Cornell's Mars rover operations center takes to the airwaves

By David Brand

Since last August, many of the daily operations controlling the science instruments carried by the two exploration rovers on Mars have been gradually transferred to Cornell's Space Sciences Building from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.

Cornell's Jim Bell appears on NASA TV on Oct. 7, answering questions about the Mars rover mission. NASA/Cornell/JPL

This has involved the return to Ithaca of as many as 15 Cornell researchers, faculty and staff, among them Professor of Astronomy Steve Squyres, who leads the science team for the two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. There are now about 28 people working in the rover operations center at Cornell.

With Squyres and his team members, including Jim Bell, associate professor of astronomy and principal investigator for the rovers' panoramic cameras (Pancams), no longer at one of NASA's media hubs, the space agency is working to "bring" the media to Cornell.

The first evidence of this came on Thursday, Oct. 7, when NASA held its first Mars rover mission telephone press conference from Cornell. Both Squyres and Bell (who was talking from a science museum in Minnesota) fielded questions for well over an hour from some of the nation's leading space and science reporters. The teleconference was particularly timely because the two rovers have emerged from their conjunction behind the sun and resumed their full operations. And even though the rover Spirit has had steering problems, it has still been able to continue its climb into the "Columbia Hills."

Squyres told reporters about the growing evidence of past liquid water in the "Columbia Hills," which Spirit reached after driving about two miles across a plain from its landing site in Gusev crater. "We haven't seen a single unaltered volcanic rock since we crossed the boundary from the plains into the hills, and I'm beginning to suspect we never will," he said. "All the rocks in the hills have been altered significantly by water. We're having a wonderful time trying to work out exactly what happened here." The search for evidence of a "water story" in Martian rocks is vital in providing evidence that life once existed on the planet.

As the two rovers continue to explore the Martian surface, the Cornell-based operations crew is settling in for a long winter. The vehicles already have lasted three times longer than their original "warranty," and as of Oct. 1 NASA extended the mission for another six months.

In the phone conference, JPL Mars rover project manager Jim Erickson talked about the aging problems that are becoming evident in the two vehicles. On Oct. 1, Spirit failed to perform a planned drive. There were indications that the rover was unable to release a dynamic brake on its steering motors on the right front and left rear wheels. "As the vehicles age we may very well see aches and pains beginning to happen here and there. We'll have to learn to deal with the problems as we go," he said.

The rover operations center at Cornell, working closely through Internet connections and Polycom video conferencing with JPL, is responsible for all Pancam data downloads and uploads from and to the rovers: Receiving data, from the rovers' science instruments and cameras, and sending camera instructions to the vehicles for the next Martian day, or sol.

Earlier last Thursday, Bell also appeared on NASA TV answering questions about the Mars mission in interviews taped at Cornell's Fall Creek media studio.