Ray Arvidson, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor, directs the Earth and Planetary Remote Sensing Laboratory, which is heavily involved in NASA’s planetary exploration efforts. He is currently exploring the surface of Mars with multiple probes, including the Spirit and Opportunity probes.

“The more we look with the two rovers, the more excited we become for lots of evidence for water in the past, and even continuing occasionally today,” he said.

This April, Obama announced his plan for NASA’s future. The central objective is to shift focus away from returning to the moon and instead aim for an asteroid and Mars.

Arvidson’s group would be instrumental in the exploration to prepare for a Mars landing. The rovers’ finding that there is plenty of ice on the surface, for example, opens the possibility that we might be able to use Martian ice for drinking water and even to help make rocket fuel, Arvidson said.

This strategy, called in-situ resource utilization, would be cheaper than carrying all resources on the spacecraft. And it could be vital to survival, as people would have to stay on the surface for as long as six months before the orbital mechanics of Earth and Mars allowed them to return.

Robotic exploration will likely pave the way for humans on Mars, by exploring and setting up a base before they arrive, he said.

Kirsten Siebach, a junior who has been working on the Mars rovers with Arvidson for more than a year and wants to continue studying planetary science in graduate school, appreciates that the new NASA plan focuses on technology development and unmanned exploration.

“I think you can get a lot more out of those for less expense than you can for manned missions,” she said. “I’m always excited when it sounds like there will be more missions and more data to play with.”

The future of American space travel has undergone some revision in the current administration. In 2004, President Bush announced his vision for the future of U.S. space exploration: a return to the moon by 2020. He also called for the aging space shuttle program to be shut down, since the shuttles have reached the end of their life span.

But we don’t yet have replacements for them, thanks to a lack of planning in the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations, Arvidson said. For a few years, we’ll have to rely on other countries to take our astronauts to the International Space Station.

“So this plan would build a heavy launch vehicle that gets to lower Earth orbit, and somehow gets to the moon…that is a huge amount of money, and a lot of technology investment,” Arvidson said.

But the program suffered from a lack of funding. It ran far over budget and past scheduled deadlines. To confront these problems, NASA commissioned a report on the costs of continuing with a moon landing and potential alternatives.

They concluded that going to the moon would cost a lot more money, and since we’ve already been there, we might get a better return on our investment if we aimed for a more challenging target. Rather than return to the moon, why not go somewhere new?

“The upshot is to not try to go back to the moon, but rather to invest broadly in technology so we can go to more distant targets, and to involve the commercial sector much more heavily than has been done before,” Arvidson said.

From Arvidson’s perspective, this plan makes good sense. “So [President Obama is] actually investing either $5 or $6 billion more over the next few years than the Bush administration had, but I think in a more realistic way. There’s a lot more technology investment, robotic precursor exploration and moving into deep space instead of going back to the moon. So I think it’s all good… I personally think he had it right.”

The commission identified asteroids as a target worth exploring. “An asteroid is a possible target that’s scientifically interesting. And some come too close to the earth, and someday they’re going to hit the earth, so we need to understand them.”

The University plays a large role in the similar plan of travelling to Mars since Arvidson and his group are already heavily involved in robotic exploration of the planet.

They have been exploring the surface of Mars with the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which are both “way out of warranty, but still operating” after seven years. In addition, they also worked on the Phoenix probe, which dug around in the ice on the surface. Now, they’ll be involved in three new proposed probes, including two to explore Venus’ atmosphere and surface.

Arvidson says we know hardly anything about Mars, given that its surface area is similar to the land area of Earth. So far, though, the rovers have uncovered surprising evidence that it was once a warm, wet environment like Earth is now.

“Today it’s incredibly cold. The only thing that’s stable on the surface is water vapor, or snow and ice. But in the past, it was a different place… when you go very, very far back in time, there were standing lakes. There was snow and rainfall and an open hydrologic system.”

NASA’s Spirit rover, part of the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Mission, is currently spinning its wheels on Mars in an area scientists have named “Troy” after the besieged city in Homer’s Iliad. Spirit landed on Mars on Jan. 4, 2004, three weeks before its twin, Opportunity. Each rover had an anticipated mission span of 90 Martian days, which last the equivalent of 24 hours and 37 minutes, and each was expected to drive about one kilometer total. This January will mark six years on the Martian surface, and the two have driven more than 25 kilometers combined.

“It’s way out of warranty,” said Ray Arvidson, director of the Earth and Planetary Remote Sensing Laboratory here at Washington University. “It’s like an old ’55 Chevy.”

The problems begin
While the mission is unprecedented in the amount of data collected over the length of the mission, Spirit now finds itself in a predicament. Last May, the rover broke through the surface it was driving on, sinking into loose soil at the outer edge of a crater. The rover has not been able to move from its current location.

