MARSBUGS:  
The Electronic Exobiology Newsletter
Volume 4, Number 14, 25 September, 1997.

Editors:

David Thomas, Department of Biological Sciences, University of 
Idaho, Moscow, ID, 83844-3051, USA, thoma457@uidaho.edu or 
Marsbugs@aol.com.

Julian Hiscox, Division of Molecular Biology, IAH Compton 
Laboratory, Berkshire, RG20 7NN, UK.  Julian.Hiscox@bbsrc.ac.uk or 
Marsbug@msn.com

MARSBUGS is published on a weekly to quarterly basis as warranted 
by the number of articles and announcements.  Copyright of this 
compilation exists with the editors, except for specific articles, 
in which instance copyright exists with the author/authors.  E-
mail subscriptions are free, and may be obtained by contacting 
either of the editors.  Contributions are welcome, and should be 
submitted to either of the two editors.  Contributions should 
include a short biographical statement about the author(s) along 
with the author(s)' correspondence address.  Subscribers are 
advised to make appropriate inquiries before joining societies, 
ordering goods etc.  Back issues may be obtained via anonymous FTP 
at:  ftp.uidaho.edu/pub/mmbb/marsbugs.

The purpose of this newsletter is to provide a channel of 
information for scientists, educators and other persons interested 
in exobiology and related fields.  This newsletter is not intended 
to replace peer-reviewed journals, but to supplement them.  We, 
the editors, envision MARSBUGS as a medium in which people can 
informally present ideas for investigation, questions about 
exobiology, and announcements of upcoming events.

Exobiology is still a relatively young field, and new ideas may 
come out of the most unexpected places.  Subjects may include, but 
are not limited to:  exobiology proper (life on other planets), 
the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), ecopoeisis/ 
terraformation, Earth from space, planetary biology, primordial 
evolution, space physiology, biological life support systems, and 
human habitation of space and other planets.

INDEX

1)	MARS PATHFINDER SURPASSES EXPECTATIONS
by Diane Ainsworth and Mark Whalen

2)	MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR LESS THAN 7 WEEKS FROM MARS 
By Mark Whalen

3)	JPL INSTRUMENT SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHED TO MEASURE OCEAN WINDS
JPL Release

4)	INDEPENDENT NASA SATELLITE MEASUREMENTS CONFIRM EL NINO IS 
BACK AND STRONG
NASA release 97-200

5)	HAZARDOUS ASTEROIDS DESCRIBED
From the "JPL Universe"

6)	MCGILL SCIENTIST AND CANADIAN SPACE AGENCY FIND SOLUTIONS FOR 
MOTION-SICK SPACE TRAVELLERS
Canadian Space Agency release

7)	MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR MISSION SET TO BEGIN ORBITING ON SEPT. 
11
University of Colorado-Boulder release

8)	LOCAL STUDENT RESEARCHERS TO SURVEY MARTIAN ATMOSPHERE
NASA release 97-109

9)	PROFESSOR SENDS MARTIAN METEORITE BACK TO HOME PLANET
Arizona State University release

10)	MARS SURVEY CRAFT NEARS ITS DESTINATION
By Sarah H. Wright

11)	ASU SPECTROMETER DATA PROVIDES COMPARISON OF EARTH AND MARS
Arizona State University release

12)	HUBBLE WATCHES THE RED PLANET AS MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR BEGINS 
AEROBRAKING
NASA release

13)	MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR DETECTS MARTIAN MAGNETIC FIELD AS 
AEROBRAKING BEGINS
NASA release 97-204

14)	MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR FLIGHT STATUS REPORTS
JPL releases

15)	MARS PATHFINDER MISSION STATUS REPORTS
JPL releases

16)	4TH INTERNATIONAL LUNAR AND MARS EXPLORATION CONFERENCE 
NSS release

17)	SCIENCE AND ADVENTURE CRUISE SERIES


MARS PATHFINDER SURPASSES EXPECTATIONS
by Diane Ainsworth and Mark Whalen
From the "JPL Universe"

July 25, 1997

It keeps going and going and going

That familiar slogan associated with the pink Energizer Bunny was 
one of the many ways the Mars Pathfinder rover Sojourner was 
described at a press briefing this week, three weeks after the 
mission's historic July 4 landing in an ancient outflow channel 
known as Ares Vallis.

In fact, the Mars Pathfinder rover and lander have surpassed the 
flight team's greatest expectations.  With a primary lifetime of 
seven days, the rover continues to operate nearly flawlessly, 
traversing short distances to specific rocks each day, making 
measurements of their composition, then turning to head for the 
next rock a few meters away.  Although it is hard to predict how 
long the rover will last, the flight team thinks the hearty robot 
could last much longer.

Data from the lander camera--affectionately called the "IMP," for 
Imager for Mars Pathfinder--and several other experiments continue 
to be returned in record volume.  During the last week, more than 
300 megabits of data were returned, said Pathfinder Project 
Scientist Dr. Matthew Golombek.

(As a point of reference, 300 megabits is approximately equal to 
37.5 megabytes, exceeding that of a computer with 32 megabytes of 
memory.  It's roughly equivalent to more than 18,000 typewritten 
pages.)  Meanwhile, science data are beginning to reveal more 
about weather and dust patterns on Mars, the magnetic 
characteristics of Martian soil and the origin and composition of 
rocks in Ares Vallis.

Rover surface operations were officially under way after Sojourner 
safely crawled off its ramp on July 5.  Within three days of its 
exit, the rover had placed its spectrometer on Barnacle Bill, the 
first rock ever to be analyzed on the surface of another planet.

The rock turned out to be unusually rich in silicon, which puts 
Barnacle Bill in one of the most common categories of volcanic 
rocks on Earth, known as "andesites," said Dr. Rudolph Rieder of 
Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, who is principal 
investigator on the Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) team.  
This was completely unexpected for Mars, as high silica rocks 
require differentiation beyond that expected in primitive planets.

Weather on Mars has become the topic of another team's studies.  
Using data from the Atmospheric Science Instrument/Meteorology 
Package (ASI/MET), the weather team led by Dr. John "Tim" 
Schofield has reported each day's weather forecast.  Because it is 
currently summer in Mars' northern hemisphere, the variations are 
minimal (for Mars).  Generally, the temperatures are dropping to 
about -73 degrees Celsius (-100 degrees Fahrenheit), while rising 
to approximately -15 to -13 degrees Celsius (5 to 8 degrees 
Fahrenheit) during the day, similar to the temperatures recorded 
by the Viking landers of the mid-1970s.

"Future astronauts on Mars won't have much to talk about as far as 
weather goes," said Dr. Julio Magalhaes, a member of the ASI/MET 
team from NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif.  
"Northern summer in the subtropics on Mars is pretty much the same 
from day to day.  Fifty or 60 days from now, we'll start to see 
dramatic changes with fall," said Dr. Jeffrey Barnes of Oregon 
State University, who is a member of the
atmospheric/meteorological experiment.  The winds are fairly weak, 
blowing up to about 26 kilometers per hour (16 mph) during the 
day.  However, scientists expect the winds to increase and begin 
kicking up dust as the Martian fall approaches this September.

Atmospheric opacity--or how clear the sky is, according to 
Pathfinder's atmospheric experiment--showed that Mars is 
moderately dusty up to about 40 kilometers (25 miles) above the 
surface.  The dust appears to be uniformly distributed, and is 
expected to rise as Mars approaches its dusty season in the fall, 
Barnes said.  The visibility on Mars was estimated to be about 32 
kilometers (20 miles) or more, roughly equivalent to a moderately 
smoggy day in Los Angeles.

Worldwide interest in the mission has peaked with all of the new 
science being reported.  On July 22, more than 400 million hits 
had been reported on the 20 Pathfinder mirror sites built 
specially for the mission.  Kirk Goodall, Mars Pathfinder Web 
engineer, along with David Dubov, Mars Pathfinder Webmaster, 
reported the most hits ever recorded in a day on a Web site--46 
million--which occurred on July 8.

"That's more than double the number of hits received in a single 
day during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta," Goodall said.

"The Mars landing has excited and inspired the public like very 
few activities today," Mission Manager Richard Cook noted.  "It 
shows the rest of the world that we can achieve a technological 
marvel like this."

Speaking of technologies, another popular science tool being used 
in this mission is three-dimensional modeling, which recreates the 
surface of Mars based on stereo images of the planet's surface.  
Three-D modeling has been useful in visualizing otherwise 
unnoticed geologic features, such as the overhang on the back side 
of a large boulder named Yogi.  Dr. Carol Stoker, a participating 
scientist from Ames, said the images were shipped to Ames, where 
they were processed and later returned to JPL.  The 3-D imagery 
was also used to measure distances and sizes of objects.

One of the few problems encountered by the flight team so far was 
a communications glitch, which occurred over the July 19- 20 
weekend.  The problem was associated with ground operations, 
rather than with faulty hardware on the spacecraft, Cook explained 
during a recent briefing.

Unlike on other deep space missions, the DSN is required to 
reconfigure its equipment and software on a daily basis and to 
establish the communications links only during short periods of 
time when the lander's transmitter is on.  By the middle of this 
week, the team felt confident that the problem was fully 
understood and would not interrupt surface operations.

