Steve Squyres
Steve Squyres
Steven W. Squyresis the James A. Weeks Professor of Physical Sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. His research area is in planetary sciences, with a focus on large solid bodies in the solar system such as the terrestrial planets and the moons of the Jovian planets. Squyres is principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. He is the recipient of the 2004 Carl Sagan Memorial Award and the 2009 Carl Sagan Medal for Excellence in Communication in...
assume dirty solar stay
We have to assume the worst...that the solar panels are going to stay dirty and just get dirtier.
anniversary entire mars seen year
I actually see the Mars year anniversary as being more significant, ... We will have seen Mars over an entire seasonal cycle.
across columbia far hills january looked necessary night order plains quickly realized seemed sought stuff touched water whether
When we first touched down at Gusev Crater on the night of January 4, 2004, the Columbia Hills seemed impossibly far away. It was a necessary place for us to get to, though, because as we looked across the plains we quickly realized these plains were made of basaltic lava. This was stuff that was interesting but did not tell us what we really sought to know about Gusev Crater, and that is whether there had been water here. So in order to find something, in order to find something different, we had to make that mile-and-a-half drive.
awe business deciding seeing waiting
We're just waiting. We're just in awe of what we're seeing and we're just waiting to see the whole thing so we can really get about the business of deciding what to do.
busy
We'll be busy here for a long time.
carefully cliffs die fall proceed rover
There are cliffs the rover could fall over and die if we aren't careful. We are gong to proceed carefully and methodically.
carry climb head hill husband summit
We still want to get to the summit of Husband Hill and then head down into the 'Inner Basin' on the other side. But now we have more flexibility in how we carry out the plan. Before, it was climb or die.
terms
We're not going to take any risks. It's a big crater in terms of diameter, but really shallow. It's nothing like Endurance.
home material mean seen stuff widespread
We have no idea yet how widespread Home Plate-like material may be. We have not seen anything like this before, but it doesn't mean there isn't more stuff out there.
bedrock bit decision drive mostly north onto start swing terrain western
We can see most of the crater from where we are right now, and we've made the decision that we're going to traverse around it on its western side. We're actually going to start the drive around the crater by going north a little bit ... to get onto terrain that's mostly bedrock ... before we swing west.
beautiful believe signature taken truly
We have taken a beautiful 360-degree panoramic image, which I truly believe will be one of the signature accomplishments of this mission,
beautiful believe signature taken truly
We have taken a beautiful 360-degree panorama, which I believe is going to be truly one of the signature accomplishments of this mission.
driving hang
We're also really getting the hang of driving in this terrain.
again carefully caused checking concern fire immediate lengthy next recovering spacecraft standard takes time whatever whether
Unfortunately, recovering from something like a reset is a slow, lengthy process. You don't know what caused the problem, and the immediate concern is that whatever triggered it will do it again next time you try it. The thing you have to do is fire up each of the rover's capabilities one at a time, checking each one carefully and individually to see whether it would cause another reset or not. Standard spacecraft troubleshooting practicebut it takes time.