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Video archive
Dawn: Launch preview
These briefings preview the launch and science objectives of NASA's Dawn asteroid orbiter.
Launch | Science
ISS crew change preview
The Expedition 15 mission draws to a close aboard the space station and the Expedition 16 launch nears. These two briefings from Sept. 25 cover the upcoming transition between the two missions.
Exp. 15 recap
Exp. 16 preview
Discovery moves to VAB
Shuttle Discovery is transported from its hangar to the Vehicle Assembly Building for attachment to the external tank and boosters.
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STS-120: The programs
In advance of shuttle Discovery's STS-120 mission to the station, managers from both programs discuss the flight.
Play
STS-120: The mission
Discovery's trip to the station will install the Harmony module and move the P6 solar wing truss. The flight directors present a detailed overview of STS-120.
Part 1 | Part 2
STS-120: Spacewalks
Five spacewalks are planned during Discovery's STS-120 assembly mission to the station. Lead spacewalk officer Dina Contella previews the EVAs.
Full briefing
EVA 1 summary
EVA 2 summary
EVA 3 summary
EVA 4 summary
EVA 5 summary
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Opportunity rover reaches first target inside crater
NASA/JPL NEWS RELEASE
Posted: September 26, 2007
PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has reached its science team's first destination for the rover inside Victoria Crater, information received from Mars late Tuesday confirms.
A layer of light-toned rock exposed inside Victoria Crater in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars appears to mark where the surface was at the time, many millions of years ago, when an impact excavated the crater. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Opportunity has descended the inner slope of the 800-meter-wide crater (half a mile wide) to a band of relatively bright bedrock exposed partway down. The rover is in position to touch a selected slab of rock with tools at the end of its robotic arm, after safety checks being commanded because the rover is at a 25-degree tilt. Researchers intend to begin examining the rock with those tools later this week.
"This will be the first of several stops within this band of rock," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for the science payloads on Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit. "By sampling it at several different levels in the crater, we're hoping to figure out the processes that led to its formation and its very distinctive appearance."
Opportunity drove 2.25 meters (7.38 feet) on Sept. 25 to get the selected flat rock within reach. That was the 1,305th Martian day of a mission originally planned for 90 Martian days. After entering the crater on Sept. 13 for a multi-week investigation of rock exposed inside, the rover advanced toward the bright band with drives of 7.45 meters (24 feet) on Sept. 18, and 2.47 meters (8 feet) on Sept. 22.
"We have completed several successful drives with Opportunity inside Victoria Crater," said John Callas, Mars rover project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The rover is experiencing slopes as high as 25 degrees at some places, but wheel slippage has only been around 10 percent."
Spirit, meanwhile, is exploring the top surface of a plateau called "Home Plate," where rocks hold evidence about an explosive combination of water and volcanism. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
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