NASA's 2003 Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Mission is an ongoing unmanned Mars exploration mission, commenced in 2003, that sent two robotic rovers Spirit and Opportunity to explore the Martian surface and geology. The mission was led by Project Manager Peter Theisinger of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Principal Investigator Steven Squyres, professor of astronomy at Cornell University.

Primary among the mission's scientific goals is to search for and characterize a wide range of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity on Mars. The Mars Exploration Rover mission is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program which includes three previous successful landers: the two Viking landers in 1976 and Pathfinder in 1997.

The total cost of building, launching, landing and operating the rovers on the surface for the initial 90 day primary mission was about US $820 million. With the rovers still functioning over two years after landing, mission funding has been extended to at least September 2006.

More on [ Mars Exploration Rover ]

NPR Topics: Space

Millionaire Follows Dad's Footsteps — Into Space
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 08:41:00 -0400
Richard Garriott, a famous video game developer, is paying millions of dollars for a ride on a Russian rocket to the International Space Station. He has wanted to go to space since he was a kid. His father and all of his neighbors were NASA astronauts. It's the first time the child of an American astronaut will blast off into space.
Young Galaxy's Magnetic Field Is Surprisingly Strong
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:53:00 -0400
Current models indicate that the magnetic fields that enclose galaxies grow slowly over billions of years. But scientists have used a telescope to peer back millions of years in time and discovered a distant galaxy with a magnetic field at least 10 times the average strength.
SpaceX Celebrates First Successful Rocket Launch
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:53:00 -0400
SpaceX's flagship Falcon1 rocket has successfully launched from an island in the central Pacific, becoming the first privately-developed rocket to orbit the planet. NASA has already contracted SpaceX to begin private space flight missions to the International Space Station beginning in 2010.
Computer Malfunction Delays Hubble Mission
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:31:00 -0400
NASA has postponed a planned repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope after a new problem developed with the orbiting observatory. Ed Weiler, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, explains why repairs won't take place until Feb. 2009 — at the earliest.
For Young Chinese, Spacewalk An Indicator Of Might
Sat, 27 Sep 2008 17:05:00 -0400
China on Saturday will become only the third nation — after Russia and the United States — to carry out a spacewalk. The event will be broadcast live nationwide. This milestone underscores China's technological achievements and is boosting national pride.
Solar Winds, Crucial To Life On Earth, Decreasing
Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:45:00 -0400
Solar winds — invisible gas plasma emitted by the Sun — protect the solar system from cosmic rays that are hostile to terrestrial life. But new data from the Ulysses NASA probe indicate solar wind output is lower than has ever been previously documented.

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