Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech

Mars rover Curiosity, the centerpiece of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission is pictured here. This image, taken on June 29, 2010, shows Curiosity with its mobility system—wheels and suspension—in place after installation at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Ray Arvidson, a professor in the department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, will be assisting both operationally, to help the new Curiosity rover route the safest path along Martian terrains, as well as scientifically, to study the soils found.

Arvidson was one of 29 individuals selected for the position at the Mars Science Laboratory, out of a total applicant pool of 150. His proposal suggested the rover should be used to observe terramechanics, or study the soil on the planet.

“My role will be to use Curiosity as a virtual instrument to simulate drives across terrains traversed and to be traversed by the rover,” Arvidson wrote in an email to Student Life. “This will help the engineers plan drives that are safe and will also allow me to retrieve soil properties of relevance to understanding Martian geological history.”

Curiosity, which launched Nov. 26 of last year, is scheduled to land on Mars in August. While previous rovers have explored for water, the new mission is geared toward searching for potentially habitable regions of the planet.

Third-year graduate student Abigail Fraeman, who is also involved in the project, said although the rover still has many months before its scheduled landing date, there is much work to be done in order to prepare it.

“This work will be useful for figuring out how best to drive Curiosity, including how to avoid any potential rover sand-traps,” she said. “Unfortunately, you can’t just dig out a rover stuck on Mars, so guiding Curiosity to safe terrains will be incredibly important to ensure the vehicle stays mobile and able to drive to the most interesting targets.”

Planning the rover’s route will involve predicting the surface terrain and how the rover will operate on it. That will mean studying data taken by instruments on satellites orbiting the red planet, as well as the data that will be collected by the rover itself.

Arvidson conducted similar research on both of his previous rover projects—Spirit and Opportunity.

“Our department is well known across the world for Mars research,” Douglas Wiens, chairman of the University’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said. “The new project will strengthen our reputation and fund graduate students to carry out their thesis work on Mars.”

Arvidson’s team will be using a computer model of the rover to simulate Curiosity’s actual travels across the surface of the planet. The team will search for the least perilous route for the rover to take across Mars.

The team will also archive the data collected from the rover’s instruments from the department’s NASA Planetary Data System Geosciences Node.

The information will also be released to the public, free of charge.

“The work is important scientifically because it will give us an understanding of the soil properties at Curiosity’s landing site in Gale Crater,” Fraeman said. “It will provide additional insight into the mechanics of driving vehicles on other planets.”

Matt Mitgang | Student Life

The Bombshells and their friends cheer on the volleyball team at the 2010 NCAA Women’s Volleyball Elite Eight in November. The Bombshells are a student cheering section started in the fall by members of the women’s basketball team.

Senior Alex Hoover formed the group hoping to garner fan support for other women’s varsity programs. She began recruitment for the Bombshells by contacting the captains of every female team on campus, and received positive feedback.

“Obviously people at Wash. U…their number one priority is not athletics. We don’t go to a school like Duke where the gym is going to be filled,” Hoover said. “I think getting athletes to start supporting other sports is the best way to get people to come to games…I’m hoping that this idea can catch on and people will get more excited so that on a Friday night, a basketball game or soccer game is the place to be.”

Members of the Bombshells explained that although many athletes at Wash. U. have become accustomed to playing in front of smaller crowds, enthusiastic fans would have the potential to boost teams’ performances.

“As varsity athletes ourselves…we know how it feels to play in front of a huge crowd and how much of an impact that can have not only on your school spirit, but [also] it definitely affects your game,” senior Hannah Cusworth, a teammate of Hoover’s, said. “It’s easier to get another athlete [to join] because that athlete knows what it’s like to have the gym be dead, or there be no one in the stands.”

The name for the group was suggested by women’s basketball head coach Nancy Fahey. In a meeting with her captains regarding team bonding, the athletes began to consider how they could extend team spirit to the entire community.

“We wanted to incorporate this idea of school spirit,” senior Monika Monson said. “It’s a way for us to bond as a team and also bond among other female athletes.”

The Bombshells’ first event was the homecoming football game against Westminster College on Sept. 25. Members of the basketball and volleyball teams took to the stands clad in pink, armed with signs and cheers . Dressed in all black, players from the baseball team also attended in conjunction with the Bombshells.

