Mars Rover – Astronomy Now

Mars 2020 rover ready to rock (hunt) and roll

21 June 2019 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Mars 2020 rover now has the wheels it will need to explore Jezero Crater when it lands in 2021. Says a proud engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory: “Now that’s a Mars rover.”

NASA’s Mars 2020 rover coming together at JPL

13 May 2019 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Mars 2020 rover is taking shape at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where engineers are integrating key components.

A parting panorama from the Opportunity Mars rover

18 March 2019 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Mars Opportunity Rover was completing a 360-degree panorama of its surroundings on the inner slope of Endeavour Crater when a global dust storm silenced the spacecraft after nearly 15 years of operation on the red planet. The final panorama is made up of 354 images stitched together for a fitting farewell vista.

Mars orbiter photographs still-silent Opportunity rover

25 September 2018 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted the Opportunity rover on the surface of the red planet where it remains out of contact with Earth in the wake of a global dust storm in June.

Ageing Mars rover halts research, powers down in heavy dust storm

12 June 2018 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover is powered down. science operations on hold, in a bid to weather a huge dust storm that is blocking the sunlight needed to re-charge the robot’s batteries and keep it from freezing.

Martian ridge brings out rover’s colour talents

5 November 2017 Astronomy Now

Colour-discerning capabilities that NASA’s Curiosity rover has been using on Mars since 2012 are proving particularly helpful on a mountainside ridge the rover is now climbing.

Engineers hopeful Mars rover’s drill can return to service

25 October 2017 Stephen Clark

Engineers have started testing a new way to use the Curiosity rover’s drill to bore into Martian rocks after a motor in the device stalled late last year, but ground teams are still months away from the first chance to resume drilling operations.

NASA marks 20 years of continuous Mars exploration

4 July 2017 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Mars Pathfinder probe dropped to the surface of Mars for an airbag-cushioned landing 20 years ago Tuesday, bouncing 15 times across an ancient flood plain before deploying a mobile robot to usher in two decades of uninterrupted Martian exploration.

Scientists narrow list of landing sites for NASA’s next Mars rover

14 February 2017 Stephen Clark

A rover NASA plans to launch to Mars in 2020 will likely explore one of three locations selected last week by a scientific advisory group, which picked candidate landing sites that were once homes to ancient lakes and hot springs.

Internal debris may be causing problem with Mars rover’s drill

29 December 2016 Stephen Clark

Engineers believe a piece of foreign object debris may be intermittently stalling a motor needed to place the Curiosity Mars rover’s drill bit onto rocks, and the robot’s ground team is assessing the source of the potential contamination.