Ames lends a hand to Mars mission Ames lends a hand to Mars mission (January 09, 2004)

Local NASA center built protective materials

By Candice Shih

Days after celebrating the opening of the new Mars Center, NASA/Ames researchers watched the rover Spirit they helped protect land on the Martian surface.

"We were confident we had done everything in our power to make these landings successful," said planetary geologist Jeff Moore, who is based at Ames. But he was nonetheless excited.

"Nothing's ever certain in space exploration."

While the mission is being conducted from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, scientists at Ames have been involved in the project since its beginning and will take part in analyzing the data the rover collects.

Ames was particularly instrumental in providing the heat shield and parachute for the rover. The heat shield protected the rover from burning up as it entered the Martian atmosphere at 12,000 mph, said Moore.

With a very thin Martian atmosphere -- at ground level, it's equivalent to the Earth's atmosphere at 100,000-foot elevation -- a parachute was critical to the mission, too.

NASA/Ames researchers Dr. David Des Marais and Dr. Nathalie Cabrol are in Pasadena, helping direct the day-to-day operations of the mission. Their colleague Dr. Michael Sims is aiding the mission with his robotics and software knowledge from Ames.

Prior to the mission, Ames also participated in choosing the spot where the rover would land. Moore was part of the 100-member site selection committee.

After the engineers on the team determined which spots on Mars had smooth enough surfaces and winds for a rover landing, the scientists narrowed the choices.

"We then scrutinized those targets which had the greatest chance of having rocks or outcrops that were originally deposited in water," said Moore. What he is looking for is the Martian equivalent of limestone or sandstone.

The Mars explorer is currently roving around the Gusev Crater, a basin the size of the state of Connecticut, looking for evidence of water.

The main objective, said Moore, is to determine how water impacted the surface of Mars. If water existed on the red planet for an extended period of time, rather than just during flash floods, life is more likely to have formed.

E-mail Candice Shih at cshih@mv-voice.com

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