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The next robotic explorer in NASA’s ambitious Mars program will have to wait an extra two years before taking off towards the red planet, NASA officials announced yesterday. The Mars Science Laboratory was scheduled to lift off in the fall of 2009, but with unsolved issues with some of the spacecraft’s electrical motors … NASA officials no longer thought they could meet that schedule without rushing the testing program.“We’ve determined that trying for ‘09 would require us to assume too much risk, more than I think is appropriate for a flagship mission like Mars Science Laboratory,” Michael D. Griffin, NASA’s administrator, said [The New York Times].

Because Earth and Mars only draw near to each other every 26 months, the next possible launch window will come in 2011. The new delay is just the latest bit of bad news regarding the Science Lab, which has busted deadlines and budgets since the project was approved in 2006. The rover was initially expected to cost $1.6 billion, but the new delay will push costs up to about $2.3 billion, NASA officials said.

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Just after NASA made the sad announcement that the Mars Phoenix Lander had run out of power and ceased communicating, word comes of power problems with the Mars rover Spirit, which has been blithely rolling over the Martian terrain for almost five years.

NASA revealed yesterday that dust storms last week left Spirit’s solar panels coated with dust and caused power levels to drop to an all-time low, and that the rover then shut down operations and went dormant. Spirit’s scientists are now hoping for a message signaling that the rover survived the storm and has recovered power.

Spirit may emerge unscathed. “We are cautiously optimistic that we can get through this dust storm without a catastrophe,” says rover project scientist Bruce Banerdt…. That’s because spring is dawning in the southern hemisphere, where Spirit is located, and the extra sunlight means the rover needs less energy to run its heaters. Had the storm occurred six months ago, during the local winter solstice, the craft would have less chance of survival, says Banerdt [New Scientist].

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In a setback to Europe’s space program, the European Space Agency’s flagship mission to Mars will be delayed three years while the space agency tries to cobble together funding for the ambitious rover, the ExoMars. The mission had already been postponed once and was most recently scheduled to launch in 2013, but cost overruns are forcing the space agency to push back to a launch date in 2016.

Approved by space ministers in 2005, the rover was supposed to be a fairly small venture costing no more than 650m euros. But as the project developed, it was decided the endeavour should be upgraded, to provide a bigger, more capable vehicle; and one that could carry a much broader range of science instruments [BBC News]. The ExoMars is slated to include a drill that can bore down two meters into the icy soil, and is expected to search for evidence of Martian life, past or present. However, the rover’s scientific ambition pushed costs up to the current estimate of 1.2 billion euros, and Italy, the mission’s lead financier, has refused to meet those costs. Thus far, no other nation has stepped forward to pick up the tab.

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NASA is keeping the faith and pushing forward with its most ambitious Mars rover mission to date, despite serious cost overruns and technical problems. NASA officials announced on Friday that they expect the Mars Science Laboratory to launch as planned in 2009, rebutting speculation that NASA would postpone the craft’s launch until 2011, or even cancel the mission. “It’s easy to say, ‘let’s just cancel it and move on’ but we’ve poured over a billion-and-half dollars into this,” [NASA official Ed] Weiler said. “The science is critical. It’s a flagship mission in the Mars program and as long as we think we have a good technical chance to make it we are going to do what we have to do” [SPACE.com].

The SUV-sized rover was originally expected to cost $1.6 billion, but it’s already $300 million over budget and the latest cost overruns may push the final price to over $2 billion. To meet costs, NASA may be forced to scale back or postpone other Mars missions, and could even take funds from other planetary missions. A group of scientists that advises NASA on planetary missions called this week for an outside investigation into the Mars Science Lab’s financial troubles. The scientists noted that the pricey project was a “poor model for future missions” [AP].

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NASA’s next robotic Mars explorer may be meticulously designed to trundle over the Martian landscape, but it’s having trouble getting off the planet Earth. Huge cost overruns and technical difficulties may cause the $2 billion dollar [sic] Mars Science Laboratory to be delayed or canceled outright, members of a NASA advisory committee were warned on Oct. 2. “Our problem is enormous,” said Jim Green, director of the space agency’s Planetary Science Division, as project costs soar up to 40 percent above budget [McClatchy Newspapers].

The Mars Science Laboratory is currently scheduled to launch in the fall of 2009, which would get it to Mars the following year. Scientists have high hopes for the big rover, which is intended to study the geology and look for evidence of past microbial life in Mars’ distant past, when liquid water flowed on the planet. But the Science Lab is four times heavier than the current rovers trundling across the planet’s surface. It features a plethora of advanced tools and instruments designed to analyze rocks, soil, and atmosphere. [T]hat complexity has led to technical troubles and higher costs [Science, subscription required].

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The Mars rover Opportunity is wheeling off on what could be its final mission, and is starting a two-year journey that it may not even complete. The small robot climbed out of the Victoria crater a few weeks ago, and NASA’s science team has now decided to direct Opportunity towards an even larger crater, known as Endeavor.

The 7-mile stretch between Victoria and Endeavor craters matches the total distance the rover already has covered in the 4 1/2 years since landing on the planet. “We may not get there but it is scientifically the right direction to go anyway,” said [researcher] Steve Squyres…. “This crater (Endeavor) is staggeringly large compared to anything we’ve seen before” [Reuters].

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Just as summer is giving way to autumn in the Earth’s northern hemisphere, the seasons are changing on Mars, too. Near the Martian north pole, the Mars Phoenix Lander is watching its environment grow darker and colder, bringing Phoenix a little closer the end of its mission each day. Meanwhile, in Mars’ southern hemisphere, the rovers Spirit and Opportunity have been reinvigorated with increased sunlight to power their solar panels, and are on the move once more.

Phoenix, which has conducted fascinating experiments on the planet’s soil and water ice, saw the sun dip below the horizon yesterday for the first time since it landed on May 25. NASA officials originally planned a 90-day mission for Phoenix, which would have ended operations this week, but since the lander is in excellent condition NASA extended its mission. “It’s doing fabulously,” said Barry Goldstein, NASA’s Phoenix project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “But I’ve made it clear to the science team that the warranty’s over…. The vehicle is not going to tip over and die,” Goldstein said. “But we’re getting to the point where we’re going to start seeing the creaks and groans” [SPACE.com].

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Exploring Mars looks like so much fun, everyone want to get in on the act. Following the path blazed by the NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity and the NASA lander Phoenix, which are all currently active on the Red Planet, the European Space Agency (ESA) has designed a rover that is expected to take off for Mars in 2013 and land on the surface in 2015. The ESA’s ExoMars mission is designed to examine the planet’s geology and to search for signs of past life.

ESA officials boast that the two prototypes, nicknamed Brandon and Bruno, are more maneuverable and more independent than previous robots that have made the journey to Mars, and say that these advantages will allow their rover to see more of the planet. Says engineer Chris Draper: “Obviously, the American MER rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) that were put up by Nasa enjoyed an extreme amount of success. They were able to travel large distances, well beyond their planned lifetimes. But we’re hoping that with our baby, we’ll be able to go places that are actually much further” [BBC News].

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Just when the world is abuzz about the possibility that the Mars Phoenix Lander will find evidence of liquid water and life-enabling conditions in the prehistoric Martian past, a new report throws a bucket of salty water on that enthusiasm.

Researchers studied geochemical findings from the Mars rover Opportunity, and now say that even if liquid water did exist on Mars in a warmer era in the planet’s history, it was probably too salty to support life — or at least, life as we know it.

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