Tag Archives: landing sites

THEMIS: Jezero Crater delta landing site

Posted on August 12, 2019 by rburnham

THEMIS Image of the Day, August 12, 2019. At the top of today’s VIS image is a delta deposit that was created by the flow from the rim channel into the crater. Deltas form when sediments settle out due to … Continue reading →

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HiRISE: Landing in Oxia Palus

Posted on June 13, 2019 by rburnham

This image shows a cratered area to the southeast of the ExoMars 2020 Rosalind Franklin rover landing site at Oxia Palus. Selecting and characterizing landing sites is a balance between having science targets and avoiding potential obstacles, and HiRISE is … Continue reading →

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Seeing Mars with 2020 vision: Jezero Crater and Oxia Planum

Posted on March 7, 2019 by rburnham

Both NASA and ESA hope their next Mars rovers will find evidence that life once thrived on Mars, but they have different strategies to reach this goal. Their landing site choices reflect this difference. Engineers are assembling two ambitious rover … Continue reading →

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Mars 2020: Jezero Crater flyover

Posted on December 14, 2018 by rburnham

An animated flyover of the Martian surface explains why Mars’ Jezero Crater, a 28-mile-wide ancient lake-delta system, is the best place for the Mars 2020 rover to find and collect promising samples for a possible future return to Earth. [More … Continue reading →

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HiRISE: InSight lander on Mars

Posted on December 13, 2018 by rburnham

This is a HiRISE image of the NASA InSight lander, plus other pieces of hardware on Mars after its successful landing on 26 November 2018.It looks like the heat shield (upper right) has its dark outside facing down, since it … Continue reading →

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HiRISE: Spring frost on a cold world

Posted on November 28, 2018 by rburnham

Winter on Mars comes with a blanket of carbon dioxide snow. During the spring “thaw,” this snow evaporates into the atmosphere, lingering longest in the shallow depressions such as the troughs of polygon patterned ground. Enhanced color shows the carbon … Continue reading →

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Mars 2020: Media telecon on landing site, Nov. 19

Posted on November 16, 2018 by rburnham

NASA will host a media teleconference at 9 a.m. PST (noon EST) Monday, Nov. 19, to provide details about the Mars 2020 rover’s landing site on the Red Planet. The rover, currently under construction at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), … Continue reading →

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HiRISE: An ExoMars landing site

Posted on October 31, 2018 by rburnham

HiRISE plays an important role in finding suitable landing sites for future rover missions. Scientists have narrowed down the candidate landing sites for the upcoming European ExoMars rover mission to two regions: the plains of Oxia and Mawrth Vallis. Images … Continue reading →

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How best to ‘stick’ a landing at a particular site

Posted on October 22, 2018 by rburnham

Selecting a landing site for a rover headed to Mars is a lengthy process that normally involves large committees of scientists and engineers. These committees typically spend several years weighing a mission’s science objectives against a vehicle’s engineering constraints, to … Continue reading →

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HiRISE: Terrain between candidate landing sites

Posted on October 22, 2018 by rburnham

Sample terrain between candidate landing sites for the Mars 2020 mission. Beautiful Mars series. [More at links]

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