NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Lifts Off

Joost Schuur writes "At 11:18 PM EDT on Monday, Opportunity, the second of 2 NASA Mars Exploration Rovers took off aboard a Boeing Delta 2 Heavy rocket after several delays and begun its 305 million mile trip to the Red Planet, where it will join its sister vehicle Spirit, which launched June 10th. Spirit and Opportunity will land on opposite sides of Mars, travelling up to 40 meters a day, and use a series of instruments to search for water, including the Rock Abrasion Tool, which will grind into rocks to give scientists a peak inside. Things are going to get crowded next January in orbit, as both NASA missions join the European Mars Express mission also launched this month and the Japanese Nozomi probe, which would finally complete its troublesome 5 year journey. Those stuck on Earth can take advantage of the closest Mars opposition in 60,000 years and watch with a telescope, or follow the images provided by the International MarsWatch 2003 group."

Comments

good to see nasa doing some serious science

[PhysicsExpert]

Its good to see NASA responding well with some serious missions after the Atlantis disaster. After all the cutbacks during the Clinton era I really thought it might get to the point where they did nothing but put satellites into orbit.

What would really interest me however would be if they switched their attention from Mars to Venus. Most scientists agree that life on Mars is not feasable wheras Venus, which is closer to the sun, has a far more interesting chemical makeup. Although too hot for any carbon based lifeforms to be found, many scientists have thought that in Venus's rich ammonia lakes a Silicon based life could have emerged. Although these would be very basic forms of life (not as advanced a monkeys) discovering them would mean that we could no longer view ourselves as being at the center of the universe.

And my name went with them...

[Quizo69]

3,551,645 names were submitted to the NASA site for launch on the two rovers. They have a nice picture of it with explanation here:

http://www.planetary.org/rrgtm/dvd.html

Let's hope this doesn't /. NASA and send the rovers off course ;)

It's strangely comforting to know that my name will be up there forever (well at least until we colonise Mars and enshrine the little discs somewhere)!

Quizo69

Deep Space Network Overload?

[goatbar]

How is the Deep Space Network (DSN) going to handle 7 spacecraft at Mars? It was tough enough with just 2 orbiters. Anyone in the know want to comment?

Enough with the probes

[Paulrothrock]

People are better than robots at exploring a planet. We need to put people on Mars. Mars Direct will get them there. All we need is the will to do it.

And before you go arguing how it will be so expensive, bear in mind that it would only be a 7% increase in NASA's budget for the next 10 years, and that would give us 5 manned missions.