NASA News: NASA Mars Rover Arrives At New Site On Martian Surface

WASHINGTON -- After a journey of almost three years, NASA's Mars
Exploration Rover Opportunity has reached the Red Planet's Endeavour
crater to study rocks never seen before.

On Aug. 9, the golf cart-sized rover relayed its arrival at a location
named Spirit Point on the crater's rim. Opportunity drove
approximately 13 miles (21 kilometers) after climbing out of the
Victoria crater.

"NASA is continuing to write remarkable chapters in our nation's story
of exploration with discoveries on Mars and trips to an array of
challenging new destinations," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden
said. "Opportunity's findings and data from the upcoming Mars Science
Laboratory will play a key role in making possible future human
missions to Mars and other places where humans have not yet been."

Endeavour crater, which is more than 25 times wider than Victoria
crater, is 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. At Endeavour,
scientists expect to see much older rocks and terrains than those
examined by Opportunity during its first seven years on Mars.
Endeavour became a tantalizing destination after NASA's Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter detected clay minerals that may have formed in
an early warmer and wetter period.

"We're soon going to get the opportunity to sample a rock type the
rovers haven't seen yet," said Matthew Golombek, Mars Exploration
Rover science team member, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
in Pasadena, Calif. "Clay minerals form in wet conditions so we may
learn about a potentially habitable environment that appears to have
been very different from those responsible for the rocks comprising
the plains."

The name Spirit Point informally commemorates Opportunity's twin
rover, which stopped communicating in March 2010. Spirit's mission
officially concluded in May.

"Our arrival at this destination is a reminder that these rovers have
continued far beyond the original three-month mission," said John
Callas, Mars Exploration Rover project manager at JPL.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which launched Aug. 12, 2005, is
searching for evidence that water persisted on the Martian surface
for a long period of time. Other Mars missions have shown water
flowed across the surface in the planet's history, but scientists
have not determined if water remained long enough to provide a
habitat for life.

NASA launched the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity in the summer of
2003. Both completed their three-month prime missions in April 2004
and continued years of extended operations. They made important
discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been
favorable for supporting microbial life.

JPL manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science
Mission Directorate in Washington. Imagery taken after Opportunity
arrived at Endeavour will be released on NASA's website and NASA
Television as soon as available on Wednesday. For more information
about the rover and a color image as it approached the crater, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/rovers

For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

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NASA Selects Seven Firms To Provide Near-Space Flight Services

WASHINGTON -- NASA has selected seven companies to integrate and fly
technology payloads on commercial suborbital reusable platforms that
carry payloads near the boundary of space.

As part of NASA's Flight Opportunities Program, each successful vendor
will receive an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract.
These two-year contracts, worth a combined total of $10 million, will
allow NASA to draw from a pool of commercial space companies to
deliver payload integration and flight services. The flights will
carry a variety of payloads to help meet the agency's research and
technology needs.

"Through this catalog approach, NASA is moving toward the goal of
making frequent, low-cost access to near-space available to a wide
range of engineers, scientists and technologists," said NASA Chief
Technologist Bobby Braun at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The
government's ability to open the suborbital research frontier to a
broad community of innovators will enable maturation of the new
technologies and capabilities needed for NASA's future missions in space."

The selected companies are:
-- Armadillo Aerospace, Heath, Texas
-- Near Space Corp., Tillamook, Ore.
-- Masten Space Systems, Mojave, Calif.
-- Up Aerospace Inc., Highlands Ranch, Colo.
-- Virgin Galactic, Mojave, Calif.
-- Whittinghill Aerospace LLC, Camarillo, Calif.
-- XCOR, Mojave, Calif.

NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist is charged with maturing
crosscutting technologies to flight readiness status for future space
missions. Through these indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity
contracts, NASA intends to provide frequent flight opportunities for
payloads on suborbital platforms.

The Flight Opportunities Program is managed at NASA's Dryden Flight
Research Center in Edwards, Calif. For more information on the
program, visit:

http://flightopportunities.nasa.gov

For more information about NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/oct

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NASA Offers Media Access To Mars-Bound Rover On Aug. 12

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's next Mars rover, the Mars Science
Laboratory (MSL) known as Curiosity, will be the focus of a media
opportunity at 7 a.m. EDT on Friday, Aug. 12, at NASA's Kennedy Space
Center in Florida.

News media representatives will have an opportunity to photograph the
rover and interview project and launch program officials during the
event at Kennedy's Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility. Curiosity
will be integrated later with its descent stage, which will take it
to the Martian surface. The MSL mission is targeted to launch Nov. 25
from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Complex 41 aboard a United
Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

For the Aug. 12 event, journalists must arrive at the Kennedy Press
Site no later than 7 a.m. for transportation to the facility. They
will return to the Press Site by 10:15 a.m. No more than two
representatives from a media organization will be allowed to
participate because of limited space.

The deadline to apply for accreditation is Thursday, Aug. 11 at noon.
Government photo identification, such as a driver's license or
passport, will be required to receive a badge. Journalists who are
foreign nationals may attend only if they possess a permanently-
issued NASA media accreditation picture badge from Kennedy Space
Center, or a Kennedy-issued white badge with an affixed green dot.
Hours of the Kennedy Badging Office located on State Road 405 east of
the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex are 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Journalists needing accreditation should apply online at:

https://media.ksc.nasa.gov

Reporters should call the Kennedy update phone line at 321-867-2525 on
Thursday evening to confirm the event date and time have not changed.

Curiosity will use 10 science instruments to investigate whether the
selected area inside Gale crater was ever habitable or provided
conditions favorable for microbial life. The rover's drill will pull
samples from rocks' interiors so other instruments aboard can analyze
them for evidence about past environments and the presence of
chemical ingredients for life. The rover's payload also includes
color cameras, a laser that will analyze rocks from a distance to
detect their composition, and sensors that monitor weather, water and
high-energy radiation.

Individuals entering the cleanroom where the spacecraft is being
prepared for launch must follow procedures for optically sensitive
spacecraft. Full cleanroom attire (bunny suits) will be furnished and
must be worn. Participants may not wear perfume, cologne or makeup.
Long pants and closed-toe shoes must be worn -- no shorts or skirts.

Photographers will need to clean camera equipment under the
supervision of contamination-control specialists. All camera
equipment must be self-contained. No portable lights are allowed.
Non-essential equipment such as suede, leather or vinyl camera bags
or other carrying cases must be left outside the cleanroom. No
notebook paper, pencils, or conventional pens are permitted. Special
pens and cleanroom paper will be provided. No food, tobacco, chewing
gum, lighters, matches or pocketknives will be allowed. Use of
wireless microphones and cellular telephones is not allowed inside
the cleanroom. Electronic flash will be permitted. The lighting in
the facility is high-pressure sodium (orange).

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the MSL
mission. The launch is managed by NASA's Launch Services Program
(LSP) at Kennedy. Spokespeople from JPL and LSP will be available for
questions and interviews.

For more information about MSL, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/msl

Source:

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