[Monday, December 1, 2008] NASA's In-Space Propulsion Technology (ISPT) project has been assigned the responsibility of developing propulsion technologies needed to enable future sample return missions.

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[Tuesday, December 2, 2008] Opportunity is getting ready for solar conjunction, the time when the Sun is in the line of sight between Earth and Mars. During this two- week period, from Nov. 30, 2008 to Dec. 13, 2008, the mission team will not send new commands to the rover.

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[Tuesday, December 2, 2008] Spirit's condition has improved during the past week, though skies remain fairly dusty after the recent Martian dust storm.

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[Tuesday, December 2, 2008] After nearly a month of daily checks to determine whether Martian NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander would be able to communicate again, the agency has stopped using its Mars orbiters to hail the lander and listen for its beep.

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[Wednesday, December 3, 2008] NASA will hold a briefing at noon EST, Thursday, Dec. 4, about the agency's Mars Science Laboratory, or MSL. The briefing will take place in the James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, 300 E Street, S.W., Washington.

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[Thursday, December 4, 2008] NASA's Mars Science Laboratory will launch two years later than previously planned, in the fall of 2011. The mission will send a next-generation rover with unprecedented research tools to study the early environmental history of Mars.

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[Thursday, December 4, 2008] Climate cycles persisting for millions of years on ancient Mars left a record of rhythmic patterns in thick stacks of sedimentary rock layers, revealed in three-dimensional detail by a telescopic camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

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[Thursday, December 4, 2008] A new series of experiments, conducted by an interdisciplinary research team from the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the University of Aarhus, Denmark, suggests that indeed bacteria could survive beneath the martian soil.

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[Thursday, December 4, 2008] Researchers at Caltech and their colleagues have found evidence of ancient climate change on Mars caused by regular variation in the planet's tilt, or obliquity. On Earth, similar "astronomical forcing" of climate drives ice-age cycles.

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[Monday, December 8, 2008] The High Resolution Science Imaging Experiment, or HiRISE, team based at The University of Arizona today released 362 three-dimensional images of Mars taken by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

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[Thursday, December 11, 2008] NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has completed its primary, two-year science phase. The spacecraft has found signs of a complex Martian history of climate change that produced a diversity of past watery environments.

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[Saturday, December 13, 2008] The final four Europeans who are set to take part in a 105-day simulated Mars mission were presented to the media in Paris today. From March next year, two of the group will join four Russian participants inside an isolation facility in Moscow.

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[Saturday, December 13, 2008] Data and images from Mars Express suggest that several Light Toned Deposits, some of the least understood features on Mars, were formed when large amounts of groundwater burst on to the surface.

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[Monday, December 15, 2008] A team led by MIT researchers releases today the most comprehensive independent review of the future of the nation's human spaceflight program undertaken in many years.

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[Monday, December 15, 2008] The Martian arctic soil that NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander dug into this year is very cold and very dry. However, when long-term climate cycles make the site warmer, the soil may get moist enough to modify the chemistry.

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[Tuesday, December 16, 2008] As scientists search for life on Mars, they should take a close look at rock varnish, according to a paper in the current issue of the "Journal of Geophysical Research."

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[Thursday, December 18, 2008] Researchers using a powerful instrument aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have found a long-sought-after mineral on the Martian surface and, with it, unexpected clues to the Red Planet's watery past.

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[Monday, December 29, 2008] NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity may still have big achievements ahead as they approach the fifth anniversaries of their memorable landings on Mars.

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