Mars Exploration Rovers

Spirit Opportunity

Mars Exploration Rovers

Launch: June 10, 2003 Landed on Mars:

January 4 Location: Gusev Crater Planned mission

duration: 90 days Mass: 185 kg Power: solar panels Mission concluded: May

24, 2011 (last transmission to Earth: March 22, 2010)

Launch: July 7, 2003 Landed on Mars:

January 25 Location: Meridiani

Planum Planned mission

duration: 90 days Mass: 185 kg Power: solar panels Mission concluded: N/A –

ongoing

Spirit, Gusev Crater

Opportunity, Meridiani Planum

MER Landing Site Locations

Instruments Cameras:

Panoramic Camera (Pancam) Microscopic Imager (MI) Hazard Cameras (Hazcams) Navigation Cameras (Navcams)

Spectrometers: Miniature Thermal Emission

Spectrometer (Mini-TES) Mössbauer Spectrometer (MB) Alpha Particle X-Ray

Spectrometer (APXS)

Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT)

Magnet Array

MER Imagery and Data

How would you rate the quality of the images?What observations can you make?How would you interpret these observations?What could you say about Mars from these images?Can you use previous mission data to make a generalization?What can you say we know about Mars at this point? How

certain are you?What questions would you ask about Mars?How would you attempt to answer these questions?What are limitations to this type of mission

(rover/instruments)?

What we learned about Mars from MER

There are several minerals that form in water at both landing sites

Bedrock exists and is accessible

Not all of Mars is the same as the Viking and Pathfinder landing sites (barren plains with rocks strewn everywhere)

Hills, bedrock, plains of sand, and large and small craters can all be explored by a MER-sized rover

The RAT is a useful tool for revealing the insides of rocks

A stuck wheel can also be a useful tool for revealing what is under the surface

The Earth is visible from the surface of Mars

Ground truth of orbital observations – hematite at Meridiani Planum

A rover designed for a 90-day mission may last many years