Other recent science studies include soil abrasion experiments 
performed by Sojourner's wheel tracks, asking it to perform soil 
abrasion experiments and measuring the material properties of the 
dust and soil by interacting with it by the rover.  Dr. Henry 
Moore, a rover scientist with the U.S.  Geological Survey in Menlo 
Park, Calif., likened the Martian soil to a very fine-grained silt 
that could be found in Nebraska, finer than talcum powder.

Dr. Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, who is principal 
investigator of the lander camera, described more about the 
Martian landscape, pointing out a shallow riverbed crossing 
through the landing site and rocks in the distance that were 
washed into this outflow channel from the Martian highlands.

Science activities for July 23 were set to take the rover through 
the "cabbage patch," an area of soil and small rocks in between 
Scooby Doo and the rock named Lamb.  The rover will conduct a soil 
experiment, then turn and move toward Lamb.  Scientists will take 
measurements of the dark soil near that rock before moving on 
towards the rocks Cradle and Souffle.

For the latest mission updates, check Pathfinder's Web site at 
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/marsnews.  An audio update on Pathfinder's 
status can be heard by calling (800) 391-6654.

MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR LESS THAN 7 WEEKS FROM MARS 
By Mark Whalen

As Pathfinder continues its mission on the surface of Mars, 
another JPL spacecraft is on course for its rendezvous with the 
red planet.

Mars Global Surveyor--an orbiter that will study the planet's 
early history, geology and climate--is now less than seven weeks 
from Mars orbit insertion, and mission planners have been busy 
rehearsing the spacecraft's aerobraking maneuvers and other key 
mission activities.

During aerobraking the spacecraft skims the Martian atmosphere in 
order to reduce its velocity.  Using this technique, MGS is able 
to reach a near-circular mapping orbit with a minimum fuel budget.  
The four-month aerobraking activities will begin with the 
spacecraft traveling in a 45-hour orbit of Mars and will gradually 
scale down to a two-hour orbit to prepare for mapping operations 
starting next March.  At that point, MGS will be at an average of 
378 kilometers (235 miles) above the planet's surface.

A July 9-10 operations readiness test (ORT), one in a series of 
recent practice runs designed to prepare the project for the 
beginning of its operations at Mars on Sept.  11, covered the time 
when the spacecraft's orbital period will be 24 hours on Oct.  27.  
This readiness test included the flight team at JPL, support staff 
from the Telecommunications and Mission Operations Directorate and 
the MGS Lockheed Martin spacecraft team in Denver, according to 
Joe Beerer, MGS flight operations manager.

Also this month, a live simulation of telecommunications 
procedures was conducted with the spacecraft and the Deep Space 
Network's tracking stations in Madrid, Spain and Goldstone, Calif.

"With the practice we've gotten from the ORTs, and the fact that 
we will start aerobraking in 45-hour orbits--and will gradually 
work our way down to short orbits--I think we have a system that 
will minimize the risks to the spacecraft and the mission," Beerer 
said.

"The key event for aerobraking is the drag pass at periapsis, when 
the spacecraft is in the atmosphere for 6 to 16 minutes," he 
added.  Periapsis is the point in the orbit closest to the planet.

Due to an anomaly after launch that left one of the spacecraft's 
two solar panels tilted about 20 degrees out of alignment, mission 
planners have reconfigured the panels to ensure that they stay 
fixed in a stable aerodynamic configuration during the drag pass.

"An onboard sequence turns the spacecraft to the drag attitude," 
Beerer noted.  "When we are in the aerobraking phase of the 
mission, the spacecraft is really ping-ponging back and forth 
between different attitudes:  drag attitude, maneuver attitude and 
Earth communications attitude."

When maneuvers are performed at apoapsis--the point at which the 
spacecraft is farthest from Mars--controllers must point the 
engine either in a velocity or anti-velocity direction, depending 
on the need to increase or decrease velocity.  "The apoapsis 
velocity change is what determiness the altitude at which we go 
through periapsis," Beerer said.

One of the things that makes aerobraking so difficult is that the 
atmosphere can change, from orbit to orbit, due to Mars' weather.  
To help assess atmospheric conditions, an MGS atmospheric advisory 
group will use data collected from the MGS spacecraft--as well as 
some to be provided by Mars Pathfinder --	to help the project 
manage the aerobraking events.  Beerer also noted that the MGS 
thermal emission spectrometer, onboard for the mapping mission, 
will be used during aerobraking to measure Mars' atmospheric 
temperatures, which are indicators of density variations.

"We expect dust storms to be brewing about a month into our 
aerobraking activities, in October," he said, referring to 
localized dust storms imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope in 
June.

"These storms probably won't affect us that much, but sometimes 
local storms expand and develop into global dust storms.  Global 
storms produce increased atmospheric densities at aerobraking 
altitudes, at 90 to 110 kilometers."

Atmospheric models have shown mission controllers that the density 
of the Martian atmosphere can double in a 24-hour period.  The MGS 
mission design can accommodate doubling of the atmosphere, "but we 
need to be able to respond to that," Beerer said.  "If it doubles 
the first day, then doubles again the second day, we're in 
trouble.  We have to be ready to move up to lighter density 
regions if the atmospheric advisory group tells us that a dust 
storm is growing."

Flying in a region where the density is too high, causing too much 
friction could cause the overheating associated with dust storms.  
Though MGS instruments could be susceptible to overheating, the 
solar panels--which provide the spacecraft's primary drag surface
are even more sensitive to it.

Beerer underscored the importance of preparation for the MGS team, 
noting that "We're on a fine line between being too deep in the 
atmosphere--where we have the threat of overheating-- and being 
too high, where we're not getting enough drag."

In that case, he said, the orbit won't decrease rapidly enough.  
The spacecraft needs to be down to about a two-hour orbit period 
around the middle of January, with a science requirement to have 
the spacecraft crossing the Martian equator at 2 p.m.  local solar 
time every orbit.

As Universe went to press July 24, the project was scheduled to 
conduct another ORT for the 2 1/2-hour aerobraking orbit, which 
will occur in late December.

"The MGS flight team will be ready for aerobraking operations when 
the spacecraft arrives at Mars in September," Beerer said.  "We 
look forward to continuing the adventure that Pathfinder has so 
successfully begun."

JPL INSTRUMENT SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHED TO MEASURE OCEAN WINDS
JPL Release

Japan's Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS) carrying a JPL 
instrument designed to measure global ocean surface winds was 
launched from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan at 6:53 Pacific 
time tonight.

Launched on a Japanese H-II rocket and destined for a 800- 
kilometer (497-mile) high circular orbit above the Earth, ADEOS is 
due to begin day-to-day science operations in November.

The JPL-built NASA Scatterometer will make 190,000 measurements 
per day of the speed and direction of winds within about 3 
centimeters (1.5 inches) of the ocean surface.  These winds 
directly affect the turbulent exchanges of heat, moisture and 
greenhouse gases between the atmosphere and the ocean.  These air-
sea exchanges, in turn, help determine regional weather patterns 
and shape global climate.

NSCAT has been developed under NASA's strategic enterprise called 
Mission to Planet Earth, a comprehensive research effort to study 
Earth's land, oceans, atmosphere, ice and life as an interrelated 
system.  JPL manages the NSCAT instrument for NASA.

INDEPENDENT NASA SATELLITE MEASUREMENTS CONFIRM EL NINO IS BACK 
AND STRONG
NASA release 97-200

Pacific Ocean sea-surface height measurements and atmospheric 
water vapor information taken from two independent Earth-orbiting 
satellites are providing more convincing evidence that the 
weather-disrupting phenomenon known as El Nino is back and strong.

"The new data collected since April 1997 confirm what we had 
earlier speculated upon and what the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has predicted--a full-blown El 
Nino condition is established in the Pacific," said
Dr. Lee-Lueng Fu, project scientist for the U.S./French satellite 
TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory 
(JPL), Pasadena, CA.

The five years of global ocean topography observations made by 
TOPEX/POSEIDON have been a boon for El Nino researchers, who have 
been able to track three El Nino events since the satellite's 
launch in August 1992.

"The recent data are showing us that a large warm water mass with 
high sea-surface elevations, about six inches (15 centimeters) 
above normal, is occupying the entire tropical Pacific Ocean east 
of the international date line.  In fact, the surface area covered 
by the warm water mass is about one-and-a- half times the size of 
the continental United States," Fu said.  "We watched this warm 
water mass travel eastward from the western Pacific along the 
equator earlier this spring.  Right now, sea- surface height off 
the South American coast is 10 inches (25 centimeters) higher than 
normal, which is comparable with the conditions during the so-
called 'El Nino of the century' in 1982-83."

In addition, recent atmospheric water vapor data collected from 
NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) show tell- tale 
signs of an El Nino condition in the tropical Pacific Ocean.

"The Microwave Limb Sounder experiment on UARS is detecting an 
unusually large build-up of water vapor in the atmosphere at 
heights of approximately eight miles (12 kilometers) over the 
central-eastern tropical Pacific.  Not since the last strong El 
Nino winter of 1991-92 have we seen such a large build- up of 
water vapor in this part of the atmosphere," said JPL's Dr. 
William Read.  "Increased water vapor at these heights can be 
associated with more intense wintertime storm activity from the 
'pineapple express,' a pattern of atmospheric motions that brings 
tropical moisture from Hawaii to the southwestern United States.  
This phenomenon is an example of how the ocean and atmosphere work 
together to dictate the severity of El Nino events."