“There was a lot of planning that went into it…we were all doing really crazy cheers and just trying to be loud,” Monson said. “We stood the entire game, all four quarters, and it was cold but it was a lot of fun.”

The group hopes to work in collaboration with Red Alert and the Bomb Squad, a student cheering section largely composed of Phi Delta Theta fraternity brothers. Since Hoover and her teammates are seniors, they hope that working with other spirit groups will generate not only casual membership, but leadership as well.

“If we have more incentives for people to come, I think that’s going to encourage more people to come to the games,” Hoover said. “Unfortunately it’s my senior year, but I’m hoping to be able to find enough people who are interested in taking the reins on this and making it happen.”

While female athletes were integral to the group’s creation, the Bombshells hope to continue to grow and generate interest among more athletes and non-athletes alike.

“I think it would be cool if we came back years from now…if it became a more organized group, like a subdivision of Red Alert,” Cusworth said. “It could potentially become a Student Union-recognized group. That would be really cool.”

The Bombshells will bring their cheers and pink attire to the home softball games this weekend. They will be attending in support of the team’s “Strikeout Cancer” effort.

“It’s a great chance to support our softball team as well as cancer awareness, so it’s a perfect opportunity for anyone and everyone to come out…you don’t have to be an athlete or a female to support,” Hoover said.

Host a Monster Mash Bash:

So we know you’re probably planning on heading to the frats this weekend for some of their parties, but what’s a Halloween without a pre-monster mash bash? Forgo the stress of providing dinner and make some Halloween punch instead (blood anyone?). Try this recipe for a spooky treat.

Bloody Vampire Punch:

1 quart or liter cranberry juice

1 liter 7-Up or Sprite

1 package frozen strawberries in syrup

thawed Grenadine

Place strawberries in a punch bowl (Large black cauldron is preferred)

Add cranberry juice and stir

Pour in 7-Up or Sprite

Pour in Grenadine

Do not stir—SO THE GRENADINE LOOKS LIKE BLOOD (yum)

Add alcohol to your desired amount!

Maybe throw in some spine-tingling snacks like gummy eyeballs, organs and brains to bring back the creepiest memories of childhood. You can’t have a great Halloween pre-game (or all-night event) without some awesome decorations too. Keep the lights dim and be sure to throw some cotton cobwebs (easily found at any drug store) all over the walls. Keep a plastic pumpkin filled with your favorite candies on the coffee table—you may be sophisticated college kids, but we know you still love candy! We happen to love the pumpkin shaped Reese’s.

It’s that one night of the year when it is totally fair to wear the craziest costume and go wild. So encourage your friends to deck themselves out because everyone loves a party filled with vampires, ministers, French maids and Na’vi.

Roadtrip to State Street:

Two words: Halloween and Wisconsin.

State Street, the infamous center of University of Wisconsin, attracts around 50,000 costumed partygoers on Saturday for “Freakfest.” And good news—it’s only a five and a half hour road trip away! So pack up your car with loads of costumes and some junk food for the road, and head out in time to catch the performances by OK Go, Stealing Angels, Mechanical Kids, DJ Will Calder and more. Be prepared to see anything from cross-dressing frat boys to the most obscure costumes like an H1N1 Virus and Facebook. Best of all, there’s a costume contest with expensive prizes like vacations and flat-screen TVs.

While Halloween in Madison already has a legendary reputation, this year’s Freakfest is said to be the freakiest and nuttiest of all. Make sure to plan ahead though (even though we always stress spontaneity) because you can’t get onto State Street without a wristband, and most of the clubs sell all of their tickets the week before.

Visit a Haunted House:

The Darkness

This haunted house located at 1525 South 8th Street, is a St. Louis local favorite during the fall. Rated the 13th best-haunted house nationally in 2010, The Darkness has its name for a reason! The 30,000 square foot warehouse hosts a walk-through section filled with live, shivering ghosts and zombies who will literally chase you down narrow corridors.

We won’t tell you more and ruin the surprise, but it might be wise to wear sneakers. The Darkness also features a brand new 3-D room that is sure to totally creep out all who enter. This year, the warehouse underwent its biggest renovation in 17 years, and the newly added second floor funeral home is said to be the scariest place of all. If you think you can handle it, make sure to purchase your tickets from www.scarefest.com.You don’t want to miss out, and tickets sell out fast—so pre-purchasing them isn’t a bad idea.

And don’t forget to read the WARNING advisory before entering…

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.