Popular Athena Web site gives an inside look at Mars rover science

By Bill Steele

It's the age of the Web Log, or "blog." You can go on the Web and read the journals of quite ordinary people. Or, you could read a running, first-hand account of the forthcoming mission to Mars from the researcher in charge of the science programs.

Steven Squyres, Cornell professor of astronomy and principal investigator for the Athena science payload on the Mars Rover missions, reports weekly on the progress of the mission on the Athena Web site at http://athena.cornell.edu/.

Athena is the package of scientific instruments that will ride on each of two Mars rover vehicles that NASA plans to deliver to the surface of Mars early next year. The two identical rovers -- one launched June 10 and the other scheduled for launch Saturday, June 28 -- will roam the Martian surface seeking clues to the geological history of the red planet and trying to determine if life ever existed there. The first rover is scheduled to arrive on Mars Jan. 4, 2004.

Smith

The Athena site includes other background material on the Mars missions, but Squyres' journal is the centerpiece. "Everything that's on the Web site supports that weekly update," said Pamela Smith, the Cornell astronomy department staffer who manages the site. "Everything is focused on giving information to the public about Athena."

Squyres' style is informal. "We're flying. Spirit was launched on Tuesday and so far she's behaving beautifully," he wrote after the launch of the first Mars rover on June 10. "It's always a little nerve-racking when you put a new spacecraft out into space for the first time. It's in the environment that it was designed for, of course, so you expect things to go reasonably well. Still, it's not uncommon for problems to pop up, both big and small, when you first get it out there."

He continued: "The good news is that Spirit has been a very sweet little spacecraft so far. The few problems that we have had have been very minor. All in all, we've had about as good a first week in space as you could ever hope for."

The latest week's report appears on the first page as visitors enter the Web site. Usually, Smith said, there's an update every Tuesday. A link at the left of the page leads to an archive of all Squyres' postings since he started the journal in September 1999. Readers can review step-by-step accounts of the assembly and testing of the instruments to be carried by the Mars rovers, punctuated by reports on the success and failure of recent Mars missions.

Squyres started posting his journal, he said, because he wanted people to be aware of all the work that leads up to a space mission. "There's a tendency to hear about these things when they're flying, and you never hear what leads up to it. The whole story doesn't happen just on Mars," he explained in April. "For us, it's already been the adventure of a lifetime, and we haven't even launched yet."

Squyres openly describes the failures along with the successes but mostly talks about the problems that came up and what the team had to do to solve them. "It's been an emotional roller-coaster," he said, adding that he's had e-mail feedback from engineering students, who say they really appreciate the opportunity to see the engineering ups and downs.

"Once we get to Mars and are driving around, I think people will have a better appreciation if they can go back and see what led up to it," he noted.

Elsewhere on the site are background articles on the mission, mostly written by Smith, who is a Cornell alumna and content editor of the site. There are photos and videos of the hardware and a timeline of Mars exploration from 1992 to 2004. A special section for teachers offers lesson plans that suggest using common items, such as muffins, for teaching tools to explain geology. A "Mars for Kids" page features experiments that can be done in the home and a "Special Report," hosted by Cornell alumnus Bill Nye, "The Science Guy." Visitors can post questions for the scientists, some of which are answered in a section called "Way Cool Scientist," which features rotating profiles of Athena team members.

In the first three weeks of June the site received 3 million hits, and Smith expects 6 million total for the month.