An El Nino is thought to be triggered when steady westward blowing 
trade winds weaken and even reverse direction.  This change in the 
winds allows the large mass of warm water that is normally located 
near Australia to move eastward along the equator until it reaches 
the coast of South America.  This displaced pool of unusually warm 
water affects evaporation, where rain clouds form and, 
consequently, alters the typical atmospheric jet stream patterns 
around the world.  The change in the wind strength and direction 
also impacts global weather patterns.

In May, NOAA issued an advisory regarding the presence of the 
early indications of El Nino conditions.  Subsequent El Nino 
forecast activities supported by NOAA indicate the likelihood of a 
moderate or strong El Nino in late 1997.  The forecast model 
operated at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Prediction 
used data collected by the TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite.

"The added amount of oceanic warm water near the Americas, with a 
temperature between 70-85 degrees Fahrenheit, is about 30 times 
the volume of water in all the U.S.  Great Lakes combined," said 
Dr. Victor Zlotnicki, a TOPEX/POSEIDON investigator at JPL.  "The 
difference between the current, abnormally high amount of heat in 
the near-surface waters and the usual amount of heat in the same 
area is about 93 times the total energy from fossil fuels consumed 
by the United States in 1995."

On-going NOAA advisories on El Nino conditions are available on 
the Internet at the following URL:

http://nic.fb4.noaa.gov:80/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/
index.html

The climatic event has been given the name El Nino, a Spanish term 
for a "boy child," because the warm current first appeared off the 
coast of South America around Christmas.  Past El Nino events have 
often caused unusually heavy rain and flooding in California, 
unseasonably mild winters in the Eastern United States and severe 
droughts in Australia, Africa and Indonesia.  Better predictions 
of extreme climate episodes like floods and droughts could save 
the United States billions of dollars in damage costs.  El Nino 
episodes usually occur approximately every two to seven years.

Developed by NASA and the French Centre National d'Etudes 
Spatiales (CNES), the TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite uses an altimeter 
to bounce radar signals off the ocean's surface to get precise 
measurements of the distance between the satellite and the sea 
surface.  These data are combined with measurements from other 
instruments that pinpoint the satellite's exact location in space.  
Every ten days, scientists produce a complete map of global ocean 
topography, the barely perceptible hills and valleys found on the 
sea surface.  With detailed knowledge of ocean topography, 
scientists can then calculate the speed and direction of worldwide 
ocean currents.

The Microwave Limb Sounder instrument was originally designed to 
study atmospheric ozone depletion, but scientists have devised new 
ways of using the data to study atmospheric water vapor.  The 
Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite is completing its sixth year 
of operation after being designed for only a two-year mission, and 
is conducting an extended mission of longer-term global 
monitoring.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California 
Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, manages the TOPEX/POSEIDON 
mission and the MLS instrument for NASA's Mission to Planet Earth 
enterprise, Washington, DC.  The UARS satellite is managed by 
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD.

NASA's Mission to Planet Earth is a long-term science research 
program designed to study the Earth's land, oceans, air, ice and 
life as a total system.

HAZARDOUS ASTEROIDS DESCRIBED
From the "JPL Universe"

August 8, 1997

JPL scientists have found four asteroids that are big enough and 
close enough to threaten Earth at some point in the future, 
according to planetary astronomer Dr. Eleanor Helin.

Helin emphasized that none of the asteroids poses an immediate 
threat.  However, she said that because these objects are all at 
least 1 kilometer in diameter (more than half a mile) and can pass 
within 8 million kilometers (5 million miles) of Earth, they are 
considered a potential danger.  A total of 99 asteroids are known 
to fall into this hazardous category.

The four newly discovered asteroids make up a very small 
percentage of the more than 5,000 asteroids identified last year 
by the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking system (NEAT).  NEAT, which 
uses a U.S.  Air Force satellite-tracking telescope in Maui, HI, 
atop Mount Haleakala, has so far covered only a small fraction of 
the sky.  Helin said the system has been upgraded, using shorter 
exposures and faster readouts, in order to enhance tracking 
capabilities.

"We are attempting to streamline our detection process so we can 
accumulate more sky coverage," Helin said." She presented the 
latest findings at the meeting of the American Astronomical 
Society's Division of Planetary Science in Boston, MA.

"The new system is working very well," said NEAT Project Manager 
Dr. Steven Pravdo.  "In fact, with the upgrade, we've doubled or 
tripled our sky coverage."

MCGILL SCIENTIST AND CANADIAN SPACE AGENCY FIND SOLUTIONS FOR 
MOTION-SICK SPACE TRAVELLERS
Canadian Space Agency release

21 August 1997

Dr. Doug Watt, researcher at McGill University, and Canadian Space 
Agency (CSA) announced today that they have potential solutions to 
prevent astronauts from suffering from motion sickness in space, 
as do almost half.  Dr. Doug Watt worked with four astronauts 
during the Life and Microgravity Spacelab (LMS) shuttle mission in 
July 1996.  CSA astronaut Dr. Bob Thirsk was leading this study 
called Torso Rotation Experiment (TRE) during the 17-day Spacelab 
mission.

"We found that in the weightlessness of space, astronauts tend to 
avoid turning their heads, instead treating their eyes, neck and 
torso as one unit," explains Watt.  "In short, the result is that 
this movement turns off the body's normal navigational system for 
long periods--and they become disoriented and nauseated.  It's a 
very similar phenomenon to what happens to people who read in 
cars."

The good news is that as a result of the TRE study, astronauts may 
now be easily trained to avoid these movements or may perform pre-
mission exercises, which could be as simple as reading on a bus 
for 30 minutes every day for a week.  In fact, Watt's earlier 
research revealed that the occasional practice of this very 
exercise will give most people immunity from motion sickness.

These findings are among dozens to be presented at the NASA LMS 
One-year Science Review, the first shuttle mission science review 
to take place in Canada.  It is being hosted at the CSA in St-
Hubert on August 20 and August 21.

For a backgrounder on the TRE experiment or more information on 
the One-Year LMS Review, please contact:

Isabelle Hudon	Dr Doug Watt
Media Relations, CSA McGill University
(514) 926-4355	(514) 398-6025
www.space.gc.ca
[Or direct from http://www.science.sp-agency.ca/sls/tre-e.html]

For further information:  Isabelle Hudon, Media Relations, CSA, 
(514) 926-4355, www.space.qc.ca or Dr. Doug Watt, McGill 
University, (514) 398-6025

MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR MISSION SET TO BEGIN ORBITING ON SEPT. 11
University of Colorado-Boulder release

2 September 1997

For researchers like the University of Colorado at Boulder's Bruce 
Jakosky who are involved in NASA's unmanned Mars Global Surveyor 
mission slated to enter planetary orbit Sept.  11, patience is a 
virtue.

Unlike Mars Pathfinder mission team members--who achieved their 
science objectives during the first week of operation--the MGS 
team will spend nearly two years collecting data as the spacecraft 
methodically maps the planet's surface and atmosphere.  For the 
first six months of the mission, the craft will shift from a 
large, elliptical orbit to a low-altitude, circular orbit using a 
technique known as aerobraking, which relies on the drag of a 
planet's atmosphere rather than fuel-powered engines to trim the 
spacecraft's path around around a planet.

In mid-March, when the spacecraft is orbiting Mars every two hours 
at an altitude of about 235 miles, a suite of instruments will 
begin taking data to develop a global portrait of Mars' 
topography, mineral composition, atmosphere and interior.  After 
the project is completed in one Mars year--the equivalent of 
roughly two Earth years--scientists should be able to assemble the 
most sophisticated map yet of the planet's dynamic surface and 
atmosphere through each of the Martian seasons.

"Compared to Pathfinder, The Mars Global Surveyor mission will be 
a long, drawn-out affair," said Jakosky, a research associate at 
CU-Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics who is 
serving as an interdisciplinary scientist for the MGS effort.  
"But this mission has the potential to completely revolutionize 
our understanding of Mars." Managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory in Pasadena, the MGS spacecraft is carrying six 
instruments to study the planet's surface, atmosphere, and 
gravitational and magnetic fields.  They include a high- 
resolution camera, a thermal-emissions spectrometer, a laser 
altimeter, a magnetometer, a radio science experiment and a 
communications relay instrument.

For Jakosky and CU-Boulder postdoctoral research associate Michael 
Mellon, the mission should provide new insights into the seasonal 
water cycles of the planet.  Data from the thermal-emissions 
spectrometer should help the researchers estimate the amounts and 
location of water in the atmosphere and the sources and sinks of 
water on and below the planet's surface, including the polar caps.  
"Water is the centerpiece of the Mars exploration program," said 
Jakosky, also an associate professor in CU- Boulder's geological 
sciences department.

Although Mars is now a cold, dry planet, portions of the terrain 
show the remnants of large flood channels that resemble 
catastrophic flood channels seen on Earth today.  "These flood 
channels suggest that there is still lots of water beneath the 
surface," he said.  "How much remains today and where the rest has 
gone over time is still the subject of vigorous debate."

Geologic evidence indicates significant volcanic activity occurred 
on Mars early in its history, and there is some evidence that 
occasional volcanic eruptions may even occur on Mars today, 
Jakosky said.  Heat from underground magma created by volcanic 
activity on the planet could conceivably fuel hot springs like 
those on Earth, which have been shown to harbor primitive forms of 
life.

