NASA Hosts Oct. 4 Teleconference About Mars Curiosity Rover Progress

Dwayne Brown

Headquarters, Washington                   

202-358-1726

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

 

DC Agle/Guy Webster

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-9011/818-354-6278

agle@jpl.nasa.gov / guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will host a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) Thursday, Oct. 4, to provide a status update on the Curiosity rover's mission to Mars' Gale Crater.

Curiosity, also known as the Mars Science Laboratory, is 56 days into a two-year mission to investigate whether conditions may have been favorable for microbial life.

For teleconference dial-in information, reporters must send their name, media affiliation and telephone number to Elena Mejia at elena.mejia@jpl.nasa.gov or call the Media Relations Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at 818-354-5011.

Audio and visuals of the event will be streamed live online at http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio, and http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl.

Visuals will be available at the start of the event at http://go.nasa.gov/curiositytelecon.

For information about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mars, and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl.

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NASA News Conference to Preview August Mars Rover Landing

Dwayne Brown

Headquarters, Washington     

202-358-1726

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

 

Guy Webster

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-6278

guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. EDT Monday, July 16, to discuss the upcoming August landing of the most advanced robot ever sent to another world. A new public-engagement collaboration based on the mission also will be debuted.

The event for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft will be held in the James E. Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, 300 E St. SW, Washington. The event will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's website.

MSL will deliver Curiosity to Mars at approximately 1:31 a.m. EDT Aug. 6. The rover, carrying laboratory instruments to analyze samples of rocks, soil and atmosphere, will investigate whether Mars has ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.

Participants will be:

-- Doug McCuistion, director, Mars Exploration Program, NASA Headquarters

-- Michael Meyer, lead scientist, Mars Exploration Program, NASA Headquarters

-- John Grotzinger, MSL project scientist, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif.

-- Pete Theisinger, MSL project manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena

-- Jeff Norris, manager, planning and execution systems, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Media representatives may ask questions from participating NASA centers or by telephone. To participate by phone, reporters must contact Steve Cole at 202-358-0918 or stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov by 10 a.m. July 16.

For NASA TV streaming video, scheduling and downlink information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

To view a Jet Propulsion Laboratory live stream with a moderated chat, visit http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl.

For more information about the mission and to view or submit events surrounding the landing, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mars.

The public can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity.

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NASA Hosts First Multi-Center Social Media Event for Mars Landing

John Yembrick / Jason Townsend

Headquarters, Washington

202-358-0359

john.yembrick@nasa.gov / jason.c.townsend@nasa.gov

WASHINGTON -- NASA is inviting its social media followers to the first-ever multi-center NASA Social on Aug. 3 to preview the landing of the Mars Science Laboratory's Curiosity rover on Aug. 6 EDT (Aug. 5 PDT). NASA Socials are in-person meetings with people who engage with the agency through Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and other social networks.

Events will be held simultaneously at six NASA field centers, including Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.; Glenn Research Center in Cleveland; Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; Johnson Space Center in Houston; and, Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. Each center will be connected via a multi-center NASA Television simulcast with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., during its NASA Social, which was previously announced. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission for NASA.

Participants will learn about the Mars Science Laboratory mission and their respective NASA field center. They are encouraged to share their experience with others through their favorite social networks. Along with discussing MSL and Mars, participants will get a unique behind-the-scenes look at the center and the diverse work of the agency through tours and presentations with scientists, engineers and managers. The events also will provide guests the opportunity to interact with fellow social media users, space enthusiasts and members of NASA's social media team.

Registration for the five new NASA Socials opens at noon EDT, Friday, June 29, and closes at noon Tuesday, July 3. NASA randomly will select participants from online registrations. People may register for NASA Socials to be held at multiple locations, but selectees will be chosen for one event only. Each field center's social and number of guests allowed varies. For more information on each center's activities and rules pertaining to NASA Social registration, visit http://www.nasa.gov/social.

It is anticipated that Curiosity will land at Mars' Gale crater at approximately 1:31 a.m. EDT Aug. 6 (10:31 p.m. PDT Aug. 5). During the two-year prime mission, the rover will investigate whether the selected area of Mars offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life or if evidence of it existed. For more information on the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/msl.

The public can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity.

For information about connecting and collaborating with NASA, visit http://www.nasa.gov/connect.

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NASA Planning Group Takes Key Steps for Future Mars Exploration

Dwayne Brown

Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1726

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Mars Program Planning Group (MPPG), established to assist the agency in developing a new strategy for the exploration of the Red Planet, has begun analyzing options for future robotic missions and enlisting the assistance of scientists and engineers worldwide.

