1st of 2 Rovers to Mars Lifts Off as Skies Clear

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The first of two NASA rovers began its difficult journey to Mars on Tuesday, soaring into a hazy blue sky atop a Boeing Delta II rocket.

The spacecraft’s departure at 1:58 p.m. Eastern time met with jubilant cheers from NASA scientists, who have spent three years building the rovers and planning their roughly 300-million-mile journeys.

“Woo hoo, we’re going to Mars!” said Matt Golombek, a geologist from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and co-leader of the team that picked the rover landing sites.

Roughly an hour after the launch, mission leaders received confirmation from a Deep Space Network satellite dish in Canberra, Australia, that the spacecraft, named Spirit, was healthy and on its proper path to Mars.

The track was so precise that very little propellant, if any, will be needed to correct the spacecraft’s path, said Pete Theisinger, rover project manager. “Spirit got a great ride on the rocket today,” he said. “I’m a very happy guy.”

The second rover is set for launch later this month. The $800-million twin robot geologists are expected to reach Mars in January. They will search for evidence that Mars may have once been far warmer and wetter than it is today, and that it could have supported life.

Tuesday’s liftoff occurred after two days of severe thunderstorms, which delayed the launch and frayed the nerves of those anxious to see the spacecraft safely on its way.

“I really was feeling sick. This is really tense,” said David Bell, a Cornell University planetary scientist who built the panoramic cameras aboard the rovers.

The rovers are considered the most complex and capable mobile robots to leave Earth. They can travel the length of a football field in a day. Their extendable arms with diamond-tipped grinders will be able to expose the inside of Martian rocks for the first time. Their cameras will take pictures of such high quality and resolution that they could be used on IMAX movie screens, said Steve Squyres, the Cornell scientist overseeing the scientific instruments on the rovers.

“We’re going to show you Mars like you’ve never seen Mars before,” he added.

The JPL engineers who assembled and tested the rovers planned to celebrate Tuesday night but then get right back to work. They have another rover to launch.

Others, like John Grant of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, have seven months of work ahead to better understand the hazards at the landing site and to improve the rovers’ chances for safe touchdowns. Spirit will land in Gusev Crater. Its sibling, Opportunity, will land at Meridiani Planum.

“There’s going to be a lot more holding your breath during landing,” Grant said.

The second rover launch is scheduled for June 25, but may be delayed for several days, said Omar Baez, the launch director at Kennedy Space Center.

Preparation of the Delta II rocket that will carry the second rover was stalled by the same rains that postponed the first launch, he said. “It’s going to be a challenge to get out on the 25th,” he said.

While relieved by the nearly flawless launch, JPL engineers were already starting to worry about the most difficult part of the trip: the descent to the Martian surface.

Both spacecraft will scream through the Martian atmosphere at 12,000 mph, encountering temperatures of more than 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit before they deploy parachutes and protective air bags. If all goes as planned, they will bounce to safe landings on the surface of Mars.

It is a period that JPL landing engineer Richard Cook calls “six minutes of terror.”

“Ask me how I’m doing after it lands,” said JPL Director Charles Elachi, who watched the launch from Pasadena. “Then I’ll be relaxed.”