Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in safe mode; space disturbance likely caused computer reboot

September 29th, 2009 SYDNEY - New reports indicate that the NASA Viking 2 probe, which landed on Mars in 1976, may have come within centimeters of finding water three decades before it was eventually found. According to a report in ABC News, the finding could result in scientists re-evaluating data collected by the spacecraft, which was sent to look for signs of life on the red planet.

September 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has revealed sub-surface water ice that may be 99 percent pure, halfway between the North Pole and the equator on the Red Planet. "We knew there was ice below the surface at high latitudes of Mars, but we find that it extends far closer to the equator than you would think, based on Mars' climate today," said Shane Byrne of the University of Arizona, a member of the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, which runs the high-resolution camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

September 24th, 2009 Spacecraft spies frozen water in Martian cratersPASADENA, Calif. — A spacecraft orbiting Mars has spotted water ice in several impact craters midway between the north pole and equator — the first time ice so close to the surface has been discovered so far south on the red planet.

September 23rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - New, three-dimensional imaging of Martian north-polar ice layers by a radar instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter matches with theoretical models of Martian climate swings during the past few million years. Alignment of the layering patterns with the modeled climate cycles provides insight about how the layers accumulated.

September 17th, 2009 LONDON - The Phoenix lander's Telltale instrument has measured for the first time wind speeds and directions in the Mars polar region. While these winds appeared to be dominated by turbulence, the highest wind speeds recorded of up to nearly 60 kilometers per hour coincided with the passing of weather systems, when also the number of dust devils increased by an order of magnitude.

September 16th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Networks of giant polygonal troughs etched across crater basins on Mars have been identified as desiccation cracks caused by evaporating lakes, providing further evidence of a warmer, wetter Martian past. The findings were presented at the European Planetary Science Congress by PhD student M.

August 31st, 2009 PANAJI - India will undertake Mission Mars between 2013 to 2015, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief G. Madhavan Nair said here Monday.

August 26th, 2009 LONDON - A joint collaboration between India's Chandrayaan-1 and NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which are orbiting the moon, could turn up evidence for valuable lunar water. Some scientists suspect water ice, which would be a precious resource for future explorers, may be trapped in permanently shadowed craters at the moon's poles.

August 21st, 2009 BANGALORE - India's first lunarcraft Chandrayaan-1 Friday conducted a joint experiment with Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) of the US's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to trace presence of ice in a dark crater near the North Pole of the moon, the Indian space agency said. "The unique bi-static experiment was carried out jointly when Chandrayaan and Orbiter came closer while orbiting over the lunar North Pole where the permanently shadowed crater is located," the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement here.

August 13th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The high-resolution camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has returned a dramatic oblique view of the Martian crater that a rover explored for two years. The new view of Victoria Crater shows layers on steep crater walls, difficult to see from straight overhead, plus wheel tracks left by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity between September 2005 and August 2007.

August 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of scientists, using images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, have reported direct evidence of lake shorelines in the Shalbatana Vallis in Mars. Scientists generally believe that warm, wet conditions existed on Mars until only about 3.7 billion years ago.

August 5th, 2009 LONDON - Scientists have solved the mystery of the rocky Mars "monolith" that resembled the black monolith from Stanley Kubrick's movie "2001: A Space Odyssey", and have determined that it is just a broken boulder. When a high-resolution camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured the monolith last July, speculation was rife that it appeared to show evidence there was once life on the Red Planet.

June 30th, 2009 LONDON - A new research led by a UK scientist has indicated that Mars had significantly warmer weather in its recent past than previously thought. Dr. Matthew Balme, from The Open University, made the new discovery by studying detailed images of equatorial landforms that formed by melting of ice-rich soils.

June 18th, 2009 New images show evidence of ancient Martian lakeLOS ANGELES — New images suggest Mars had a sizable lake on its surface billions of years ago, further evidence that the planet had a watery past. Images snapped by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reveal a 30-mile-long canyon where researchers believe water once flowed and apparent beach remnants surrounding a basin.

June 6th, 2009 WASHINGTON - NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is in safe mode and in communications with Earth after an unexpected rebooting of its computer on the evening of June 3. The spontaneous reboot resembles a February 23 event on the spacecraft.