The author of a book slated for publication next year by Cambridge 
University Press titled "The Search for Life on Other Planets," 
Jakosky believes it is possible that primitive life forms may 
exist today on Mars.  Jakosky is one of about 50 science team 
members on the MGS mission.  He worked as a graduate student at 
the California Institute of Technology on NASA's unmanned Viking 
missions to Mars in the 1970s and was one of 12 senior scientists 
for the unmanned Mars Observer mission believed to have exploded 
as it was approaching orbit insertion at the Red Planet in 1993.  
"Any space exploration is risky," he said.  "But we learned a lot 
from the Mars Observer experience, and I am optimistic about this 
mission."

Following the completion of the mapping project in late January 
2000, the MGS spacecraft will be used as a communications 
satellite to relay data back to Earth from surface landers 
launched to the Red Planet as part of future NASA missions.

LOCAL STUDENT RESEARCHERS TO SURVEY MARTIAN ATMOSPHERE
NASA release 97-109

As the Mars Global Surveyor repeatedly dips into the Martian 
atmosphere to slow itself down, graduate students from the George 
Washington University Joint Institute for Advancement of Flight 
Sciences (JIAFS) at NASA Langley will gather unique data on the 
vertical structure of the planet's upper atmosphere.

The JIAFS graduate students will monitor near real-time data 
coming from one of Surveyor's accelerometers.  The accelerometer 
will measure changes in the speed of the Surveyor spacecraft 
caused by changes in the density of the Martian atmosphere.  The 
JIAFS students will use these measurements to determine the 
vertical structure of Mars' upper atmosphere.  Dr. Gerald Keating, 
the principal investigator of the JIAFS project said, "The 
[Surveyor] accelerometer experiment will provide the first orbiter 
accelerometer measurements of any planetary atmosphere.  Hundreds 
of vertical structure measurements will be obtained compared to 
only three in the past (two from the Viking missions and one from 
the recent Pathfinder mission--all planetary probes)."

Less than a week after Surveyor reaches Mars, the spacecraft will 
begin to use the Martian atmosphere to slow down in a process 
called "aerobraking" (using the friction of the atmosphere flowing 
past a spacecraft to slow the craft down).  The aerobraking 
(deceleration) phase of the Surveyor spacecraft will lower it into 
a nearly circular mapping orbit over the poles of Mars.

The aerobraking technique is an innovative method of braking which 
allows a spacecraft to carry less fuel to a planet and take 
advantage of a planet's atmospheric drag to descend into a low-
altitude orbit.  Carrying less fuel also enables a spacecraft to 
carry more scientific instrumentation.

In addition to the atmospheric studies, Surveyor mission engineers 
will use results from the accelerometer data analyzed by the JIAFS 
students to determine how well the aerobraking is working and to 
make adjustments to the spacecraft's aerobraking orbit.  Because 
the Surveyor spacecraft will be near its aerodynamic heating 
limits throughout much of the four-month aerobraking procedure, 
the accelerometer data is crucial.

Interviews, images, video b-roll (including animation) and on-site 
tours of the JIAFS facility at NASA Langley are available.

PROFESSOR SENDS MARTIAN METEORITE BACK TO HOME PLANET
Arizona State University release

9 September 1997

NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft is taking a small piece of 
the Zagami meteorite back to Mars after a visit of only 34 years 
on Earth.  The Zagami meteorite started off as a volcanic rock 
that cooled on the Martian surface about a billion years ago.  The 
rock was flung into space after a comet or an asteroid slammed 
into Mars about 2.5 million years ago.

Following a long journey through the inner solar system, the 
meteorite fell to Earth in Zagami, Nigeria, in 1962.  The return 
trip began Nov.  7 of last year with Surveyor's launch from Cape 
Canaveral, Fla.  The Mars Global Surveyor will begin orbiting Mars 
on September 11.

ASU geology Professor Philip Christensen used his own funds to buy 
a small piece of the meteorite from a private collector to conduct 
tests for his thermal emission spectrometer.  TES, which will map 
the surface minerals of Mars, is one of Mars Global Surveyor's 
seven instruments.

Christensen chipped a sand grain from the greenish-white meteorite 
and attached it to a plaque on the instrument last summer.  His 
motivation:  to commemorate the accomplishments of space 
scientists and engineers.

"This tiny fragment of Mars represents the culmination of science 
and engineering capability never before seen on this planet," he 
said.

The grain was encapsulated in a resin bubble attached to the TES 
signature plaque.  The resin containing the sand grain was molded 
into a specially designed niche on the plaque to ensure it could 
not break loose during the flight to Mars.

For hundreds of years, geologists and atmospheric scientists have 
worked to understand the composition of rocks and gases on Earth.  
The work has enabled researchers to develop powerful theories 
explaining Earth's origin and history.  In the past 25 years, 
planetary scientists also have studied similar data from 
spacecraft sent to Mars to learn how it differs from Earth in 
composition and origin.

"As a result of these achievements, we now, for the first time in 
our history, know enough about our planet and the solar system we 
live in to be able to recognize rocks that did not originate on 
the Earth," Christensen said.  "We are now able to identify a 
class of meteorites that came from Mars.  The engineering 
capability of the human race has also reached a spectacular level
to the point where we can send multiple, complementary spacecraft 
from our planet to explore Mars."

During its 2-year mission, Mars Global Surveyor will create a 
global portrait of Mars, setting the stage for the success of all 
future landers.  Through the Zagami meteorite attached to TES, 
Christensen also sees it as a reminder of the past.

"This sand grain is a symbol of the achievements of all the 
scientists and engineers who have worked to develop the 
understanding, insight, and technical capability to make this 
first ever interplanetary 'sample return mission' a reality," 
Christensen said.

MARS SURVEY CRAFT NEARS ITS DESTINATION
By Sarah H. Wright
MIT News Office

10 September 1997

This week, the winged Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) puts on the 
brakes--the aerobrakes, that is--and Maria Zuber, professor of 
planetary science in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and 
Planetary Sciences, revs up.

Professor Zuber will spend this week at NASA's Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, then fly to the Goddard Spacecraft 
Center to watch as MGS begins six months of aerobraking, a 
technique that "drags" the spacecraft into a sedate, polar, 
circular orbit around Mars similar to the way the wind drags on a 
hand that's stuck out a car window.  Preceding the drag is a 25-
minute "burn," which slows the spacecraft and allows the red 
planet's gravity to "capture" it.  The initial orbit, which is 
highly elliptical, will take about 48 hours to complete.  
Professor Zuber will watch as the spacecraft gets through one 
orbit.

The general goal of the MGS mission, launched last November, is to 
provide complete, accurate mapping of Mars, with a view to precise 
future Mars landings, including those to search for signs of life.

Professor Zuber, a geophysicist whose research deals with the 
structure and evolution of the surfaces and interiors of the 
terrestrial planets, is deputy principal investigator on the 
science team for the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, or MOLA, which 
the Global Surveyor is carrying.  The role of MOLA is to gather 
data via lasers that will enable scientists to calculate the 
height of surface features on Mars.

MIT Professor Emeritus Gordon Pettengill, a co-investigator on the 
experiment, is leading the effort to determine cloud heights on 
Mars.

"Mars has a lot to tell us about the greenhouse effect and about 
climate change," said Professor Zuber.  "And then there is the 
possibility of life.  We don't know if Mars developed life, and if 
it did, why it failed.  Understanding what happened on Mars may 
well have implications for understanding the origin of life."

Once MGS settles into its circular mapping orbit, 378 kilometers 
above the surface of Mars, it begins 687 days (1 Mars year) of 
data collection.  Mars and Earth shared similar conditions 
billions of years ago, and a comparison of the planets will allow 
scientists to learn more about Earth's history and possibly its 
future.  Mars Global Surveyor will make a global reconnaissance of 
Mars and watch for daily and seasonal changes.  The collective 
data sets will give a picture of the way Mars works.

The instruments on board MGS will also do the "all-important 
global science survey that will dictate where future landers 
should be targeted to look for life.  It will allow the best sites 
to be identified--those most likely to have held past life," said 
Professor Zuber.

The science payload on board MGS includes a magnetometer, an 
electron reflectometer, the Mars orbital camera, a thermal 
emission spectometer, a Mars relay radio system and radio science 
investigation, which will measure changes in spacecraft radio 
signals.

MOLA, which resembles a pigeon-toed washing machine, will sample 
Mars' topography profile 10 times per second.  The topography from 
MOLA combined with gravity from the radio science experiment will 
provide the internal density structure of the planet, including 
information on the nature of the core.  This information is 
critical to understanding the heat lost from the planet over time, 
which controls the surface geology and affects the climate.

MOLA's method of mapping Mars is based in laser technology 
originally developed for the Strategic Defense Initiative or "star 
wars" program.  With its 40-centimeter (15-inch) height precision, 
the instrument is the most precise laser ranging instrument that 
has been flown in space.

As the MGS spacecraft flies above hills, valleys, craters and 
other surface features, its altitude will constantly change.  A 
combination of MOLA data with images from the camera will allow 
scientists to construct a detailed topographical atlas of the 
planet.  Such maps will help in the understanding of the 
geological forces that shaped Mars, and may even be able to 
measure the waxing and waning of the polar caps over the course of 
the Martian year.  It will also provide information about the 
structure of the atmosphere by measuring the heights of dense 
clouds such as are being observed by the Pathfinder mission 
currently taking measurements on the Martian surface.

The altitude determination process works by measuring the time 
that a pulse of light takes to leave the spacecraft, reflect off 
the ground and return to MOLA's collecting mirror.  By multiplying 
the reflection time by the speed of light, scientists will be able 
to calculate Surveyor's altitude above the local terrain.

