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ZL2VAL > ROVERS 29.01.04 11:03l 70 Lines 2954 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Challenger crew Memorialised
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Sent: 040129/0955Z @:ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC #:34367 [New Plymouth] FBB7.00g $:5158-ZL
From: ZL2VAL@ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC
To : ROVERS@WW
January 28, 2004
Space Shuttle Challenger Crew Memorialized on Mars
NASA announced plans to name the landing site of the Mars Opportunity
rover in honor of the Space Shuttle Challenger's final crew. The area in
the vast flatland called Meridiani Planum, where Opportunity landed this
weekend, will be called the Challenger Memorial Station.
The seven-member crew of Space Shuttle Challenger was lost when the
orbiter suffered an in-flight breakup during launch Jan. 28, 1986, 18
years ago today.
NASA selected Meridiani Planum as a landing site because of extensive
deposits of a mineral called crystalline hematite, which usually forms
in the presence of liquid water. Scientists had hoped for a specific
landing site where they could examine both the surface layer that's rich
in hematite and an underlying geological feature of light-colored
layered rock. The small crater in which Opportunity alighted appears to
have exposures of both, with soil that could be the hematite unit and an
exposed outcropping of the lighter rock layer.
Challenger's 10th flight was to have been a six-day mission dedicated to
research and education, as well as the deployment of the Tracking and
Data Relay Satellite-B communications satellite.
Challenger's commander was Francis R. Scobee and the mission pilot was
Michael J. Smith. Mission specialists included Judith A. Resnik, Ellison
S. Onizuka and Ronald E. McNair. The mission also carried two payload
specialists, Gregory B. Jarvis and Sharon Christa McAuliffe, who was the
agency's first teacher in space.
Opportunity successfully landed on Mars January 25 (Eastern and
Universal Time; January 24 Pacific Time). It will spend the next three
months exploring the region surrounding what is now known as Challenger
Memorial Station to determine if Mars was ever watery and suitable to
sustain life.
Opportunity's twin, Spirit, is trailblazing a similar path on the other
side of the planet, in a Connecticut-sized feature called Gusev Crater.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., is a division of the
California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena. JPL manages the
Mars Exploration Rover mission for NASA's Office of Space Science in
Washington, D.C.
Additional information about the project is available from NASA, JPL and
Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., on the Internet at:
http://www.nasa.gov/
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov
http://athena.cornell.edu
==============================
73 de Alan
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