NASA is reformulating the Mars Exploration Program to be responsive to high-priority science goals and the President's challenge of sending humans to Mars in the 2030s.

"We're moving quickly to develop options for future Mars exploration missions and pathways," said John Grunsfeld, an astrophysicist, five-time space shuttle astronaut and associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "As part of this process, community involvement, including international, is essential for charting the new agency-wide strategy for our future Mars exploration efforts."

Grunsfeld leads the agency-wide Mars program reformulation effort along with William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Directorate, Chief Scientist Waleed Abdalati and Chief Technologist Mason Peck.

In February, Grunsfeld named veteran aerospace engineer Orlando Figueroa to lead the MPPG. In March, the group established an initial draft framework of milestones and activities that will include options for missions and sequences bridging the objectives of NASA's science, human exploration and operations and technology.

Starting today, the scientific and technical community across the globe can submit ideas and abstracts online as part of NASA's effort to seek out the best and the brightest ideas from researchers and engineers in planetary science. Selected abstracts will be presented during a workshop in June hosted by the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.

The workshop will provide an open forum for presentation, discussion and consideration of concepts, options, capabilities and innovations to advance Mars exploration. These ideas will inform a strategy for exploration within available resources, beginning as early as 2018 and stretching into the next decade and beyond.

"Receiving input from our community is vital to energize the planning process," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters. "We'll integrate inputs to ensure the next steps for the Mars Exploration Program will support science, as well as longer-term human exploration and technology goals."

The new strategy also will be designed to maintain America's critical technical skills, developed over decades, to achieve the highest priority science and exploration objectives.

NASA has a recognized track record of successful missions on Mars, and exploration of the planet is a priority for the agency. The rover Opportunity, which landed on Mars in 2004, is still operating well beyond its official mission of 90 days. There also are two NASA satellites, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey, orbiting Mars and returning unprecedented science data and images.

In August, NASA will land the Mars Science Laboratory, "Curiosity," on the planet's surface. This roving science laboratory will assess whether Mars was in the past or present an environment able to support life. In 2013, NASA will launch the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution orbiter, the first mission devoted to understanding the Martian upper atmosphere.

To view the call for abstracts and workshop information, visit http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/marsconcepts2012.

For more information about NASA's Mars programs, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mars.

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NASA Mars-Bound Rover Begins Research in Space

Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington

Guy Webster

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,Calif.

WASHINGTON -- NASA's car-sized Curiosity rover has begun monitoring space radiation during its 8-month trip from Earth to Mars. The research will aid in planning for future human missions to the Red Planet.

Curiosity launched on Nov. 26 from Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). The rover carries an instrument called the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) that monitors high-energy atomic and subatomic particles from the sun, distant supernovas and other sources.

These particles constitute radiation that could be harmful to any microbes or astronauts in space or on Mars. The rover also will monitor radiation on the surface of Mars after its August 2012 landing.

"RAD is serving as a proxy for an astronaut inside a spacecraft on the way to Mars,” said Don Hassler, RAD's principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.”The instrument is deep inside the spacecraft, the way an astronaut would be. Understanding the effects of the spacecraft on the radiation field will be valuable in designing craft for astronauts to travel to Mars."

Previous monitoring of energetic-particle radiation in space has used instruments at or near the surface of various spacecraft. The RAD instrument is on the rover inside the spacecraft and shielded by other components of MSL, including the aeroshell that will protect the rover during descent through the upper atmosphere of Mars.

Spacecraft structures, while providing shielding, also can contribute to secondary particles generated when high-energy particles strike the spacecraft. In some circumstances, secondary particles could be more hazardous than primary ones.

These first measurements mark the start of the science return from a mission that will use 10 instruments on Curiosity to assess whether Mars' Gale Crater could be or has been favorable for microbial life.

"While Curiosity will not look for signs of life on Mars, what it might find could be a game- changer about the origin and evolution of life on Earth and elsewhere in the universe,” said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “One thing is certain: the rover's discoveries will provide critical data that will impact human and robotic planning and research for decades.”

As of noon EST on Dec. 14, the spacecraft will have traveled 31.9 million miles (51.3 million kilometers) of its 352-million-mile (567-million-kilometer) flight to Mars. The first trajectory correction maneuver during the trip is being planned for mid-January.

Southwest Research Institute, together with Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany, built RAD with funding from the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington, and Germany's national aerospace research center, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt.

The mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The mission's rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.

Information about the mission is available at http://www.nasa.gov/msl.

You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity or http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity.

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