The Phoenix Mars Lander's robotic arm touched the planet's terrain for the first time on Saturday.
The effort, which came seven days after the lander touched down, is part of NASA's efforts to scoop up Red Planet specimens for experiments on the lander.
A behemoth "footprint" was left behind by the robotic arm's touch in the King of Hearts area of Mars. The mark, which was captured by the camera attached to the lander, looks like it could have been made by the mythological Himalayan snowman. In reference to this, NASA dubbed the impression area "Yeti."
Here is the 'footprint' left by the lander's robotic arm on Saturday.
(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizone)The lander's camera also took more images of the area under the lander, which has been nicknamed the "Snow Queen" site.
Images of the "Snow Queen" site further support NASA scientists' assumptions that the area in and around the lander is composed of ice, according to a statement from Uwe Keller, the robotic arm camera's lead scientist from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research.
NASA's photos from this latest event in the Phoenix mission also offer a more philosophical thought about the future of space exploration. Man's first "footprint" on Mars was made by a robotic swipe, not a human step.
NASA said Tuesday that it plans to establish a new lunar science institute, in the hopes of laying the groundwork for future missions to the moon.
Called the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI), the institute will open March 1, 2008, at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, but it will draw on work from teams across the country. (Ames similarly runs the distributed Astrobiology Institute.) The goal is to build an interdisciplinary study of the moon, building on other scientific research products funded by NASA.
NASA plans to form four or five teams to research areas including lunar science and astronomical and solar studies that could be conducted from the moon. It will allot grants of between $1 million to $2 million to each group over three years, with the opportunity for renewal up to five years. The funds originate from President Bush's 2008 budget proposal for planetary research programs, which is under consideration in Congress. NASA hopes to have 50 researchers around the country working on the various projects by late 2008.
"As the National Academy of Sciences has told us, the science to be done at the moon and from the moon are of high value, and NLSI will help us coordinate and expand a number of in-depth research efforts in lunar science and other fields that can benefit from human and robotic missions that are part of NASA's exploration plans," said Alan Stern, a spokesman from NASA's Science Mission Directorate.LOS ANGELES--The Google Lunar X Prize, a robotic race to the moon, has drawn its first contestant.
Not even an hour after the prize was announced here Thursday at the Wired NextFest, Carnegie Mellon University robotics pioneer Red Whittaker said he's putting together a team to build a rover that can snag the $20 million prize. To win the $20 million, a robotic rover must land on the moon, travel 500 meters and send data and video back to Earth by 2012. The total prize money is $30 million, including $5 million for second place and another $5 million in bonuses.
"Planetary exploration is a dream we pursue and a technology we create," said Whittaker, a professor in Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute, referring to several robotic rovers that his group has built. For example, CMU developed Dante II, an eight-legged robot that retrieved gas samples from inside the Mt. Spurr volcano.
"We have spent decades building and testing robotic technologies for just this purpose--so combining lunar rovers with a competitive race to the moon is a great opportunity."
- prev
- 1
- next
