47AM (#6399195)
    ....they have picked between metric and/or imperial to give measurements in so they don't park the thing at high velocity into Mars.

    Remeber...... Faster, Better, Cheaper

    Please delete as applicable.

  • And my name went with them... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Quizo69 ( 659678 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @07:22AM (#6399325) Homepage
    3,551,645 names were submitted to the NASA site for launch on the two rovers. They have a nice picture of it with explanation here:

    http://www.planetary.org/rrgtm/dvd.html

    Let's hope this doesn't /. NASA and send the rovers off course ;)

    It's strangely comforting to know that my name will be up there forever (well at least until we colonise Mars and enshrine the little discs somewhere)!

    Quizo69
    • The Red Rover Goes to Mars Spacecraft DVD

      A Planetary Society produced mini-DVD will fly on each Mars Exploration Rover spacecraft, mounted to the lander petals as shown here. These DVDs are designed to engage and involve the public in numerous ways. After landing on Mars the rover will capture an image of the DVD before driving away from the lander.

      Each DVD carries nearly four million Mars enthusiasts? names collected by NASA. Each DVD also includes engaging designs leading to other activities. Each DVD?s
    • NASA did the same thing for the Mars Polar Explorer. You could submit the names which NASA put on a CD and you could print out a certificate commemorating the fact.

      I did this for both of my kids entire classes which they got quite a kick out of. "Ooooh, my name is gonna be on MARS!!"

      Then it crashed.....

    • So, they went on to create a silica glass dvd mounted on a lego brick assebmly and sent it 305 million miles away, only to realize afterwards that Mars doesn't have Region 1 dvd players. duh.
  • ...maybe that you were just suggesting that this was an opportunity to get another rover on mars.

    because after the last couple attempts, just because they launch doesn't seem to mean a guaranteed placement.

  • Damn... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Could that Boeing Delta 2 Heavy rocket link *have* more popups? Who do they think they are, a porn site?
  • Maybe I'm being a bit idealistic, but I think the different space programs from around the world should work together to get to Mars and do research.

    Although if you look at the ISS, that has been hampered with cost and other problems from each country. Also it could limit the research and intelligence that is gather.

    6 on way, 1/2 dozen the other
    • Interesting you say this, because in a recent newspaper article I read that coorporation between nations seems a lot to be left desired for.

      This makes one wonder: Another high-res camera? Do we really need to verify existence of water again with basically the same kind of instruments on board of an orbiter?
    • What would be best is building infrastructure, not flags & footprints.
    • You're being a bit idealistic! The best thing about having lots of different space programs is that you end up with lots of different approaches to the problem. And the best thing about that is that you maximise the potential that one of them will succeed.

      It's like egg fertilisation - why release one big sperm when you can send millions of little ones and increase the odds of one getting through!

      Having lots of space programmes is just like making love to a beautiful woman.

  • Deep Space Network Overload? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by goatbar ( 661399 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @08:08AM (#6399576) Homepage
    How is the Deep Space Network (DSN) going to handle 7 spacecraft at Mars? It was tough enough with just 2 orbiters. Anyone in the know want to comment?

    • Re:Deep Space Network Overload? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Rxke ( 644923 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @08:42AM (#6399776) Homepage
      It is a problem, but at least they saw it coming. it's not only those craft, also a bunch of other important missions need a lot of attention, Cassini/Huygens, The cometchasers, et.c. are al nearing important phases of their mission. Last thing i read somewhere, it that they built an extra telesope (radio) in Spain (IIRC) So, it'l be a lot of juggling, and timing tings to the max but i guess they're ready for it. (well, let's hope so, Interplanetary /.ing wouldn't look too good, after al that work and money invested...
    • It's been anticipated, and DSN is being upgraded and expanded to meet the crunch:

      Bracing for an interplanetary traffic jam [nasa.gov]

    • Easier than you think (Score:4, Informative)

      by Phil Karn ( 14620 ) <karn&ka9q,net> on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @12:14PM (#6401257) Homepage
      It's not so hard. Each mission is on a separate frequency, so you just add extra receivers to share each ground antenna. Even the largest DSN antennas have beamwidths wide enough to take in all of Mars plus the nearby orbital space. (A 64m dish has a beamwidth of about 144 arc-seconds at X-band, while Mars as seen from Earth is currently about 20 arc-seconds in diameter.)