ASU SPECTROMETER DATA PROVIDES COMPARISON OF EARTH AND MARS
Arizona State University release

11 September 1997

Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) 
isn't taking a mere joyride on board the Mars Global Surveyor, 
presently speeding toward Mars at the rate of 240,000 kilometers 
per day.

TES has discovered evidence of life on a planet in our solar 
system.  TES also revealed that a second planet is much less 
hospitable to life.  The first planet is Earth, the other Mars.

During the flight to Mars, the spacecraft's computer activated the 
Thermal Emission Spectrometer to transmit flight software 
modifications, aimed it at Mars and recorded an infrared scan of 
the planet from a distance of 3.3 million miles.

Earlier in the journey--17 days after the Nov.  7, 1996 launch--
the TES conducted an infrared scan of Earth from a distance of 3 
million miles.

ASU geology professor Philip Christensen, principal scientist for 
the Thermal Emission Spectrometer, said the Earth spectrum 
revealed "a thick carbon dioxide atmosphere, a lot of ozone, and a 
tremendous amount of water vapor."

It confirmed the presence of ingredients necessary for life that 
are present within Earth's atmosphere.

After receiving data on the Mars spectrum, Christensen charted a 
comparison graph of the spectrums for the two planets and found 
striking contrasts.

The spectrum graph of Mars indicates the presence of a thin 
atmosphere mostly consisting of carbon dioxide.  The density of 
air at the martian surface is thinner than the air at 100,000 feet 
of elevation above Earth.

Christensen pointed out that at 3.3 million miles, the Red Planet 
appeared to TES as only a small dot and the early data on the 
martian atmosphere is only a harbinger of the more highly detailed 
data to follow in upcoming months.

Additional infrared scans of the planet will help scientists 
determine its general mineral composition, and scans of the Mars 
atmosphere will provide data for the study of clouds, weather and 
polar ice caps.

Mars Global Surveyor will enter Mars orbit Sept.  11.  The 
satellite will then begin an aerobraking sequence that will 
tighten up the orbit over a four-month period and lower it to 
within 250 miles of the surface of Mars.  Mapping will begin in 
March 1998 and conclude in January 2000.

After the end of surveying in 2000, the satellite will function as 
a communications relay for surface landers in future Mars 
missions.

Mars Global Surveyor is operated by the NASA Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.  It was built by Lockheed-Martin.  
TES was built by Hughes Santa Barbara Remote Sensing.

CHECKOUT THE LATEST MARS PATHFINDER ROVER IMAGES OF THE ROCKS HALF 
DOME AND MOE
Provided by Ron Baalke, JPL

http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/default.html

HUBBLE WATCHES THE RED PLANET AS MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR BEGINS 
AEROBRAKING
NASA release

17 September 1997

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope picture of Mars was taken on 
Sept.  12, one day after the arrival of the Mars Global Surveyor 
(MGS) spacecraft and only five hours before the beginning of 
autumn in the Martian northern hemisphere.  (Mars is tilted on its 
axis like Earth, so it has similar seasonal changes, including an 
autumnal equinox when the Sun crosses Mars' equator from the 
northern to the southern hemisphere).

This Hubble picture was taken in support of the MGS mission.  
Hubble is monitoring the Martian weather conditions during the 
early phases of MGS aerobraking; in particular, the detection of 
large dust storms are important inputs into the atmospheric models 
used by the MGS mission to plan aerobraking operations.

Though a dusty haze fills the giant Hellas impact basin south of 
the dark fin-shaped feature Syrtis Major, the dust appears to be 
localized within Hellas.  Unless the region covered expands 
significantly, the dust will not be of concern for MGS 
aerobraking.

Other early signs of seasonal transitions on Mars are apparent in 
the Hubble picture.  The northern polar ice cap is blanketed under 
a polar hood of clouds that typically start forming in late 
northern summer.  As fall progresses, sunlight will dwindle in the 
north polar region and the seasonal polar cap of frozen carbon 
dioxide will start condensing onto the surface under these clouds.

Hubble observations will continue until October 13, as MGS 
carefully uses the drag of the Martian atmosphere to circularize 
its orbit about the Red Planet.  After mid-October, Mars will be 
too close to the Sun, in angular separation, for Hubble to safely 
view.

The image is a composite of three separately filtered colored 
images taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2).  
Resolution is 35 miles (57 kilometers) per pixel (picture 
element).  The Pathfinder landing site near Ares Valles is about 
2200 miles (3600 kilometers) west of the center of this image, so 
was not visible during this observation.  Mars was 158 million 
miles (255 million kilometers) from Earth at the time.

[LEFT]
An image of this region of Mars, taken in June 1997, is shown for 
comparison.  The Hellas basin is filled with bright clouds and/or 
surface frost.  More water ice clouds are visible across the 
planet than in the Sept.  image, reflecting the effects of the 
changing season.  Mars appears larger because it was 44 million 
miles (77 million kilometers) closer to Earth than in the 
September image.

Credit:  Phil James (Univ.  Toledo) and Steve Lee (Univ.  
Colorado), and NASA

PHOTO NO.:  STScI-PRC97-31
Images are available via the World Wide Web at
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/gif/mars0609.gif (GIF),
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/jpeg/mars0609.jpg (JPEG) and 
via links in http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/97/31.html.

Image files also may be accessed via anonymous ftp from 
oposite.stsci.edu in /pubinfo:  gif/mars0609.gif (GIF) and 
jpeg/mars0609.jpg (JPEG), tiff/1997/31a.tif and 31b.tif (TIFF).

MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR DETECTS MARTIAN MAGNETIC FIELD AS AEROBRAKING 
BEGINS
NASA release 97-204

17 September 1997

Scientists have confirmed the existence of a planet-wide magnetic 
field at Mars using an instrument on-board NASA's Mars Global 
Surveyor orbiter, as the spacecraft began to circle and study the 
planet from a highly elliptical orbit.

"Mars Global Surveyor has been in orbit for only a few days, yet 
it already has returned an important discovery about the Red 
Planet," said Vice President Al Gore.  "This is another example of 
how NASA's commitment to faster, better, cheaper Mars exploration 
that began with Mars Pathfinder is going to help answer many 
fundamental questions about the history and environment of our 
neighboring planet, and the lessons it may hold for a better 
understanding of life on Earth."

The spacecraft's magnetometer, which began making measurements of 
Mars' magnetic field after its capture into orbit on Sept.  11, 
detected the magnetic field on Sept.  15.  The existence of a 
planetary magnetic field has important implications for the 
geological history of Mars and for the possible development and 
continued existence of life on Mars.

"Preliminary evidence of a stronger than expected magnetic field 
of planetary origin was collected and is now under detailed 
study," said Dr. Mario H.  Acuna, principal investigator for the 
magnetometer/electron reflectrometer instrument at NASA's Goddard 
Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD.  "This was the first 
opportunity in the mission to collect close-in magnetic field 
data.  Much more additional data will be collected in upcoming 
orbits during the aerobraking phase of the mission to further 
characterize the strength and geometry of the field.  The current 
observations suggest a field with a polarity similar to that of 
Earth's and opposite that of Jupiter, with a maximum strength not 
exceeding 1/800ths of the magnetic field at the Earth's surface."

This result is the first conclusive evidence of a magnetic field 
at Mars.  "More distant observations obtained previously by the 
Russian missions Mars 2, 3 and 5 and Phobos 1 and 2 were 
inconclusive regarding the presence or absence of a magnetic field 
of internal origin," said Acuna.

The magnetic field has important implications for the evolution of 
Mars.  Planets like Earth, Jupiter and Saturn generate their 
magnetic fields by means of a dynamo made up of moving molten 
metal at the core.  This metal is a very good conductor of 
electricity, and the rotation of the planet creates electrical 
currents deep within the planet that give rise to the magnetic 
field.  A molten interior suggests the existence of internal heat 
sources, which could give rise to volcanoes and a flowing crust 
responsible for moving continents over geologic time periods.

"A magnetic field shields a planet from fast-moving, electrically 
charged particles from the Sun which may affect its atmosphere, as 
well as from cosmic rays, which are an impediment to life," Acuna 
said.  "If Mars had a more active dynamo in its past, as we 
suspect from the existence of ancient volcanoes there, then it may 
have had a thicker atmosphere and liquid water on its surface."

It is not known whether the current weaker field now results from 
a less active dynamo, or if the dynamo is now extinct and what the 
scientists are observing is really a remnant of an ancient 
magnetic field still detectable in the Martian crust.

"Whether this weak magnetic field implies that we are observing a 
fossil crustal magnetic field associated with a now extinct dynamo 
or merely a weak but active dynamo similar to that of Earth, 
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune remains to be seen," Acuna 
said.

Mars Global Surveyor's magnetometer discovered the outermost 
boundary of the Martian magnetic field--known as the bow shock--
during the inbound leg of its second orbit around the planet, and 
again on the outbound leg.

The discovery came just before Mars Global Surveyor began its 
first aerobraking maneuver to lower and circularize its orbit 
around Mars, said Glenn Cunningham, Mars Global Surveyor project 
manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, CA.

