Sojournerrover - Blog Posts

Solar System: Things to Know This Week

This week, we celebrate the fifth anniversary of the moment our Mars Science Laboratory mission landed the Curiosity rover in Gale Crater. 

In fact, this summer brings several red letter days in Red Planet exploration. Here are 10 things to know about the anniversary of the Curiosity landing—plus some other arrivals at Mars you may not know about.

This self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at a drilled sample site called "Okoruso," on the "Naukluft Plateau" of lower Mount Sharp. The scene combines multiple images taken with the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on May 11, 2016. Credit: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MSSS

1. Seven Minutes of Terror 

For Curiosity, landing on Mars meant slowing from about 13,000 MPH (21,000 KPH) to a full stop in just seven minutes. Engineers came up with an innovative--and bold--plan to make this happen, but no one could be 100% certain it would work. In this video, some of the Curiosity engineers who designed the entry, descent and landing system for the mission talk candidly about the challenges of Curiosity's final moments before touchdown in August 2012.

2. Sweet Success 

Relive the tension, and the celebration, of the night Curiosity landed on Mars. You can also simulate the entire landing process in 3-D on your own computer using NASA's free Eyes on the Solar System app.

3. Echoes of Ancient Waters 

What has Curiosity discovered during its roving so far? The key takeaway: the stark deserts of Gale Crater were once home to lakes and streams of liquid water, a place where life could potentially have thrived. Learn more about the mission's scientific findings.

4. Pretty as a Postcard

Sometimes science can be beautiful, as pictures from Mars prove. You can peruse some of Curiosity's best shots. What's more, you can see the very latest images—often on the same day they're downlinked from Mars.

5. Take It for a Spin

Have you ever wanted to try driving a Mars rover yourself? You can (virtually anyway). Try the Experience Curiosity app right in your web browser.

6. Mars Trekking 

Maybe someday you'll be able to take a day hike across the Martian landscape. You can at least plan your route right now, using NASA's Mars Trek site. This interactive mapping tool lets you explore important Red Planet locations using actual terrain imagery from orbiting satellites. You can even retrace the real locations on Mars where the fictional astronaut Mark Watney traveled in "The Martian."

7. A First Time for Everything

Curiosity stands (well, rolls) on the shoulders of giants. Several NASA missions blazed the trail for the current crop of robotic explorers. The first was Mariner 4, which is also celebrating an anniversary this summer. Mariner 4 was the first spacecraft to return photos of another planet from deep space when it flew by Mars on July 15, 1965. Mariner engineers were so impatient to see the first pictures it sent back, that they hand-colored a printout of raw numeric data sent by the spacecraft, in order to construct one of the first color images of Mars.

8. Pathfinders and Panoramas 

Another important pathfinder on Mars was...Mars Pathfinder. This mission just marked its 20th anniversary. To commemorate the first successful Mars rover, NASA created a new 360-degree VR panorama of its landing site you can view right in your browser.

9. One Small Step for a Robot

The first spacecraft to make a successful landing on Mars was Viking 1, which touched down in the Chryse Planitia region on July 20, 1976. It worked for more than six years, performing the first Martian soil analysis using its robotic arm and an onbaord biological laboratory. While it found no conclusive evidence of life, Viking 1 did help us understand Mars as a planet with volcanic soil, a thin, dry carbon dioxide atmosphere and striking evidence for ancient river beds and vast flooding.

10. Mars Explorers Needed 

There is much more to come. The next Mars lander, InSight, is slated for launch next year. Ride along with NASA's ongoing adventures on the Red Planet at: mars.nasa.gov/mars-exploration/

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Solar System: Things to Know This Week

We marked the 20th anniversary of Pathfinder's landing on Mars this week. 

We have had an active robotic presence there ever since—in fact, no one under 20 has experienced a day without NASA at Mars—but the Pathfinder mission was the first-ever robotic rover to explore the Red Planet. Below are 10 things to know about this iconic mission as we celebrate two decades of unprecedented science and discovery.

1. A Date to Remember

Pathfinder launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Dec. 4, 1996, and landed at Mars' Ares Vallis on July 4, 1997. The landing site, an ancient flood plain in Mars' northern hemisphere, is among the rockiest parts of the planet. Scientists chose it because they believed it was a relatively safe surface to land on and contained a wide variety of rocks deposited during a catastrophic flood.

