June 2004 Top Stories
»» Beagle 2 Report: What happens on Mars, stays on Mars
[Tuesday, June 01, 2004] Courted for its support during development, the public is now being shut out of the post-mission report. This is ostensibly on the grounds of commercial confidentiality and an ongoing legal spat between two of the program participants.
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»» NASA Lab-on-a-chip technology to help protect future space explorers and detect life forms on Mars
[Tuesday, June 01, 2004] NASA researchers are developing microarray diagnostic chips to test for genes and DNA to determine traits of a particular organism, detect specific types of organisms, or use biosensor-like probes such as antibodies to detect molecules of interest.
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»» Rovers Examining Hills And Crater In Bonus-Time Mission
[Thursday, June 03, 2004] More than a month into bonus time after a successful primary mission on Mars, Spirit has sighted possibly layered rock in hills just ahead, while Opportunity has extended its arm to pockmarked stones on a crater rim to gather clues of a watery past.
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»» Opportunity Gets Green Light to Enter Endurance Crater
[Friday, June 04, 2004] NASA has decided the potential science value gained by
sending Opportunity into a martian impact crater likely
outweighs the risk of the intrepid explorer not being able to
get back out.
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»» Fleshing Out Martian Proteins - Interview with Richard Mathies
[Monday, June 07, 2004] Imagine having a modern biology lab on another planet. Then imagine putting that lab on a tiny silicon chip. That portable concept - when applied to detecting the building blocks of life, amino acids - is being investigated for future Mars missions.
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»» Secrets to life on Mars, predicting volcano eruption may be locked in tiny bubbles
[Wednesday, June 09, 2004] By summer 2005, researchers at Virginia Tech will be able to look for evidence of water on Mars by examining submicroscopic bubbles in martian meteorites.
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»» NASA Rovers Continue Unique Exploration of Mars
[Wednesday, June 09, 2004] NASA's Mars Opportunity rover began its latest adventure today inside the martian crater informally called Endurance. Opportunity will roll in with all six wheels, then back out to the rim to check traction by looking at its own track marks.
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»» The red planet - Dead or alive?
[Monday, June 14, 2004] Is there - or has there ever been - life on Mars? A UK project could help provide the answer to this fascinating question.
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»» NASA schedules Mars Rover Media Briefing
[Monday, June 14, 2004] NASA will update the news media on the Mars Exploration
Rover (MER) mission Tuesday at 1 p.m. EDT at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif.
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»» Administrator to Share Moon-Mars Commission Findings with NASA Work Force
[Tuesday, June 15, 2004] NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe will share the findings
of the Commission on Implementation of U.S. Space Exploration
Policy Wednesday afternoon during a special agency wide
broadcast available on both NASA Television and www.nasa.gov.
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»» NASA's Mars Rovers Going the Extra Mile
[Tuesday, June 15, 2004] NASA's Mars rovers are delighting scientists with their extra credit assignments. Both rovers successfully completed their primary three-month missions in April.
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»» Space Exploration Policy A Journey to Inspire, Innovate, and Discover
[Wednesday, June 16, 2004] SpaceRef now has the complete report online and available for downloading.
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»» Earth Has 'Blueberries' Like Mars
[Thursday, June 17, 2004] Even before marble-shaped pebbles nicknamed "blueberries" were discovered on Mars by the Opportunity rover, University of Utah geologists studied similar rocks in Utah's national parks and predicted such stones would be found on the Red Planet.
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»» NASA Begins to Transform Itself
[Thursday, June 24, 2004] A series of organizational changes were announced today at NASA Headquarters. These changes are the beginning of a process of 'transformation' whereby the agency will be realigned to better meet the challenge outlined by President Bush in January.
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»» Spirit, Too, Finds Hematite
[Friday, June 25, 2004] On challenging slopes that NASA's Mars rovers began exploring this
month, both Spirit and Opportunity have found new surprises for the
folks back home.
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»» MARSIS deployment on hold
[Tuesday, June 29, 2004] The deployment of the MARSIS antenna on ESA's Mars Express spacecraft has been delayed until later this year.
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