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Mars Space Flight Facility
The Mars Space Flight Facility is located at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. The facility is a research center in Arizona State University's School for Earth and Space Exploration. Scientists, researchers, and students there specialize in using instruments on spacecraft at Mars for remote sensing research primarily concerning the geology and mineralogy of the planet. The instruments based at the facility include the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter and two Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometers (Mini-TES) on the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. (A full-size Mars rover model, bedded on reddish-brown sand, dominates the building's lobby.) Before the loss of NASA's Mars Global Surveyor in November 2006, the facility also operated the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) aboard the spacecraft. On May 25, 2011, NASA announced a New Frontiers Mission, OSIRIS-REx, to a carbonaceous asteroid. The mission will include OT ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arizona State University
Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the U.S. One of three universities governed by the Arizona Board of Regents, ASU is a member of the Universities Research Association and classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity". ASU has nearly 150,000 students attending classes, with more than 38,000 students attending online, and 90,000 undergraduates and nearly 20,000 postgraduates across its five campuses and four regional learning centers throughout Arizona. ASU offers 350 degree options from its 17 colleges and more than 170 cross-discipline centers and institutes for undergraduates students, as well as more than 400 graduate degree and certificate programs. The Arizona State Sun Devils compete in 26 varsity-level sports in the NCAA Division I Pac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tempe, Arizona
, settlement_type = City , named_for = Vale of Tempe , image_skyline = Tempeskyline3.jpg , imagesize = 260px , image_caption = Tempe skyline as seen from Papago Park , image_flag = Tempe, Arizona official flag.png , seal_size = , image_map = File:Maricopa County Arizona Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Tempe Highlighted 0473000.svg , mapsize = 250px , map_caption = Location of Tempe in Maricopa County, Arizona , image_map1 = , mapsize1 = , map_caption1 = , pushpin_map = Arizona#USA , pushpin_map_caption = Location in Arizona##Location in the United States , pushpin_relief = 1 , coordinates = , subdivision_type = L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere (less than 1% that of Earth's), and has a crust primarily composed of elements similar to Earth's crust, as well as a core made of iron and nickel. Mars has surface features such as impact craters, valleys, dunes and polar ice caps. It has two small and irregularly shaped moons, Phobos (moon), Phobos and Deimos (moon), Deimos. Some of the most notable surface features on Mars include Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and List of tallest mountains in the Solar System, highest known mountain in the Solar System and Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the Solar System. The North Polar Basin (Mars), Borealis basin in the Northern Hemisphere covers approximately 40% of the planet and may be a la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermal Emission Imaging System
The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) is a camera on board the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter. It images Mars in the visible and infrared parts of the electromagnetic spectrum in order to determine the thermal properties of the surface and to refine the distribution of minerals on the surface of Mars as determined by the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES). Additionally, it helps scientists to understand how the mineralogy of Mars relates to its landforms, and it can be used to search for thermal hotspots in the Martian subsurface. THEMIS is managed from the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University and was built by the Santa Barbara Remote Sensing division of Raytheon Technologies Corporation, an American multinational conglomerate headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. The instrument is named after Themis, the goddess of justice in ancient Greek mythology. Infrared camera THEMIS detects thermal infrared energy emitted by the Martian surface at nine di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars Odyssey
''2001 Mars Odyssey'' is a robotic spacecraft orbiting the planet Mars. The project was developed by NASA, and contracted out to Lockheed Martin, with an expected cost for the entire mission of US$297 million. Its mission is to use spectrometers and a thermal imager to detect evidence of past or present water and ice, as well as study the planet's geology and radiation environment. It is hoped that the data ''Odyssey'' obtains will help answer the question of whether life existed on Mars and create a risk-assessment of the radiation that future astronauts on Mars might experience. It also acts as a relay for communications between the ''Curiosity'' rover, and previously the Mars Exploration Rovers and ''Phoenix'' lander, to Earth. The mission was named as a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, evoking the name of his and Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film '' 2001: A Space Odyssey''. ''Odyssey'' was launched April 7, 2001, on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minites
The Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES) is an infrared spectrometer A spectrometer () is a scientific instrument used to separate and measure spectral components of a physical phenomenon. Spectrometer is a broad term often used to describe instruments that measure a continuous variable of a phenomenon where the ... used for detecting the composition of a material (typically rocks) from a distance. By making its measurements in the thermal infrared spectroscopy, thermal infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum, it has the ability to penetrate through the dust coatings common to the Martian surface which is usually problematic for remote sensing observations. There is one on each of the two Mars Exploration Rovers. Development The Mini-TES was originally developed by Raytheon for the Department of Geological Sciences at Arizona State University. The Mini-TES is a miniaturized version of Raytheon's Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) TES, built by Arizona State Un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars Exploration Rovers
