Sunday: January 25, 2004  1217 GMT
Rover hits scientific jackpot in strange martian world
The Opportunity rover unfolded its solar panels and beamed back its first snapshots of Mars four hours after landing today, providing stunning views of nearby slab-like rock formations, the first bedrock ever seen on the red planet. The images also showed what to this point is the smoothest fine-grain soil ever seen on Mars.
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FIRST IMAGES:
   FIRST COLOR IMAGE
   STRANGE FORMATION
   TEXTURES IN SOIL
   LANDING SITE PANORAMA
   POSSIBLE AIR BAG SOIL IMPRESSIONS
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NASA's Opportunity rover safely arrives at Mars
With California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Vice President Al Gore looking on, NASA's Opportunity lander slammed into the martian atmosphere and bounced to an airbag-cushioned touchdown early Sunday, joining the crippled-but-recovering Spirit rover on the surface of the red planet.
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Spirit rover upgraded to 'serious' condition
Engineers said Saturday they have identified the problem crippling the Spirit rover and hope to resume relatively normal science operations in three weeks or so.
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Scientists: Cosmic rays not the cause of climate change
Eleven Earth and space scientists say that a recent paper attributing most climate change on Earth to cosmic rays is incorrect and based on questionable methodology.
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Saturday: January 24, 2004  1450 GMT
Spirit remains in 'critical' condition
The crippled Spirit rover remains in critical condition on the surface of Mars, engineers said Friday, the victim of ongoing electronic seizures that have caused its central computer to reboot itself more than 60 times over the past two days.
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Rover Opportunity set for landing Saturday night
While efforts to revive the Spirit rover continue, the sister-craft Opportunity remains on course for its Saturday night/Sunday morning landing on the Red Planet. Touchdown at Meridiani Planum -- a smooth, flat plain near the equator -- is scheduled for 12:05 a.m. EST (0505 GMT).
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First scientific results from Europe's Mars Express
The high resolution spectrometer on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter has found the signature of water at the Red Planet's south pole. Read about that result and other data coming from Mars Express:
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Suborbital mission looks at Mercury, seeks Vulcanoids
A new major scientific payload flew in space last week after launching aboard a NASA suborbital Black Brant rocket. The imaging system successfully explored the ultraviolet spectrum of the planet Mercury and also searched for the long-sought belt of small bodies called Vulcanoids that may lie even closer to the Sun than Mercury.
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Friday: January 23, 2004  0124 GMT
Spirit rover suffers 'serious anomaly'
Controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory believe the Mars rover Spirit has placed itself into "safe-mode" after experiencing some sort of problem, and officials remain hopeful that engineers can coax the craft back into operation.
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Hubble shows the colorful lives of the outer planets
Uranus and Neptune aren't the identical egg-blue twins they appear to be in natural color, according to NASA Hubble Space Telescope images released Thursday.
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On-line volunteer finds Earth-approaching asteroid
A volunteer who analyzes on-line images for the University of Arizona Spacewatch program has discovered a 60-to-120-foot diameter asteroid that will miss Earth by about 1.2 million miles Thursday. While the asteroid is no cause for alarm, its discovery marks a milestone in a new project that relies on volunteers to spot fast-moving objects, or FMOs, in Spacewatch images.
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Thursday: January 22, 2004  0602 GMT
Spirit controllers dealing with communications issues
Jet Propulsion Laboratory officials announced Wednesday evening that Mission Control had not received data from the Spirit rover during scheduled communications sessions with the craft. Earlier in the day, thunderstorms in Australia hampered the transmission of commands to the Mars rover, delaying the study of a rock dubbed Adirondack.
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Latest color picture from Spirit shows lander
An impressive color image has been released showing the empty lander base that delivered the Spirit rover to Mars. The view of Columbia Memorial Station at Gusev Crater was taken by Spirit's panoramic camera.
   PHOTO: SPIRIT LOOKS BACK AT LANDER
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Distance measured to star of ancient literature, legend