In addition, researchers found that a large rock was positioned under the rover’s belly, further imperiling its mobility. Buried rocks in the soil could interfere by resisting the rover’s wheel turns to the point that the motor stalls, providing a challenge to the planners.

“Since there are probably buried rocks, it’s so easy to encounter one so there’s so much resisting torque that the motor stalls,” Arvidson said. “We’re concerned there might be these buried objects that could get caught in the wheel.”

The aging rovers are encountering more problems in addition to losing mobility. For one, the right front wheel of Spirit stopped rotating some time ago, so the rover drives in reverse, dragging the nonfunctional wheel behind it.

Arvidson said that the rovers also suffered from bouts of amnesia in which they fail to “wake up” when the sun hits them each morning as they are programmed to do. There have also been problems with storing information in the rovers’ flash memories.

Making the most of it
“In interim, we’ve done more detailed measurements of one place than we’ve ever done before and it turns out to be a fascinating place because there’s a crater that’s 8 meters across and maybe 25 centimeters high, and we wound up right on the side of it,” Arvidson said. “In fact, the edge of the crater goes right down the middle of the rover. The material in the crater is really neat stuff.”

Arvidson said that they have been able to take measurements of the material at several different depths, which had not been done at other locations when the rover was on the move.

“What we’re seeing is the material varies as a function of depth,” Arvidson said.

Arvidson explained that calcium- and iron-containing compounds are differentially distributed in the area based on depth.

“You can’t see those sulfate sands until you turn them up,” Arvidson said.

Students at the University have also been involved in gathering data.

“The advantage to remaining in one place for so long was we could do detailed study with our instruments,” said junior Kirsten Siebach, who has worked on the project while at the University.

Planning an escape
No one can be certain how long the extraction process will take or whether it will be successful. Freeing the rover may take weeks or months, according to online statements by NASA.

To plan an escape route for the rover, tests have been done in a test bed with a duplicate rover at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., and computer-based models of the rover’s predicament have been designed. The test bed can be tilted to the correct angle, and the proper mix of soil can be added.

Graduate student Kim Lichtenberg worked at JPL over the summer trying to find a simulation for a test bed that would best represent the soil around the rover. She brought a geologic point of view to the testing.

“Unfortunately, it turns out that for each of these separate maneuvers we tried in the test bed, there wasn’t one that leapt out at us,” Lichtenberg said. “It was very small, minute differences in how the rover behaved.”

The rover stopped taking measurements in mid-November, and the team started sending commands to the rover in attempts to free it.

Opportunity found itself stuck in a region the team named Purgatory earlier in the mission. In that situation, the solution was to simply back out, but Arvidson said that Spirit’s situation is more complicated.

“This is way more complicated because the vehicle is rolled about 12 degrees, the left wheels are badly embedded, the right rear wheels are embedded, the right front wheel doesn’t work,” Arvidson said. “There’s also a rock that’s pushing up against the underbelly, and there might be buried rocks that could get entangled in the wheel system.”

The team attempted the first extraction drive on Nov. 16 but was unable to make progress. Spirit determined it was tilted farther than parameters for the drive allowed, ending the attempt after less than a second. The team is being careful not to make moves that might put the rover in more danger.

“It’s moving. Every time we command a drive, we move, so it’s not stuck, per se, it’s just mobility impaired,” Arvidson said. “It’s not a situation where we do a command and nothing happens.”

A looming deadline
The mission is up against a deadline with regard to moving the rover. Within about two months, it will be winter in Mars’ southern hemisphere. With each day, less sunlight reaches the rover’s solar panels, giving the rover less power to use. If Spirit cannot generate enough power to heat the important electronics, the rover may not respond when the team tries to communicate to it.

Currently, the rover is tilted to the south 1 degree and needs to be tilted 5 degrees to the north, toward where the sun will be during the Martian winter. There are slopes not far from where the rover is located where it could park for the winter at the necessary angle, but first it needs to regain mobility. In addition, dust accumulates on the solar panels, reducing their efficiency.

“It really depends on how much dust is going to come on the panels. There’s some time pressure to get out of here,” Arvidson said. “On the other hand, you don’t want to rush anything, because we’d be pretty close to turning this into a lander, not a rover.”

Members of the team realize the possibility that Spirit may have reached its final resting place.

“We’re going to try our darnedest to try and get her out, but in the eventuality that she does end up spending the rest of her life in this spot, there are so many scientifically interesting things to study in this area,” Lichtenberg said. “This is really one of the best places we could have picked to get stuck.”

Professor Raymond Arvidson is the deputy principal investigator for the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. The Spirit rover, seen here, and its twin Opportunity, were only expected to run for 90 days. (NASA)

The Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, launched in the summer of 2003. Now, more than six years later, the two robot geologists are still running and collecting data on Mars, though their missions were originally expected to last only 90 days each.