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission was a robotic space mission involving two Mars rovers, ''Spirit'' and ''Opportunity'', exploring the planet Mars. It began in 2003 with the launch of the two rovers to explore the Martian surface and geology; both landed on Mars at separate locations in January 2004. Both rovers far outlived their planned missions of 90 Martian solar days: MER-A ''Spirit'' was active until March 22, 2010, while MER-B ''Opportunity'' was active until June 10, 2018. Objectives The mission's scientific objective was to search for and characterize a wide range of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity on Mars. The mission is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, which includes three previous successful landers: the two Viking program landers in 1976 and Mars Pathfinder probe in 1997. The total cost of building, launching, landing and operating the rovers on the surface for the initial 90- sol primary mission was US$820 million. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars Global Surveyor
''Mars Global Surveyor'' (MGS) was an American robotic space probe developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched November 1996. MGS was a global mapping mission that examined the entire planet, from the ionosphere down through the atmosphere to the surface. As part of the larger Mars Exploration Program, Mars Global Surveyor performed atmospheric monitoring for sister orbiters during aerobraking, and helped Mars rovers and lander missions by identifying potential landing sites and relaying surface telemetry. It completed its primary mission in January 2001 and was in its third extended mission phase when, on 2 November 2006, the spacecraft failed to respond to messages and commands. A faint signal was detected three days later which indicated that it had gone into safe mode. Attempts to recontact the spacecraft and resolve the problem failed, and NASA officially ended the mission in January 2007. MGS remains in a stable near-polar circular orbit at about 450 km ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermal Emission Spectrometer
The Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) is an instrument on board Mars Global Surveyor. TES collects two types of data, hyperspectral thermal infrared data from 6 to 50 micrometres (μm) and bolometric visible-NIR (0.3 to 2.9 μm) measurements. TES has six detectors arranged in a 2x3 array, and each detector has a field of view of approximately 3 × 6 km on the surface of Mars. The TES instrument uses the natural harmonic vibrations of the chemical bonds in materials to determine the composition of gases, liquids, and solids. TES identified a large (30,000 square-kilometer) area that contained the mineral olivine. Olivine was found in the Nili Fossae formation. It is thought that the ancient impact that created the Isidis basin resulted in faults that exposed the olivine. Olivine is present in many mafic volcanic rocks. In the presence of water it weathers into minerals such as goethite, chlorite, smectite, maghemite, and hematite. Olivine was also discovered in many oth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
OSIRIS-REx
OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) is a NASA asteroid-study and sample-return mission. The mission's primary goal is to obtain a sample of at least from 101955 Bennu, a carbonaceous near-Earth asteroid, and return the sample to Earth for a detailed analysis. The material returned is expected to enable scientists to learn more about the formation and evolution of the Solar System, its initial stages of planet formation, and the source of organic compounds that led to the formation of life on Earth. OSIRIS-REx was launched on 8 September 2016, flew past Earth on 22 September 2017, and rendezvoused with Bennu on 3 December 2018. It spent the next several months analyzing the surface to find a suitable site from which to extract a sample. On 20 October 2020, OSIRIS-REx touched down on Bennu and successfully collected a sample. Though some of the sample escaped when the flap that should have clo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phil Christensen
Philip Russel Christensen (born 1953) is a geologist whose research interests focus on the composition, physical properties, processes, and morphology of planetary surfaces, with an emphasis on Mars and the Earth. He is currently a Regents' Professor and the Ed and Helen Korrick Professor of Geological Sciences at Arizona State University (ASU). Education Christensen earned his B.S. degree in Geology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1976. He earned his M.S. in 1978 and his Ph.D. in 1981 in Geophysics and Space physics, both from the University of California, Los Angeles. Career Along with serving on the faculty of the Department of Geology at Arizona State University since 1981, Christensen is the principal investigator for the Mars Global Surveyor Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES), the Mars Odyssey THEMIS, the Europa Clipper Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System and the Lucy Thermal Emission Spectrometer instruments, as well as a co-investigator for the Mars ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars Exploration Rover
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission was a robotic space mission involving two Mars rovers, ''Spirit (rover), Spirit'' and ''Opportunity (rover), Opportunity'', exploring the planet Mars. It began in 2003 with the launch of the two rover (space exploration), rovers to explore the Martian surface and Geology of Mars, geology; both landed on Mars at separate locations in January 2004. Both rovers far outlived their planned missions of 90 Timekeeping on Mars#Sols, Martian solar days: MER-A ''Spirit'' was active until March 22, 2010, while MER-B ''Opportunity'' was active until June 10, 2018. Objectives The mission's scientific objective was to search for and characterize a wide range of rock (geology), rocks and soils that hold clues to past Water on Mars, water activity on Mars. The mission is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, which includes three previous successful landers: the two Viking program landers in 1976 and Mars Pathfinder probe in 1997. The total cost o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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