OTHER ARTICLES IN THIS SECTION
4/13/2005
- Mars rover science planning shifts from the JPL to Cornell
- Late funding hampers British Mars mission
- Mars rover gets mystery power boost as both probes defy their age
- European scientists plan Mars mission to rival U.S. proposals
- Rover's work halted to complete fix
- NASA pauses to remember tragedies
- European scientists say they have discovered water in Mars
- NASA gets data from Mars rover for first time in two days
- Second Mars rover on schedule
- Mars rover finds 'alien and bizarre landscape'
- Spirit will have to wait to wander
- Spirit slated to roll onto Martian soil
- Scientists still hoping to hear from missing Mars probe
- Scientists pledge bigger and better things to come
- Scientists struggle to contact Mars probe
- Rover's success lifts NASA's spirits
- Rover unfolds as it gets ready to ramble
- Poll: Not all over moon for space
- Permanent lunar base envisioned
- NASA's Mars rovers build on Sojourner legacy
- NASA waits to receive last of comet close-ups
- NASA to test smart jet
- NASA scientists anxiously await today's Mars landing
- NASA rover captures Mars in first close-ups
- NASA aims to shoot the Red Planet
- Mars rover may be sent to other crater
- Mars rover's sweeping view in 3-D
- Mars rover is cut loose, gets ready to roll
- Learning to live by martian clock
- Congress commends rover team
- Comet dust scooped up by NASA spacecraft
- Bush: Moon a test for Mars mission
- Sunday drivin' slow on Mars
- 'Serious anomaly' has silenced Mars rover
- Firm gets spirit of Mars mission
- Proof of water on Mars found
- 2nd Mars rover lands
Rover lands on Mars, sparking cheers at JPL

By Andrew Bridges
Associated Press

A NASA rover landed on Mars late Saturday, apparently making it the first spacecraft in six years to safely alight on the surface of the Red Planet.

Radio signals received on Earth minutes after the landing suggested the Spirit rover survived, prompting mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to let out whoops of delight and embrace one another.

The first cheer in the control room went up at approximately 8:35 p.m., when scientists picked up signals that Spirit had touched down. Then they waited anxiously for several minutes to hear from the spacecraft again, a development not unexpected. Another round of cheers erupted when the rover signaled it had landed on the planet intact.

It still was not immediately known if the rover, called Spirit, would operate as planned. It is one of two identical six-wheeled robots that will roam the planet's rocky surface if all goes as planned.

The rover relied on a heat shield, parachute and rockets to slow its descent to Mars. Eight seconds before landing, a giant set of air bags inflated to cushion its bouncy landing.

It was not immediately clear if the air bags sufficiently protected the rover, enclosed inside a four-petaled lander, from the jarring landing.

But up until the landing everything was proceeding flawlessly, with Spirit appearing on track to make a "bull's-eye" landing within a cigar-shaped ellipse inside Gusev Crater, a Connecticut-sized indentation just south of the Martian equator, navigation team chief Louis D'Amario said.

"This is essentially perfect navigation. We couldn't have possibly hoped to do better than this," D'Amario said.

Previously, about two of every three attempts to land spacecraft on Mars have failed. The latest apparent failure was the British Beagle 2 lander, which has not been heard from since it was to have set down on Mars on Christmas.

"It's an incredibly difficult place to land. Some have called it the 'death planet' for good reason," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for space science.

NASA's last attempt at landing on Mars, in 1999, failed when a software glitch sent the Polar Lander crashing to the ground. Since then, the space agency has increased oversight of its missions.

"We have done everything we know to do to ensure these missions will be a success," said Charles Elachi, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The $820 million NASA project also includes a twin rover, Opportunity, which is set to arrive on Mars on Jan. 24.

The camera- and instrument-laden rovers were designed to spend 90 days analyzing Martian rocks and soil for clues that could reveal whether the Red Planet was ever a warmer, wetter place capable of sustaining life.

Today, Mars is a dry and cold world. But ancient river channels and other water-carved features spied from orbit suggest that Mars may have had a more hospitable past.

"We see these intriguing hints Mars may have been a different place long ago," said Steve Squyres, the mission's main scientist.

The rovers were built to look for evidence that liquid water _ a necessary ingredient for life _ once existed on the surface of the planet. A direct search for life on Mars is at least a decade away, NASA scientists said.

Together, the twin robots were launched in the most intensive scientific assault on another planetary body since the Apollo missions to the moon, said Orlando Figueroa, director of NASA's Mars exploration program.

NASA launched the 384-pound Spirit and its twin in hopes they would become the fourth and fifth U.S. spacecraft to survive landing on Mars. Twenty other spacecraft from various nations have failed.

Scientists are taking advantage of the closest approach Mars has made to Earth in 60,000 years. NASA intends to send spacecraft to Mars at regular 26-month intervals, or each time the Earth laps the Red Planet as they both circle the sun.

The highly anticipated Spirit landing follows another important American space mission. On Friday, a NASA spacecraft flew through the bright halo of a distant comet to scoop up less than a thimbleful of dust that could shed light on how the solar system was formed.