      Also remember that Spirit and Opportunity are going to opposite sides of the planet, so generally only one will use the DSN at a time.

      • Re:Easier than you think (Score:4, Informative)

        by Phil Karn ( 14620 ) <karn&ka9q,net> on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @12:29PM (#6401353) Homepage
        Oh, another thing helping the crunch at the DSN is the end of the Galileo mission. When the X-band high gain antenna failed to deploy, the S-band omni antenna was used to salvage the mission.

        This placed an enormous strain on the DSN's resources. The very low data rate required more tracking time to transfer a given amount of information, and multiple antennas at each site were often arrayed to increase the received signal. The end of Galileo frees these antennas for other missions.

        I visited the Canberra DSN site in September 1997. While I was there, Jupiter rose and most of the antennas at the site were pointed at it. Very impressive to see them all moving together.

      • Re:Easier than you think (Score:2, Informative)

        by rk ( 6314 )

        And add to that that the ESA is finishing up work on their own tracking station facilities. The DSN and thier European counterparts will be busy (they always are), but they can handle the load.

        With that said, the DSN is getting up there in age and many of the antennae need upgrading and/or replacing. Hopefully, there will be budget money in the coming years to deal with this.

      • Re:Easier than you think (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Yeh I work on the DSN and this is one of the things we're doing. Real soon now one antenna (the limited resource here, really) will be able to receive signals from multiple spacecraft at the same time (didn't used to be able to do this).

        It's a little more complicated than "you just add extra receivers", but that is the gist of it.
  • Hella loud, hella bright, and hella fast. In fact, this launch climbed much much quicker than I've ever seen before.

  • First transmission from probe as it leaves Earth (Score:3, Funny)

    by The Evil Couch ( 621105 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @08:42AM (#6399775) Homepage
    wheeeeeeee!

  • Enough with the probes (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Paulrothrock ( 685079 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:10AM (#6399936) Homepage Journal
    People are better than robots at exploring a planet. We need to put people on Mars. Mars Direct [nw.net] will get them there. All we need is the will to do it.

    And before you go arguing how it will be so expensive, bear in mind that it would only be a 7% increase in NASA's budget for the next 10 years, and that would give us 5 manned missions.
    • > 7% increase in NASA's budget for the next 10 years
      7% increase once and that 10 years long or
      every year a 7% increase, for ten years?
      That makes a *BIG* difference. Does anyone want to let NASA's budget grow exponentially?
      • Sorry, should have made that more clear. The 7% increase is a one-time thing, but it should probably be adjusted for inflation if necessary.

        Incidentally, this would bring NASA's budget up to the level of spending during the Apollo program, adjusted for inflation, of course.

    • I appreciate your enthusiasm, and I agree that we need to get people to Mars, and I'm a big fan of Zubrin's work.

      With that said, I don't think it's an either/or proposition. We have 6+ billion people on this planet and we still have a lot of good science that is done with orbiters around Earth. The rovers are being sent to two different likely places where we may find evidence of life, past or present. I view these missions as information gathering for what I hope are the inevitable manned missions to

      • While I agree that probes are beneficial for science, they don't seem to fit into a "Get People on Mars" strategy. NASA just seems to be launching these things in the hopes that they'll find life on their own, not to help bring people to the planet.

        For example, a mission involving an orbiter and a few hundred micro-probes to land at various points on Mars and develop a climatological/meteorilogical profile would provide more practical data than a single, expensive probe designed to "find evidence of life."

    • Re:Enough with the probes (Score:4, Insightful)

      by QuantumFTL ( 197300 ) * on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:26PM (#6402302)
      People are better than robots at exploring a planet.

