Word: rover
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...have had a very serious anomaly on the vehicle." Peter Theisinger, project manager of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, on the sudden interruption in communication from the Mars rover Spirit...
...heady few weeks for the long-struggling NASA. Earlier in the month, the Stardust spacecraft, launched in 1999, made an improbable flyby of Comet Wild-2, drawing in a breath of primordial dust to bring back to Earth for study. In the middle of last week, the Spirit rover--which bounced down on Mars at the beginning of the month--at last rolled off its landing ramp and onto the dry flats of Gusev Crater. As J.P.L. engineers radioed up instructions, the rover prepared to stick its snout in the soil and begin the hunt for signs of ancient water...
...Overshadowed for weeks by the U.S. rover Spirit, Europe's Mars Express - which has been orbiting the Red Planet since Dec. 25 - finally got its day in the sun. As well as relaying stunning close-ups of Mars, the orbiter detected ice at its south pole and identified water vapor in its atmosphere. The findings reinforce the idea that Mars may have supported life...
SPACE: The Mars rover scopes out the Red Planet...
...thing Spirit won't have to travel far to explore is rocks. There's a whole quarry's worth of loose samples littering the Gusev floor, possibly carried there by river water or even glaciers. The rover is equipped with a robotic arm that includes two spectrometers for analyzing chemical and mineral composition, a microscopic imager and, most usefully for rock work, a miniature drill. "This thing's like a big Swiss Army knife," says Squyres...