2. Precious Cargo 

Pathfinder delivered to Mars a tiny, 23-pound (11.5 kilogram) rover named Sojourner, which carried scientific instruments to analyze the Martian atmosphere, climate and geology. To put its small size in perspective, the mechanisms at the end of the Curiosity Rover's robotic arm are heavier than all of Sojourner. You can check out a 360 video of Pathfinder and Sojourner here.

3. Who Named the Rover? 

The name Sojourner was chosen after a year-long, worldwide competition in which students up to 18 years old were invited to write about a historical heroine and how she would translate their accomplishments to the Martian environment. Twelve-year-old Valerie Ambroise of Bridgeport, Connecticut, submitted the winning essay on Sojourner Truth, a Civil War-era abolitionist who made it her mission to "travel up and down the land" advocating for the rights of all people to be free and participate fully in society.

4. Quite the Entrance 

Pathfinder's landing was innovative and unprecedented. It entered the thin Martian atmosphere assisted by parachute to slow its descent and with a giant system of airbags to cushion the impact. This mission marked the first time this airbag technique was used. Spirit and Opportunity later used the same method successfully.

5. Mobile Matters 

The wireless modem between Pathfinder and Sojourner was a commercial, off-the-shelf product. The project team acquired several and stress-tested them until they found the best ones to send off to Mars.

6. It's in the Details 

Sojourner had bumpers—actual mechanical fenders—painted with black and white stripes. It also had two forward-facing black-and-white cameras, and one rear-facing camera (all one-third of a Megapixel). And Sojourner's tiny wheels measured just 12.5 centimeters in diameter.

7. Viral-worthy

Pathfinder was widely regarded as one of the first "internet sensations." There was so much web traffic from around the world, the entire internet backbone of France crashed under the load.

8. We're Getting Warmer 

Among the many scientific discoveries from Pathfinder and Sojourner: Rounded pebbles and cobbles at the landing site suggested that Mars might have had running water during a warmer past when liquid water was stable on the planet. Early morning water ice clouds also were seen in the lower atmosphere.

9. Long Live the Mission 

The lander and the rover both outlived their design lives—the lander by nearly three times, and the rover by 12 times.

10. Pathfinder's Photo Album 

Go back in time and see historical photographs of Pathfinder's assembly process here.

Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Be a scientist for a day, solstice on the Red Planet, historic launches and more!

1. Scientist for a Day!

This year's Scientist for a Day essay contest was announced last week. Write an essay on one of the three images above. Essays are due in Feb. 2017. Students in grades 5-12 in U.S. schools, after-school and home-school programs, scout troops and museum programs are eligible to participate.

+ Learn more

2. Tuesday is Winter Solstice on Mars' Northern Hemisphere

Mars' orbit is much more eccentric than Earth's. The winters in the northern hemisphere are warm and short, as Mars is near perihelion—closer to the sun. This means that the winters in the southern hemisphere are long and cold.

+ Read Mars: The Other Terrestrial Planet

+ Seasons on Mars (Malin Space Science Systems) 

3. Launch-iversaries!

We’re celebrating two launch anniversaries. Before Curiosity. Before Spirit and Opportunity, there was Pathfinder and the hardy Sojourner rover, launched on Dec. 4, 1996. Pathfinder was a demonstration of the technology necessary to deliver a lander and a free-ranging robotic rover to the surface of Mars in a cost-effective and efficient manner. The lander, formally named the Carl Sagan Memorial Station following its successful touchdown, and the rover, named Sojourner after American civil rights crusader Sojourner Truth, both outlived their design lives — the lander by nearly three times, and the rover by 12 times! We continued the tradition with Spirit and Opportunity. Now there is the Mars Science Laboratory (with the Curiosity rover in stowage), which was launched on Nov. 26, 2011. It landed successfully in Gale Crater at 1:31 am EDT on Aug. 6, 2012. 

+ Go Back in Time

+ Video: Where Were You When Curiosity Landed on Mars? 

4. Mars Ice Deposit Holds as Much Water as Lake Superior

Water ice makes up half or more of an underground layer in a large region of Mars, about halfway from the equator to the north pole. The amount of water in this deposit—assessed using a radar aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter—is about as much as in Lake Superior.

+ Read More

5. A Little Bit of History

Finally, it’s been seven years since Cassini caught one of its most stunning views of the plume on Saturn's moon Enceladus.

+ Read More

Discover the full list of 10 things to know about our solar system this week HERE.

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