ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 5, 1996 TAG: 9612050041
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA.
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE LITTLE SIX-WHEELED CART, aptly named Sojourner, took off on a 310-million-mile journey Wednesday. Its mission? To be the first mobile craft to explore another planet's surface.
A six-wheeled buggy no bigger than a child's wagon sped toward Mars on Wednesday on a 310-million-mile odyssey to explore the planet's rocky, red surface.
The Mars Pathfinder, the spacecraft carrying the rover, is scheduled to drop down onto the planet's surface on July 4th, its 30 mph landing cushioned by large airbags that will inflate at the last moment. Then the remote-control rover, named Sojourner, will amble out in search of rocks.
It is the first time a mobile craft has been sent to explore the surface of another planet.
NASA hopes that Pathfinder, the second of 10 spacecraft to be launched to Mars over the next decade, will live up to its name by paving the way for future robotic explorers and proving that cheap little spacecraft can work.
Pathfinder was built in three years for $196million, a quick bargain by NASA's drawn-out, budget-busting standards.
``If you look at this, the cost of Pathfinder is the same as the cost of the movie `Waterworld,''' Donna Shirley, manager of the Mars exploration program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said after the spacecraft's middle-of-the-night send-off.
``Literally, we're making these things for pennies on the dollar compared to what we used to do these things for. It's something like 5 percent of the cost of Viking.''
NASA's twin Viking landers were the last spacecraft to plop down on Mars, back in 1976. They used the traditional three-legged approach.
Pathfinder's designers opted for airbags for the first time to see how well spacecraft can land in rugged terrain. The probe is expected to bounce a dozen times, as high as 40 feet, before it comes to rest.
Tony Spear, project manager for Pathfinder, expects the descent through the Martian atmosphere and landing to be 100 times more nerve-racking than Wednesday's launch. That was nerve-racking enough.
With the loss just two weeks earlier of a Russian Mars probe that never made it out of Earth orbit, scientists were more worried than usual about Pathfinder.
As it turned out, nearly everything went well, even though the rocket was two days late taking off because of bad weather and a computer failure.
The only snag was a sun sensor that was giving trouble. Spear said the sensor, a navigation device, might only need some adjustment and, in any event, would not jeopardize the mission.
For interplanetary navigator Cheick Diarra, Pathfinder's departure was bittersweet.
``You have been seeing the Sojourner and the spacecraft for so many years, and now they are lonely in the depth of space,'' Diarra said.
Pathfinder should pass the slower Mars Global Surveyor, launched Nov. 7 by NASA, in March. Global Surveyor will reach the red planet in September 1997 and conduct a 687-day survey from orbit.
Pathfinder's destination: an ancient flood plain littered with rocks.
It's the rocky neighborhoods that interest scientists hoping to determine whether life ever existed on Mars. The discovery of supposed ancient life in a Mars meteorite last summer reinforced their goals.
The 23-pound Sojourner lacks shovels and life-detecting instruments. Instead, it will inspect Martian rocks and beam back information about their composition along with color images.
NASA will transmit the views in almost real time on the Internet: just a 20-to 40-minute lag for the time it takes the signals to reach Earth.
Sojourner will stray no farther than 60 feet or so from its landing site, circling the lander for at least one week, possibly months.
``We know there probably won't be any little green people,'' Shirley said, ``but there might be some unexpected findings in terms of the mineralogy and the terrain. And the rover, we don't know if a small rover can actually work on Mars. That's why we're sending it. So if the rover works and the lander works, that's enough excitement for me.''
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. The path of a Delta rocket is shown as it lifts offby CNBearly Wednesday from Cape Canaveral, Fla., carrying NASA's Mars
Pathfinder probe. color. 2. AP/File. The Sojourner, a six-wheeled
buggy no bigger than a child's wagon, took off Wednesday on its way
to explore the surface of Mars. The Mars Pathfinder, which is
transporting the little rover to its red, rocky destination, is
scheduled to land on Mars July 4, 1997. The 23-pound Sojourner lacks
shovels and life-detecting instruments. Instead, it will inspect
Martian rocks and beam back information about their composition
along with color images.