13-April-2007, 08:26 PM
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Vulcan Administrator
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Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Greenbelt, MD
Posts: 26,010
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Undergraduate paves way for NASA Mars mission
Quote:
A team led by Raymond E. Arvidson, Ph.D., James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences, has been analyzing images taken from a NASA instrument to make sure that the Phoenix spacecraft lands in a spot on the Red planet's northern plains that is relatively rock-free.
"The craft has to land in a place unlikely to have slopes more than 16 degrees relative to horizontal, and it shouldn't have very many rocks higher than 30 to 40 centimeters (roughly one foot high)," said Arvidson, who also is chair of the Washington University earth and planetary sciences department. "We've been looking for locations big enough and homogeneous enough for a high probability of a successful landing. The issue isn't slopes. The issue is rocks."
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