The cluster of stars known as the Pleiades is one of the most recognizable objects in the night sky, and for millennia has been celebrated in literature and legend. Now, a group of astronomers has obtained a highly accurate distance to one of the stars of the Pleiades known since antiquity as Atlas. The new results will be useful in the longstanding effort to improve the cosmic distance scale.
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Limited use expected from communications satellite
Despite the stuck solar array that will significantly hamper its mission, the newly-launched Telstar 14/Estrela do Sul 1 communications satellite will begin limited service in March, officials said Wednesday.
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Wednesday: January 21, 2004  0310 GMT
Mars rover science team ponders soil mysteries
In the first patch of soil examined in detail by instruments aboard the Mars Spirit rover, scientists were surprised to find olivine, a silicate mineral that typically forms in igneous rocks of volcanic origin. It also weathers rapidly in the presence of water, posing a mystery of sorts for the rover science team.
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2004 Astronaut Hall of Fame honorees announced
The first American woman to walk in space, the Hubble Space Telescope repair mission commander, the first African-American to command a spaceship, the first American to occupy Russia's Mir space station, and the commander of the 1986 ill-fated Challenger 51-L have been chosen for 2004 induction in the Astronaut Hall of Fame.
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Shuttle return to flight team releases update report
The Stafford-Covey Return to Flight Task Group issued an interim report Tuesday, providing an update on activities to ready the U.S. space shuttle fleet for the resumption of launches. The group is making an independent assessment of NASA's implementation of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board recommendations.
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Tuesday: January 20, 2004  0333 GMT
Spirit drives to 'Adirondack' rock for close-up study
Taking a "little Sunday drive" on Mars, the Spirit rover has cruised to a pyramid-shaped rock where its suite of scientific instruments will be employed to determine its composition.
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Europe's eye on Mars
The European Space Agency's Mars Express has returned its first imagery from orbiting the Red Planet. This first stereoscopic color picture shows a portion of Valles Marineris -- the Grand Canyon of Mars.
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Extra-solar planet found with a magnetic field
Canadian astronomers have announced the first evidence of a magnetic field on a planet outside of our solar system which is also the first observation of a planet heating its star.
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Rocket test stand gets facelift
The rocket test stand used more than 30 years ago for Apollo Moon-mission F-1 rocket engine production testing has been modernized and is ready for use. Located at the Air Force Research Laboratory's research site, Test Stand 2-A is part of its nearly $3 billion worth of facilities that have provided the nation with rocket propulsion research, development and test capabilities.
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Monday: January 19, 2004  0440 GMT
Building a new West Coast era for Atlas rockets
Work has begun at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base to construct a launch pad for Lockheed Martin's Atlas 5 rocket, allowing the booster to compete with rival Boeing's Delta 4 on the West Coast and providing the U.S. government a second pathway to space for critical national security satellites.
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Vandenberg's inaugural Delta 4 rocket on the pad
With its West Coast pad already built, Boeing is in the midst of a multi-month test campaign of the Delta 4 rocket and Vandenberg launch complex in preparation for a maiden blastoff late this year carrying a top-secret spy satellite cargo.
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News Archive
Jan. 12-18: President Bush reveals new space initiative; Six-wheeling on Mars: Spirit drives off lander; Spirit's robot arm extended for detailed study of soil; NASA cancels final Hubble telescope servicing mission; Europe's comet orbiter and lander set for rescheduled voyage; Scientists find 'spitting star' imitates black hole.

Jan. 5-11: Continuing coverage of Spirit rover; Columbia crew memorialized on Mars; Chandra locates planetary ore in colliding galaxies; Hubble tells tale of record-breaking galaxy clusters; Suns of all ages possess comets, maybe planets; Sea Launch Zenit makes first 2004 rocket launch.

Dec. 29-Jan. 4: NASA's Spirit Rover successfully lands on Mars; Stardust intercepts comet to gather samples and scientists are elated with flyby results; China launches joint European science satellite; Proton launches Russian communications satellite.

Dec. 22-28: European invasion at Mars: Mars Express successfully enters orbit, but no one hears Beagle's bark; Israeli satellite rides Russian Soyuz into space; First Mercury orbiter shipped for prelaunch tests.

More news  See our weekly archive of space news.








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