Like many Mars missions in the past, the goal is to “follow the water”, said Raymond Arvidson, professor of earth and planetary sciences at Washington University. Arvidson serves as the deputy principal investigator for the Spirit and Opportunity rovers in NASA’s Mars Exploration Program.

Data collected by the two rovers have provided clear evidence to support the theory that there was once water present on the surface of Mars.

Because water is a strong indicator of life on Earth, researchers propose that water could have bred life on Mars.

Since May, however, Spirit has encountered unforeseen difficulties—or what Arvidson describes as being “mobility impaired.” One of its four wheels is entrenched in a sand-like volcanic silt.

Arvidson has been working with engineers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., to resolve this issue. The process will involve addressing other problems in the mission, too. So many issues exist that Arvidson refers to the scenario as “Murphy’s Law on steroids”—a scientific version of the philosophy that if something can go wrong, it will.

Despite these difficulties, Arvidson said he expects that Spirit will regain its mobility by the beginning of November.

Even in its immobility, Spirit has been collecting data the entire time.

“[It is] scientifically a great place to be mobility impaired,” Arvidson said.

Minerals found by Spirit have led the scientific team to the conclusion that there was once water at the location.

“I am ready to leave, but the measurements here have been very fruitful,” Arvidson said.

Opportunity has also been following the water trail.

The rover is currently situated against a half-ton meteorite composed of iron and nickel.

Scientists are currently studying weathering on the meteorite. If the iron in the meteorite has oxidized, it will signify the presence of water.

Since landing, Opportunity has been roving in an area full of lake sediments—also a sign that there was at one time water present in the area.

Following data collection at the meteorite, Opportunity will continue on in the search for evidence of water. This research, according to Arvidson, is the gateway to the next phase of Mars exploration: the quest for life on the Red Planet.

As for the possibility that life once existed on Mars, Arvidson believes it likely did.

“It’s just such a rich place,” he said.

Arvidson is aided by a team of scientists that includes five undergraduates. Much of the analysis and cataloging of data from the mission have been completed here at the University.

With news of the Mars rovers circulating in the media, students on campus have found themselves impressed by the mission and the role that the University has played in it.

“I think that space exploration is a field that deserves a lot more attention than it has been given,” junior Sam Sullivan said. “I am glad that Wash. U. is at the forefront of this research.”

Others, such as sophomore Bobby Sutter, praised the University for its involvement in such a groundbreaking project.

“It is great to see that the research at Wash. U. can have a great effect outside of Wash. U. and across the scientific community,” Sutter said.

McDonnell Distinguished University Professor, publisher of over 100 scientific papers, friend of Bill Nye, member of almost every mission that has involved both NASA and Mars, my four-year advisor: this is just a sparknotes version of the endless accomplishments of Wash. U.’s own Ray Arvidson.

He is usually seen haunting the southwest corridor of the Earth and Planetary Sciences building. He is currently ridiculously busy with the Phoenix Mars Mission. NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander touched down on the Martian north pole this summer and is now digging up soil looking for evidence of water. So, what would a man of this caliber listen to while relaxing from all of the team-coordinating, data analyzing, remote sensing, and alien hunting?

Well, he doesn’t listen to an iPod. Instead, I was handed a small, somewhat outdated Insignia mp3 player. 

This miniature device is home to whopping 107 songs by 5 different artists. Apparently doing the whole Mars thing doesn’t give you enough time to update your mp3 player (Although I don’t think it can hold too many more). The first album, as one might expect of any professor, contains Beethoven’s 5^th and 6^th symphonies. But, surprisingly, Beethoven is the least played.

Three of the five albums are greatest hits compilations: The Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, and Bob Segar and the Silver Bullet Band. These all-American classic rock artists are not an unusual find on anyone’s playlists, and almost expected for someone of Ray’s generation.

But after Beethoven and the classic rock rotations, the last, and most played artist on Ray’s mp3 player is not exactly whom you might expect. This coveted spot goes to Fergie. No, no, not Fergie MacDonald, the renowned Scottish accordion player. His most played artist is none other than ex-crystal meth addict, inept speller, and member of the Black-Eyed Peas, Stacy Ann Ferguson. His favorite song? Mary Jane Shoes. “There is some vibrational mechanism [in Mary Jane Shoes] that cures my sinus headaches,” Ray said in defense of this new revelation. Had anyone else made this statement, I would have claimed BS, but the man’s life is science. And based on how many times this song has been played, it also seems Ray has more than his fare share of sinus headaches. In fact, I’m starting to recall hearing Fergie’s dulcet tones beginning as soon as I leave his office after my advising meetings.

For such a limited song selection, one does get to choose from a variety of music genres.  And Ray’s lack of an iPod just fits in with the fact that he is more of a PC guy anyways. I’m just going to go ahead and give that little ole’ Insignia an A—5 stars— because I don’t want to have to switch advisors – there is way too much paperwork.