C.M. Rodrigue, 2016 Geography, CSULB Mars: History of Exploration IV Geography 441/541 S/16 Dr. Christine M. Rodrigue

C.M. Rodrigue, 2016 Geography, CSULB Mars: History of Mars Exploration  Venturing into space Telescope observation from near-Earth Hubble Telescope was designed in 1973, since the Shuttle had been recently approved as a way of schlepping it out Congress funded it in 1977 and it launched in 1990 It’s a reflecting mirror type of telescope The main (2.4 m) mirror turned out to have an optical flaw, enough to give it astigmatism Corrective optics applied in 1993 via Shuttle mission Hubble is no longer being serviced and its equipment is breaking down: Its orbit will eventually decay (~ ) Angular resolution is 0.05 arcsecond  "If you could see as well as Hubble, you could stand in New York City and distinguish two fireflies, 1 m (3.3 feet) apart, in San Francisco."

C.M. Rodrigue, 2016 Geography, CSULB Mars: History of Mars Exploration  Venturing into space Telescope observation from near-Earth: Hubble Both infrared and visible light imaging of Mars Best resolution: 19 km Got best images in August 2003, the best opposition in 59,619 years

C.M. Rodrigue, 2016 Geography, CSULB Mars: History of Mars Exploration  Venturing into space Telescope observation from near-Earth -- Hubble has: Monitored weather (very useful when Mars Global Surveyor was ærobraking into Martian orbit in 1997!) Caught a 1996 spring dust storm Documented cloudiness in 1997 Caught a polar cyclone in 1999 Identified water-bearing minerals on Mars

C.M. Rodrigue, 2016 Geography, CSULB Mars: History of Mars Exploration

C.M. Rodrigue, 2016 Geography, CSULB Mars: History of Mars Exploration  History of the Robotic Missions to Mars Hugely dangerous: More than half of the missions have failed (about 51%) "Great Galactic Ghoul," Mars as the "Bermuda Triangle," the "Mars Curse" There have been launch failures  USSR Mars 1960A failed at liftoff; so did 1960B 4 months later  Russian Space Agency Mars 96 orbiter/lander/penetrator  NASA Mariner  RFSA Phobos-Grunt 2011 Communications failures  USSR Mars 1 (aka Sputnik 23) 1963  NASA Mars Observer lost contact at arrival in 1993 Orbit insertion failures  Japan ISAS Nozomi 1999 *and* 2003 Crashes on the Martian surface  NASA Mars Climate Observer 1999 (Lockheed: English; NASA: metric)  NASA Mars Polar Lander/Deep Space  ESA Beagle lander 2003 (actually landed, but solar arrays didn't deploy)

C.M. Rodrigue, 2016 Geography, CSULB Mars: History of Mars Exploration  History of the Robotic Missions to Mars  Dangerous!

C.M. Rodrigue, 2016 Geography, CSULB Mars: History of Mars Exploration  History of the Robotic Missions to Mars Spacecraft types and examples Flyby missions (Cassini-Huygens gravity-assists by Earth in 1999 and Venus in 1998; New Horizons encounter with Pluto in July 2015) Orbiters (Earth’s Landsat, IKONOS, SPOT) Probes (Huygens probe at Titan in 2004, NEAR at asteroid EROS in 2001) Landers (10 USSR Venera from , 7 NASA Surveyors on Moon from ) Rovers (Spirit from and Opportunity from present) Penetrators (USSR Mars 96 had two) Balloon probes (USSR Vega 1 and 2 at Venus in 1985) Sample return missions (MSRL, Genesis from L1, Stardust from Comet Wild 2)

C.M. Rodrigue, 2016 Geography, CSULB Mars: Remote Sensing Basics  Resolution Spatial Varying, as in a descending probe (e.g, Huygens descending to Titan) Fine resolution, 0.5 – 5.0 m (e.g., IKONOS, OrbView-3) Coarse resolution, 1 km (e.g., MODIS) to 8 m (e.g., GEOS) Vertical Generally worse than horizontal spatial resolution Generated by laser altimeters, InSAR, stereo pairing

C.M. Rodrigue, 2016 Geography, CSULB Mars: Remote Sensing Basics  Resolution Radiometric How finely differences in values can be detected Function of bits in a byte Directional Nadir only Backward/forward or right/left Reflectance and scattering by wavelength differ by direction Spectral Panchromatic (all bands within a large range, often fine resolution) Multispectral (3-100 or so bands, at discrete intervals along the spectrum) Hyperspectral ( narrow bands contiguous to one another over a spectral range)