      I'm not sure how valid of a claim that is. Certainly, right now our probes aren't that great, mainly because there is little actual autonomy. However, in the near future, probes will be built to handle major decisionmaking on their own. Our best hope for exploring the most of Mars is to send thousands of small autonomous probes that will do the looking around for us. This could be done for roughly the same cost as the manned mission, without the PR risk (yes, I hate it but it's very true) that manned missions currently represent.

      I work at the Jet Propulsion Lab, and many [nasa.gov] of the robotics [nasa.gov] technologies [nasa.gov] that are currently being persued [nasa.gov] there should give us the capability to collect huge amounts of useful data on Mars in the next 20 years or so.

      Is manned flight expensive? Well not really, but the price/performance ratio isn't that great compared to what will be done in the next 20 years with robotics probles (remember economy of scale, 1000 probes isn't much more expensive to build than 1).

    • Costs Baby... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Nazmun ( 590998 )
      It costs more to send a shuttle up in orbit then to send a probe 300 million miles away and land on an alien planet.

      The two rovers are sent for 800 million, each costing 400 million that way. Shuttles still cost 500 million per launch. This doesn't count any of that extra stuff, like repairs and maintenance that need to happen. Also the cost of building these shuttles are not in that 500 million number, often shuttle trips will cost more.

      Besides will men really be that much better at examining red rock
    • > [Zubrin's Mars Direct] would only be a 7% increase in NASA's budget for the next 10 years, and that would give us 5 manned missions.

      And if Congress doesn't wanna increase NASA's budget, how about we scrap the Shuttle and ISS and use the savings to fund a permanent presence on Mars, rather than just low earth orbit?

      The Shuttle will have to be retired and replaced with a better manned launch system in 10 years anyways.

      What would you rather have by 2010? A shuttle replacement, or a permanent Ma

  • "Hey, Quaid! It's me, remember? Bennie's the name. I'm gonna drill you, sucka!"

  • Should we be going there? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I don't think we've really seen enough evidence to suggest that Water might exist in a Measurable and Detectible (WMD) manner.
    Without such hard evidence, I don't see justification for going in there and invading like that.
  • You still cant use your JR pass on the Nozomi probe!

  • Another good official site (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The official site for the team that made all the science instruments is here: http://athena.cornell.edu [cornell.edu]
  • which will grind into rocks to give scientists a peak inside

    Wow, they're going to grind rocks down into mountains! I'd really like to peek inside those rocks to see where they hide those hills!

  • Visualization (Score:3, Interesting)

    by captaineo ( 87164 ) * on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @01:07PM (#6401613)
    You guys might want to check out my visualization of the launch. (there is also a link to a longer animation including landing and Mars operations):

    http://www.maasdigital.com/gallery.html

    /shameless plug...

  • Check out the CGI animation of the mission! (Score:4, Informative)

    by smokin'moses ( 204821 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:15PM (#6402229)
    When my family and I were visiting KSC a few weeks ago, to hopefully watch this launch :-( my wife pulled me over to a video screen that was playing a really well done simulation of the launch/flight/landing that underlined the elegance of the methods used for each stage of the trip to mars. It's really nice watching the various parts fall away and new goodies deploy for each part of the trip.

    After a quick search on the web once we got home, I found lesser quality versions of the film.

    A couple are here:

    http://athena.cornell.edu/the_mission/rov_video. ht ml

    http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/gallery/video/anima ti on.html

    I think the animator's site had the best quality one, in MPEG. I think his name is Maas.

    If you like eye candy, this is sort of a factually based minds-eye type video. I think it's really good CGI, but I'm no expert.

    I'd read about the mission, and spinning the probe up for the big burn, and reeling out weights to spin down, etc, but it's not until I saw it on the screen, that the grace and elegance of all the solutions to the various problems of sending this probe to mars really hit me.

    Seeing this film makes me feel good about paying my taxes.
  • Since it's a Delta rocket, they're going to have to stopover at the hub in Atlanta before continuing on to Mars...
  • Since this is a Delta rocket, is it going to go through Atlanta International? Seems like every Delta flight I've been on goes through there...

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