Atmosphere Checked, One Mars Year Before a Landing

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

News release: 2010-316 Sept. 29, 2010

Atmosphere Checked, One Mars Year Before a Landing

PASADENA, Calif. -- What will the Martian atmosphere be like when the next Mars
rover descends through it for landing in August of 2012?

An instrument studying the Martian atmosphere from orbit has begun a four-week
campaign to characterize daily atmosphere changes, one Mars year before the arrival
of the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity. A Mars year equals 687 Earth days.

The planet's thin atmosphere of carbon dioxide is highly repeatable from year to year
at the same time of day and seasonal date during northern spring and summer on
Mars.

The Mars Climate Sounder instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter maps
the distribution of temperature, dust, and water ice in the atmosphere. Temperature
variations with height indicate how fast air density changes and thus the rates at which
the incoming spacecraft slows down and heats up during its descent.

"It is currently one Mars year before the Mars Science Laboratory arrival season," said
atmospheric scientist David Kass of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif. "This campaign will provide a set of observations to support the Mars Science
Laboratory engineering team and Mars atmospheric modelers. The information will
constrain the expected climate at their landing season. It will also help define the
range of possible weather conditions on landing day."

During the four years the Mars Climate Sounder has been studying the Martian
atmosphere, its observations have seen conditions only at about three in the afternoon
and three in the morning. For the new campaign, the instrument team is inaugurating
a new observation mode, looking to both sides as well as forward. This provides views
of the atmosphere earlier and later in the day by more than an hour, covering the
range of possible times of day that the rover will pass through the atmosphere before
landing.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, provided the Mars Climate
Sounder instrument and manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars
Science Laboratory projects for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For
more about NASA's Mars exploration program, see http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov .

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