New Views Show Old NASA Mars Landers

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter recorded a scene on Jan. 29, 2012, that includes the first color image from orbit showing the three-petal lander of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit mission. Spirit drove off that lander platform in January 2004 and spent most of its six-year working life in a range of hills about two miles to the east.

Another recent image from HiRISE, taken on Jan. 26, 2012, shows NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander and its surroundings on far-northern Mars after that spacecraft’s second Martian arctic winter.  Phoenix exceeded its planned mission life in 2008, ending its work as solar energy waned during approach of its first Mars winter.

The image showing Spirit’s lander platform as a small, bright feature southwest of Bonneville Crater is athttp://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA15038. The new image of Phoenix is athttp://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA15039 .

Full Story: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-037

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