"This first 'step down' into the upper atmosphere was performed in 
two stages," Cunningham said.  "On Sept.  16, during the farthest 
point in the spacecraft's orbit, called the apoapsis, the 
spacecraft fired its main engine for 6.5 seconds, slowing Global 
Surveyor's velocity by 9.8 miles per hour (4.41 meters per 
second).  This maneuver lowered the spacecraft's orbit from 163 
miles (263 kilometers) to 93 miles (150 kilometers) above the 
surface of the planet.

At its closest approach to Mars this morning, known as the 
periapsis, the spacecraft dipped into the upper fringes of the 
Martian atmosphere for 27 seconds, allowing the drag on its solar 
panels to begin the long aerobraking process of circularizing its 
orbit."

Mars Global Surveyor will continue aerobraking through the Martian 
atmosphere for the next four months, until its orbit has been 
circularized and it is flying about 234 miles (378 kilometers) 
above the Martian surface.  All systems and science instruments 
onboard the spacecraft continue to perform normally after six days 
in orbit around the red planet.

Additional information about the magnetic field discovery and the 
Mars Global Surveyor mission is available on the World Wide Web by 
accessing the JPL home page at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov or at the Goddard Space Flight Center 
magnetometer site at:

http://mgs-mager.gsfc.nasa.gov

Meanwhile, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has continued 
monitoring the atmospheric conditions on Mars to help planning for 
the Mars Global Surveyor aerobraking activity.  The latest HST 
Mars image, taken Sept.  12 with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 
under the direction of Phil James of the University of Toledo and 
Steve Lee of the University of Colorado, is available on the 
Internet at the following URLs:

http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/gif/mars0609.gif (GIF),
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/jpeg/mars0609.jpg (JPEG)

and via links in:

http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/97/31.html

Mars Global Surveyor is the first mission in a sustained program 
of robotic Mars exploration, known as the Mars Surveyor Program.  
The mission is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's 
Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.  JPL's industrial partner 
is Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, CO, which developed and 
operates the spacecraft.  JPL is a division of the California 
Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.

MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR FLIGHT STATUS REPORTS
JPL releases

29 August, 1997

Mars Global Surveyor continues to perform excellently as it 
continues on a path that will reach the red planet just under two 
weeks from now.  The spacecraft is currently 3.56 million 
kilometers from Mars and is closing that gap at rate of 247,000 km 
per day.

On Monday at 9:30 a.m. PDT, the onboard flight computer commanded 
Surveyor's small rocket thrusters to fire for twelve seconds.  
Eric Gratt of the navigation team reports that this tiny burn 
altered the spacecraft's velocity by 0.29 meters per second and 
was performed to make final, pre-arrival adjustments to Surveyor's 
flight path.  Specifically, the maneuver altered the tilt of the 
spacecraft's flight path with respect to the Martian north pole by 
3.3 degrees.

Monday's maneuver was the last in a series of four trajectory 
correction maneuvers designed to refine the spacecraft's flight 
path to Mars.  The first maneuver occurred shortly after launch in 
November 1996, the second occurred in March 1997, and the third 
was canceled by chief navigator Dr. Pat Esposito because it was 
not needed.

Today, the flight team transmitted the T1 command sequence to 
Surveyor.  This sequence will activate on Tuesday, September 2nd 
at 7:00 a.m. PDT, and contains commands that will ultimately 
control the spacecraft during the Mars orbit insertion burn on 
September 11th.  In the unlikely event that communications is lost 
before arrival, Surveyor now possesses the ability to enter Mars 
orbit without any further instructions from mission control.

In other news, some of the long-range images of Mars obtained by 
the camera last week have been placed on the Surveyor web site.  
The camera team, led by Dr. Michael Malin, is currently processing 
the other images.  These remaining images will be placed on the 
web site shortly after they are released at a press conference on 
Tuesday, September 9th.  The URL to download the images is:

http://mgsw3.jpl.nasa.gov/sci/images/img_current.html

After a mission elapsed time of 295 days from launch, Surveyor is 
240.69 million kilometers from the Earth and is moving in an orbit 
around the Sun with a velocity of 21.92 kilometers per second.  
This orbit will intercept Mars 13 days from now, slightly after 
6:00 p.m. PDT on September 11th (01:00 UTC, September 12th).  The 
spacecraft is currently executing the C11 command sequence, and 
all systems continue to be in excellent condition.

16 September, 1997

Five days after entering orbit around the red planet, performance 
from the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft continues to be 
outstanding.  At 10:58 a.m.  this morning, the spacecraft reached 
the top of its third orbit and performed a five-second rocket 
engine firing.  According to navigator Eric Graat, this small burn 
slowed Surveyor by 9.8 m.p.h.  (4.4 meters per second) and altered 
the tilt of the orbit with respect to the Martian north pole by 
0.05 degrees.

Today's maneuver lowered the altitude of the orbit's low point 
from its current value of 163 miles (263 km) down into the upper 
fringes of the Martian atmosphere at 93 miles (150 km).  Surveyor 
is currently falling back toward Mars and will reach this low 
point at 9:22 a.m.  on Wednesday morning.  At that time, the 
onboard flight computer will configure the spacecraft for its 
first pass through the Martian atmosphere.

Over the next four months, the spacecraft will lose momentum as it 
passes through the upper atmosphere during the low point of every 
orbit.  This aerobraking technique will be used to lower the high 
point of Surveyor's orbit from its current altitude of 33,555 
miles (54,002 km) to less than 280 miles (450 km).

After a mission elapsed time of 313 days from launch, Surveyor is 
160.41 million miles (258.15 million kilometers) from the Earth 
and in an orbit around Mars with a period of 45 hours.  The 
spacecraft is currently executing the P3 command sequence, and all 
systems continue to be in excellent condition.

17 September, 1997

A major milestone in space exploration occurred today as Surveyor 
began the aerobraking phase of its mission.  This event began at 
9:37 a.m.  on Wednesday as the spacecraft flew through the upper 
fringes of the Martian atmosphere at the low point and start of 
its fourth orbit around the red planet.  At that time, Surveyor 
was slightly to the northwest of the tallest mountain in the solar 
system, a 89,000-foot (27 km) tall volcano named Olympus Mons.

For the next four months, the spacecraft will skim through the 
upper Martian atmosphere as it passes through the low point of 
every orbit.  During these atmospheric passes, the spacecraft will 
slow slightly due to air resistance.  This loss of momentum will 
cause Surveyor to lose altitude on its next pass through the 
orbit's high point.  Surveyor will use this innovative aerobraking 
technique to lower the high point of its orbit from its current 
value of 33,555 miles (54,000 km) to near 250 miles (400 km).

Today's atmospheric pass occurred at an altitude of 93 miles (150 
km).  The spacecraft experienced almost no loss of momentum from 
air resistance because the Martian atmosphere is extremely thin at 
this height.  Tomorrow, the flight team will fire Surveyor's tiny 
rocket thrusters to lower the altitude of the next atmospheric 
pass to 81 miles (130 km).  This next pass will occur Friday 
morning at the low point and start of the fifth orbit.  At this 
lower altitude, the atmosphere will be slightly thicker.

The flight team will continue to lower the altitude of the 
spacecraft's atmospheric pass until Surveyor encounters enough 
atmosphere to slow by an appreciable amount on every orbit.  
According to navigator Dan Johnston, this situation will probably 
occur at an altitude of about 68 miles (110 km).  This gradual 
"dipping" into the Martian atmosphere is necessary because the 
atmosphere has not yet been fully characterized by Surveyor's 
atmospheric science team.

In other news, data returned from the Magnetometer science 
instrument has indicated the presence of a magnetic field around 
Mars.  Until now, scientists were uncertain as to the absence or 
presence of a Martian magnetic field.  Please visit the following 
web sites to view a press release containing more details about 
this important discovery.  The second of the two sites listed here 
is the home page for the Magnetometer.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/mgsmag.html
http://mgs-mager.gsfc.nasa.gov

After a mission elapsed time of 314 days from launch, Surveyor is 
160.86 million miles (258.88 million kilometers) from the Earth 
and in an orbit around Mars with a period of just under 45 hours.  
The spacecraft is currently executing the P4 command sequence, and 
all systems continue to be in excellent condition.

18 September, 1997

At 8:03 a.m. PDT this morning, the flight team commanded 
Surveyor's tiny rocket thrusters to fire for 20 seconds.  This 
burn occurred at the high point of the spacecraft's fourth orbit 
around Mars and slowed Surveyor by 1.79 m.p.h.  (0.799 meters per 
second).

The maneuver lowered the low point of Surveyor's orbit from its 
current value of 93 miles (150 km) down to 79.5 miles (128 km).  
The spacecraft is currently falling back toward Mars and will 
reach this new low point Friday morning at 6:29 a.m. PDT.  At that 
time, Surveyor will make its second aerobraking pass by skimming 
through the upper part of the Martian atmosphere.

Surveyor's atmospheric scientists expect the spacecraft to 
encounter slightly more air resistance on Friday than during the 
first atmospheric pass which occurred on Wednesday.  The reason is 
that the orbit's low point will lie 13.5 miles (21.7 km) deeper 
into the Martian atmosphere than before.  However, the flight team 
still expects that Friday's atmospheric pass will have little 
effect on lowering the high point of the spacecraft's orbit.

Over the next week, the flight team will continue to lower the low 
point of the orbit deeper into the atmosphere on an orbit by orbit 
basis.  In about one week, the altitude of the atmospheric pass 
will be deep enough to slow the spacecraft by an appreciable 
amount on every orbit.  At that time, the high point of Surveyor's 
orbit will begin to shrink by noticeable amounts.

