U.S.: NASA's 'Spirit' Remains Strong After Successful Martian Landing

By Jan Jun

America's mission to Mars has so far been a huge success. The roving vehicle "Spirit," which landed on the red planet on 4 January (Prague time), continues transmitting stunning pictures from the surface. And the six-wheeled robot is getting ready to start driving around on the surface next week, looking for signs of water or past life.

London, 6 January 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Earth now has a high-quality direct picture link from the red planet, following the successful landing on Mars by the U.S. roving vehicle "Spirit" early on 4 January.

After the first black-and-white photographs sent just after landing, "Spirit" yesterday transmitted a spectacular three-dimensional panorama -- a 180-degree view around the landing site. The first pieces of a full-color mosaic are being transmitted to Earth today.

"Spirit" is the most sophisticated explorer yet sent to Mars, and the photographs it sends back will be three times sharper than those taken during the successful 1997 Pathfinder mission.

Scientists are jubilant. Sean O'Keefe, administrator of the U.S. space agency NASA, summed up the reaction at the agency, which has fallen on hard times following the space shuttle "Columbia" disaster last year and the failure of its "Mars Polar" lander in 1999.

"This is a big night for NASA. We are back," O'Keefe said. "I am very, very proud of this team, and we're on Mars. It is absolutely an incredible accomplishment."

"Spirit's" first pictures from Mars show a windswept plain with less sand and fewer large rocks than indicated by previous missions. According to project scientists, the huge, flat, and very old Gusev Crater, where the rover has landed, could have indeed once been a shallow lake.

While "Spirit" continues to take pictures, scientists are preparing the six-wheeled rover to leave the lander and begin exploring the surface. Those preparations could take more than a week. Scientists are looking at a depression in the surface some 15 meters from the lander, which they think might be a good place to send it on its first outing. NASA's Steve Squyres described the site as a "hole in the ground, a window in the interior of Mars."

British scientists have been quick to congratulate NASA on the success of its mission. Britain's own lander, "Beagle-2," descended to the Martian surface on 25 December but has not been heard from since. Dr. Judith Pillinger, the wife of top "Beagle" scientist Colin Pillinger, told RFE/RL, "I am certainly happy to endorse that everybody in the project is very happy for NASA and its success."

Peter Barratt, a spokesman for the "Beagle" project, is even more pleased by the success of the U.S. mission. "It's great news that the Americans have successfully landed their 'Spirit' rover," he said. "It's a great accomplishment and testament to the teams that were involved in bringing that to fruition. The very first pictures are really exciting, and we look forward to that research."

If everything goes according to plan, the "Spirit" rover should be on the move for about 90 days and travel up to 1 kilometer, examining all the interesting features along the way. It has a formidable array of scientific experiments on board and will be looking for evidence of past water on the surface. It has a grinder to expose weathered rock surfaces and a microscope to spot any tiny fossils.

Yet another U.S. rover, "Opportunity," is also on the way. It is expected to land later this month (25 January) on the other side of Mars, near a spot where the mineral hematite has been detected. Hematite usually only forms in the presence of water.

Dr. Richard Taylor works for the Probability Research Group, which examines the origins of the solar system. He said the NASA rovers -- as well as Britain's "Beagle-2," if it can be brought back to life -- will be looking to see "[whether] there are any organic chemicals that have leached to the surface that are indicative of biological processes having gone on in the presence of water. If you get that indication, we could say almost certainly that life is present on Mars -- at depth."

He is doubtful, however, that any signs of life will be found on the surface of Mars, given the harsh conditions that have prevailed there for most of the planet's history.

He said this is "very unlikely," since Mars "has not had water on its surface for a very, very long time in any significant quantity. Neither has it had a substantial atmosphere for a very long time, and was only protected by good dipolar magnetic field for the first 500 million years of the planet's existence. So, from then on, ultraviolet light and ionizing radiation have been able to reach the surface of Mars very readily, so any organisms would have been wiped out."

Other scientists believe Mars may have been able to hold a dense atmosphere and surface water for a long time, and that microbial life could have evolved. In that case, the $820 million rover missions might well find any evidence left behind.

As for the possibility that water currently exists on Mars, the European Space Agency's "Mars Express" satellite has settled into orbit around the planet, and its radar should be able to find it, even if it's underground.

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