Europe reclaims a stake in Mars exploration! The European Space Agency has launched this informative site in conjunction with the Mars Express mission which lifted off on June 3, 2003. Before the live Webcast of the craft arrival in December, 2003, visitors to this well organized site can track the progress of the spacecraft. You can also learn a lot about early attempts to explore mars and...

NASA has blasted into the new year by not only landing a robotic vehicle (the Rover Spirit) on the surface of Mars, but also by transmitting the best photographs ever captured of the red planet. With that, Spirit is now preparing to meander about the surface of Mars and collect specimens of rock and soil -- the return of which is anxiously awaited by scientists worldwide. Spirit landed and made...

This Review Panel Report represents the work of a review team contracted by NASA to analyze its programs and practices. Released this week, the report discusses findings relating to the failure of the Mars Climate Orbiter on September 23, 1999. The report also summarizes lessons learned from the mishap, gives an overview of NASA project management, identifies common themes related to recent...

Scheduled for launch in 2003, two NASA rovers will set out to explore Mars and determine whether water ever existed on the planet. This is the home page of the Mars rovers, and it has a great deal of information about the specifications and technology of the missions. Detailed descriptions of the scientific instruments equipped on each rover are provided. Color diagrams show the main components of...

As part of NASA's Mars Exploration Web site, the Videos gallery page contains dozens of related movies. Visitors can see an animated video of the Rover mission to Mars, the Mars Exploration Rover in action, the deployment of Odyssey's Gamma Ray Spectrometer Instrument, an engineering test of landing a rover on the ground, a futuristic look at how life could be like on Mars, a Mars astronomy...

The Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft (discussed in the November 8, 1996 Scout Report) reached Mars orbit on September 11, 1997 in preparation for mapping the planet. This site is highlighted by real time updates, flight status reports, telemetry information, and an annotated QuickTime movie, as well as several images of Mars taken from MGS. After orbit insertion, a period of "aerobraking,"...

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory currently provides over 40 movies and animations that depict the Mars Global Surveyor (discussed in the November 8, 1996 Scout Report) during the aerobraking phase of its flight. The MGS was launched in November 1996 to study the surface, atmosphere, and magnetic properties of Mars. Animations are available in QuickTime...

On May 22, NASA announced the "single largest one-time release of images for any planet in the history of solar system exploration," adding over 20,000 images to its Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) Image Gallery. This huge collection is offered in three galleries, one for each of the cameras used: narrow angle, wide angle, and global images. Many of the images are of such high resolution that objects on...

Around 3pm EST today, the Mars Polar Lander is expected to cut through Mars's atmosphere, deploy a parachute, and fire twelve thrusters, slowing from over 15,000 mph to just 5 mph, and land on the edge of the planet's southern polar cap . The $165 million, three-foot tall, 600-pound craft is equipped with a robotic arm, microphone, oven, and cameras to search for water or ice just below the frozen...

This excellent site from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) takes readers on a journey to the Red Planet through an assortment of images, videos, and highly informative data. Readers may like to start with the What's New section, where they will find the latest posts from the Curiosity Rover's explorations of the Red Planet's surface. The Mission tab is also worth a visit as it provides a...