After a mission elapsed time of 315 days from launch, Surveyor is 
161.31 million miles (259.60 million kilometers) from the Earth 
and in an orbit around Mars with a period of just under 45 hours.  
The spacecraft is currently executing the P4 command sequence, and 
all systems continue to be in excellent condition.

19 September, 1997

This morning at 6:28 PDT, Surveyor reached the low point and start 
of its fifth orbit around Mars.  For a time period of 24 seconds 
centered around this point in the orbit, the spacecraft performed 
its second aerobraking pass of the mission by skimming through the 
upper Martian atmosphere at an altitude of 79.5 miles (128 km).  
During the pass, air resistance caused a 10 degree increase in 
temperature on the solar panels.  This rise was well within 
allowable limits.

According to Surveyor's atmospheric science team, the thickness of 
the atmosphere during today's pass was more than twice the 
expected value as predicted by current models.  However, because 
the air at the current aerobraking altitude is extremely thin, 
this increased thickness posed no threat to the spacecraft.

Based on today's new data about the thickness of the upper Martian 
atmosphere, the flight team has decided to lower the altitude of 
next aerobraking pass to 75 miles (121 km).  In the original plan, 
the altitude of the next pass occurred at 72.7 miles (117 km).  
This new altitude is slightly higher in order to offset the 
increase in atmospheric thickness as compared to the model value.  
Over the next week, the flight team will continue to lower the 
aerobraking altitude until the spacecraft encounters enough air 
resistance to slow down by an appreciable amount on every orbit.

As of 11:59 p.m. PDT, Surveyor is climbing toward the top of its 
fifth orbit around the red planet.  Currently, the spacecraft is 
at an altitude of 32,930 miles (53,000 km) and is moving with a 
velocity of 805 m.p.h.  (360 meters per second) with respect to 
the planet.  The next aerobraking pass through the atmosphere will 
take place early Sunday morning at the low point and start of the 
sixth orbit.

After a mission elapsed time of 316 days from launch, Surveyor is 
161.76 million miles (260.33 million kilometers) from the Earth 
and in an orbit around Mars with a period of just under 45 hours.  
The spacecraft is currently executing the P5 command sequence, and 
all systems continue to be in excellent condition.

Status report prepared by:

Office of the Flight Operations Manager
Mars Surveyor Operations Project
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA 91109

MARS PATHFINDER MISSION STATUS REPORTS
JPL releases

21 July, 1997

The Mars Pathfinder flight team successfully reestablished contact 
with the Pathfinder lander and rover early this morning, 
completing several communications sessions using both the low- 
gain and high-gain antennas.

"What a difference a day makes," said Brian Muirhead, Pathfinder 
project manager.  "The project team has successfully regained full 
communication capability on both the low-gain and high-gain 
antennas.  The team is extremely pleased with our current status."

Most of the communications problem experienced over the weekend 
was associated with ground operations, not with the spacecraft on 
Mars, Muirhead said.  "We'll be working to eliminate the cause of 
these problems in the coming days, as we return to a more normal 
mode of operations."

The flight team successfully initiated its first low-gain 
communications session of the Martian day at 10:38 p.m.  Pacific 
Daylight Time on July 20, then began a second low-gain session at 
1:36 a.m.  July 21.  Both sessions were returning data at the low 
data rate of 40 bits per second.  At 3:22 a.m. PDT, the team 
conducted a third, brief low-gain session at a slightly higher 
data rate of 150 bits per second.

"All sessions worked perfectly, and we gained all of the basic 
engineering and telemetry data that had been stored onboard," 
Muirhead reported.  "We verified that all spacecraft subsystems 
were healthy."

At 4:50 a.m. PDT, the team conducted a brief high-gain antenna 
session to make sure the high-gain antenna was pointed at Earth.  
A full high-gain antenna session at 8,200 bits per second was 
later performed beginning at 6:43 a.m. PDT.  The team acquired all 
data on lander and rover health and completed acquisition of all 
of the spacecraft engineering data.  They also sent a software 
update to correct sequences onboard the flight computer which have 
caused it to automatically reset itself.

Tonight's science activities will include downlinking measurements 
of a white-colored rock named Scooby Doo and continuing to acquire 
data from a full resolution color panoramic photograph of the 
landing site.

On this Martian day, Sol 17, Earth rose over the newly named Sagan 
Memorial Station at 8:07 p.m. PDT yesterday July 20.  Sunrise was 
at 11:15 p.m.  July 20 and Earth set occurred this morning at 9:45 
a.m.  July 21.

22 July, 1997

Two-and-a-half weeks after landing in an ancient Martian flood 
basin known as Ares Vallis, Mars Pathfinder has fulfilled all of 
its primary science goals and continues to operate nearly 
flawlessly, the flight team reported at today's press briefing.

More than 300 megabits of data have been returned just in the last 
week, said Dr. Matthew Golombek, Pathfinder project scientist.  
The rover continues to follow an aggressive series of maneuvers to 
study rocks and soils identified by the science teams for their 
interesting features.  In addition, the rover's wheel tracks and 
soil abrasion experiments are beginning to yield new information 
about the Martian soil, which appears to be finer than talcum 
powder.

Worldwide interest in the mission has peaked, with more than 400 
million hits reported on the Internet today, said Kirk Goodall, 
Mars Pathfinder web engineer.  Goodall and David Dubov, Mars 
Pathfinder webmaster, constructed 20 Pathfinder mirror sites prior 
to landing day to service the public.  The most hits received in a 
single day -- 46 million -- occurred on July 8, Goodall said, 
which is more than double the number of hits received in a single 
day during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia.

A communications problem experienced last weekend has been 
resolved, reported Richard Cook, Mars Pathfinder mission manager.  
The problem was associated with ground operations, which has been 
required to reconfigure equipment and software on a daily basis, 
and the necessity of establishing communications links only during 
the short periods of time each day when the lander's transmitter 
is on.

Scientists are beginning to learn more about the Martian soil by 
studying the rover's wheel tracks, asking it to perform soil 
abrasion experiments and measuring the magnetic properties of dust 
that is being collected by a magnetic instrument on the rover.  
Dr. Henry Moore, a rover scientist with the U.S.  Geological 
Survey in Menlo Park, CA, likened the Martian soil to a very fine-
grained silt that could be found in Nebraska.  The Martian 
particles are less than 50 microns in diameter, which is finer 
than talcum powder.

Dr. Peter Smith, University of Arizona, who is principal 
investigator of the lander camera, described more about the 
Martian landscape, pointing out a shallow riverbed crossing 
through the landing site and rocks in the distance that were 
washed into this outflow channel from the Martian highlands.

Science activities tonight will take the rover through the 
"cabbage patch," an area of soil in between Scooby Doo and a 
light-colored rock named Lamb.  The rover will conduct a soil 
experiment , then turn and move toward Lamb.  Scientists will take 
measurements of the dark soil near that rock before moving 
Sojourner close enough to place its spectrometer against the rock.

On this Martian day, Sol 18, Earth rose over the Sagan Memorial 
Station at 8:47 p.m. PDT yesterday, July 21.  Sunrise was at 11:54 
p.m.  July 21 and Earth set occurred this morning (July 22) at 
10:25 a.m. PDT.

26 July, 1997

The Mars Pathfinder lander and rover remain healthy and are 
continuing to carry out science experiments on this Martian day, 
Sol 22.  Today the Earth rose over Mars at 11:28 p.m. PDT July 25.  
The sun rose today at 2:33 a.m. PDT.

Sojourner's self-guided journey to the rock "Souffle" was 
interrupted briefly by a software sequencing error, which was 
identified and corrected immediately.  A sequencing error is 
easily corrected by modifying the numerical coding in the program 
responsible for executing the command, just as a computer user 
would modify coding in a program that runs the main menu or 
desktop functions of a personal computer.

"The problem was corrected immediately and a new sequence was 
radiated to the rover during the second downlink session," said 
Becky Manning, flight director for Sol 22.  "By the end of that 
session, ground controllers had received confirmation that the 
rover had successfully received and was executing the instructions 
to continue its traverse to Souffle."

Sojourner will leave Souffle on Sol 23 and circumnavigate the 
lander.  When that journey has been completed, the rover will be 
in the vicinity of three new rocks named "Baker Bench," "Desert 
Princess" and "Marvin."

The Mars Pathfinder lander imager (IMP) returned more data from 
the "insurance" panorama and "super" panorama today.  It is 
preparing to take the standard end-of-the-day photograph of the 
rover before surface operations conclude in 30 minutes.

On Sol 22, the Earth set over Mars at 1:04 p.m.  today.  The sun 
will set in about 25 minutes, at 3:25 p.m. PDT.

28 August, 1997

We have completed another successful day of operations at the 
Sagan Memorial Station.  Earth rise on Sol 54 occurred at 8:55 pm 
PDT Wednesday night and sunrise occured at 11:45 pm.

The lander continues to be in excellent health.  The activities 
for today were to acquire more super pan imaging data and 
additional weather measurements.  In addition we are performing a 
special test with the approaching Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft.  
This test involves near simultaneous tracking and will demonstrate 
the technique that will be used for the Mars Surveyor 98 mission.

The rover remains healthy with the exception of continued 
accelerometer and gyro noise problems.  The plan for today was to 
turn slightly and place the APXS on the rock Half Dome.  While 
performing the turn we tripped a potential hazard limit which 
terminated the activity.  In this case it was due to one of the 
wheels riding up on the side of the rock and producing a larger 
than expected rover tilt angle.  These limits are set very 
conservatively to ensure the the rover does not tip over.  
Engineers will look the rover engineering data and pictures taken 
by the lander camera to determine if it is safe relax these limits 
and continue to perform the turn tomorrow.

2 September, 1997

Earth rise occurred at 12:15 a.m. PST and sunrise occurred at 3:05 
a.m. PST.

Data was returned from Mars today using the Deep Space Network 
station located in Madrid Spain.  Telemetry indicated the the 
Segan Memorial Station continues to be in good health.  For an 
unknown reason no rover data was received from Sojourner today and 
teams are currently working to analyze the problem and devise a 
suitable work around.  Trouble shooting will occur tomorrow during 
Sol 60 and everyone remains optimistic that the anomally will be 
identified and valid lander/rover communications will be 
established.

The Pathfinder spacecraft went to sleep prior to the Martian 
sunset which occurred at 3:30 pm PST today.  The lander should 
awake around 7:30 a.m.  local Martian time tomorrow and down link 
data should be seen here on earth around 11:00 a.m. PST on 
September 3rd.

4 September, 1997

Earth rise occurred at 1:40 a.m. PDT and sunrise occurred at 4:25 
a.m. PDT.

Data was returned from Mars today using the Deep Space Network 
stations located in Madrid Spain.  Telemetry indicates that 
everything continues to operate nominally and both the Sojourner 
rover and Sagan Memorial Station continue to be in good health.  
Data was once again returned from the rover today and a new 
sequence was sent to and received by Sojourner that should 
alleviate the Thompson loop sequence command problem that caused 
no data to be received by the rover on Sol 59.  Sol 62 should mean 
a return to normal planning and nominal rover operations.  The 
Pathfinder spacecraft went to sleep prior to the Martian sunset 
which occurred at 4:50 PM PDT.

The Lander should awake around 7:40 local solar Martian time 
tomorrow and down link data should be seen around noon Pacific 
time.

9 September, 1997

The lander powered up on the surface of mars this morning at 9:23 
am PDT and nominal uplinks were sent at 12:30 pm PDT.

The uplinks included a rover load and lander sequences for the 
next several days on Mars.  The uplinks were conducted over a 34 
meter antenna located in Goldstone California.  The only downlink 
for the day occurred over the 70 meter antenna located at 
Goldstone California.  The downlink was 3 hours and 28 minutes in 
duration at a data rate of 8295 bits per second.  The downlink was 
interrupted several times due to antenna problems, but almost all 
of the data was received.  Included in the data is a part of the 
super pan, a set of images of the entire landing site taken in all 
geology filters at a lossless or at a 2 to 1 compression ratio.  
The rover drove today but terminated its traverse slightly short 
of its objectives due to a glitch in an accelerometer.  The rover 
will continue to drive tomorrow.

The rover and lander continue to remain in excellent health.

14 September, 1997

The lander and rover woke up today at 1:00 p.m. PDT.

The Sojourner batteries have been expended and the rover is now 
dependent on solar power.  All data indicates that both the lander 
and rover are in good health.

Due to an uplink error last week we did not run the standard 
science sequence today.  But we were able to run a subset of the 
originally planed imaging by sending real time commands from the 
Goldstone Deep Space Network station.  We acquired super 
resolution images and magnet target data as well as a reduced set 
of ASI/MET data which indicated two small dust devils passing over 
the lander.  The rover had no problems and executed all of its 
command successfully.

Tomorrow the rover will traverse towards the rock Chimp and we 
will continue to acquire ASI/MET and imaging data from the lander.

For further information on the Mars Pathfinder Mission, please 
call our Mission Status Report line at 1-800-391-6654.

4TH INTERNATIONAL LUNAR AND MARS EXPLORATION CONFERENCE 
NSS release

Space Frontier Operations, in cooperation with the National Space 
Society and International Space Enterprises, present the 4th 
International Lunar and Mars Exploration Conference.  The 
conference will be held Sunday, October 5 through Wednesday, 
October 8, 1997 at the Cocoa Beach Hilton Oceanside in Cocoa 
Beach, Florida.

The fourth in this series of international conferences will focus 
on all aspects of the technology and manpower needed for the long-
term exploration of the Moon and Mars.
Speakers include Opening Guest Speaker Congressman Dave Weldon of 
Florida's 15th District and JoAnn Morgan, Associate Director for 
Advanced Developement and Shuttle Upgrades.

Related activities include a formal banquet at the recently opened 
Apollo/Saturn V Museum and an "Odyssey of the Mind" cruise to 
Grand Bahama Island, presented by Theme Quest Entertainment.

The three past conferences have been held in San Diego,
California.  This year's change of venue was prompted by several 
timely events occurring on Florida's Space Coast, including the 
continuing exploration of Mars by Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global 
Surveyor, as well as the launch of the Cassini Probe to Saturn.

Sponsors of the conference include the Florida Space Business
Roundtable, International Space Enterprises, and the National 
Space Society.  Supporters include the Cocoa Beach Area Chamber of 
Commerce, the John F.  Kennedy Space Center, the Society of 
Logistics Engineers - Space Coast Chapter, Spaceport Florida 
Authority, and Space Launch News.

The cost of the conference per person is $320, plus $65 for the 
banquet.  Members of the National Space Society and Space Frontier 
Operations will receive a $100 discount off the conference fee.  
The "Odyssey of the Mind" cruise to Grand Bahama Island starts at 
$199 per person.

For more information about the conference and the banquet, contact 
Chief Coordinator Jan Hall (jandhall@juno.com) or Andy Clark 
(awvclark@juno.com) at (407) 453-3875.  For more information about 
the "Odyssey of the Mind" cruise to Grand Bahama Island, contact 
Theme Quest Entertainment at 1-800-681-8922.

SCIENCE AND ADVENTURE CRUISE SERIES

At a time when the Earth has a full-time orbiting space station, 
space shuttle missions are routing and Pathfinder has just landed 
on Mars, it would seem that now is where the "real future starts." 
That is indeed the motto of Space Frontier Operations, a non-
profit organization from Cape Canaveral, Florida dedicated to the 
exploration of Space.

If you like to cruise, read on for your chance to be at the right 
place at the right time!

The SS Dolphin IV sets sail this October on two exciting two day 
excursions exploring the world of space, the solar system, and the 
imagination with fun and education for the whole family.  Choose 
from a two, four, or six day adventure at great value pricing.

On October 2, we set sail from Port Canaveral for a two night 
"Odyssey of the Mind Adventure Cruise!" with special guests from 
Space Frontier Operations who will be hosting displays and 
seminars highlighting the very latest information from space 
including the Mars Pathfinder mission with its land rover sampling 
the surface of the Red Planet and the Global Surveyor Mars surface 
mapping mission.  You'll also be treated to the hottest 
information on the launch of Lunar Prospector.  As a grand bonus, 
you'll be one of the last to view the Hale-Bopp comet for 2000 
years!  Hale Bopp's last peak viewing time occurs in the Caribbean 
sky during the early morning hours of October 3rd!

Among the featured guests expected on board are Alan Binder, the 
principle investigator for the entire Lunar Prospector Program and 
William McGlocklin, Manager of the Voyager Program for JPL.  Both 
men will be attending the 4th Annual International Lunar and Mars 
Exploration Conference scheduled for October 5-8 and the Cocoa 
Beach Hilton.  Also joining us from Space Frontier Operations is 
Director Rita Howard, who will be discussing the future of space 
exploration in and out of the private sector.  Adding to the fun 
will be nightly star parties hosted by Dr. Ian Griffin, Director 
of the Brevard Community College Astronaut Memorial Planetarium...

Here's your chance to look at the galaxy away from the glare of 
the city lights for a real astronomical treat!

Dr. Griffin will also bring specially designed telescopes to allow 
daytime viewing of the Sun!  Other daytime highlights include an 8 
hour visit to Grand Bahama Island.  You'll also visit a real 
planetarium right on board, and if you reserve early enough, 
you'll receive free tickets to the Brevard Planetarium, one of the 
most advanced facilities in the western hemisphere!

GREAT PRICING and LIMITED SPACE

This two night excursion starts at just $199 per person including 
port charges, three gourmet meals per day, four daily buffets and 
impeccable service.  Third and fourth passengers sailing in the 
same cabin are just $149 each.  For details, call 1-800-788-4544.

ATTENTION ILMEC ATTENDEES:

If you are already attending the International Lunar and Mars 
Exploration Conference, or if you would like to add the conference 
to your vacation plans, please contact Kevin at 407-788-7447 or 
email Space Frontier Operations at jandhall@juno.com or 
rha@yarp.com.  Also, see http://www.yarp.com/ilmec.html for more 
information!

Special combination packages are available, including hotel, 
conference admission and membership in Space Frontier Operations.  
Conference highlights include receptions at the Brevard County 
Planetarium, the Kennedy Space Center, and the launch of NASA's 
space probe to Saturn.  You can also combine "The Odyssey of the 
Mind Adventure Cruise" with "The Science Fiction Adventure Cruise" 
for 4 nights of fabulous science fact and fiction fun at one low 
price!  Ask us how!

Space is limited, so chart your course for adventure today by 
calling 1-800-788-4544 for a free registration and information 
kit.  Pricing is limited to space available.  Not responsible for 
program changes.
End Marsbugs, vol. 4, no. 14




