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Athena science payload, instruments bound for Mars
   aboard NASA rover, arrives at Cape Canaveral
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FOR RELEASE:  March 12,  2003

Contact: Blaine P. Friedlander Jr.
         Cornell University
Office:  607-255-3290
E-mail:  bpf2{at}cornell.edu

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Culminating a six-year development and building 
process led by Cornell University's Steven Squyres, the second of two 
Mars-bound clusters of scientific instruments, called the Athena 
payload, arrived March 11 at the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, 
Fla.

The instruments will ride aboard NASA's twin Mars Exploration Rovers, 
scheduled for separate launches beginning May 30 and June 25.

"I've poured my heart and soul into this project, and the instruments 
feel almost like children to me.  Starting in two weeks or so, the 
rovers will each be put onto their respective landers, the petals 
surrounding them will be closed and we'll never see them again," says 
Squyres, Cornell professor of astronomy and the principal investigator 
for the Athena science payload. "It's going to feel strange to say 
goodbye."

Carried as the science payload on each of the rovers, the Athena 
instruments promise to provide the most vivid images and to conduct 
the most comprehensive geologic examination yet of the Martian 
surface. The mission seeks to determine the history of the planet's 
climate while looking for sites that provide evidence of whether water 
once flowed and whether life once might have been possible.

"This will be a whole new experience for Martians like us," says James 
Bell, Cornell assistant professor of astronomy and payload element 
lead for the panoramic cameras, known as Pancams, carried by both 
rovers as part of the Athena packages. The cameras will provide 
high-resolution, 20/20 images, Bell says. "With this camera, we'll be 
able to capture the planet's sweeping landscapes and beautiful vistas. 
We don't know exactly what it will look like where we land, so we'll 
need the Pancam to help decide which way to go."

The airbag-enclosed, pyramid-shaped landers carrying the rovers will 
bounce onto the Martian surface three weeks apart next January. After 
that, the rovers will explore the surface through the winter and 
spring of 2004, each lasting 90 Martian days, or "sols" (a Martian sol 
is slightly longer than an Earth day). The rovers might be capable of 
traveling up to 100 yards per sol under ideal conditions, which is as 
far as NASA's Sojourner rover traveled during its entire mission in 
1997.

In addition to the Pancam, the Athena instruments include a 
microscopic imager, three spectrometers (Mössbauer, alpha 
particle X-ray and infrared) and a rock abrasion tool, or RAT, to 
scrape away the outer layers of Martian rock. Other institutions that 
have helped build the payload include NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory 
(JPL), the U.S. Geological Survey, Arizona State University, Honeybee 
Robotics, the University of Mainz in Germany, the Max Planck Institut 
für Chemie in Mainz and the University of Copenhagen. JPL, in 
Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Exploration Rover mission.

Squyres and his research team have collaborated with engineers from 
JPL to integrate the Athena payloads with the rovers and to verify 
that the instruments can withstand the airbag landing, patterned on 
the Mars Pathfinder mission six years ago.

Additionally, the Athena team of more than 120 scientists from the 
United States, Germany, Denmark and other nations needed to prove that 
the instruments will work at frigid temperatures in the planet's 
meager atmosphere. It is common for Martian nights to dip to minus 90 
degrees Centigrade (minus130 degrees Fahrenheit). "On the Martian 
surface there's a huge change in temperature from day to night. The 
instruments will expand and contract, so we put a lot of effort into 
thermal testing," says Squyres. Final testing of the Athena 
instruments will take place over the coming weeks at Cape Canaveral.

A full-scale rover model is on display at the Sciencenter, a science 
museum in Ithaca. In May, the model will move to its permanent home at 
the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in 
Washington, D.C.

On a bulletin board outside Squyres' Cornell office is a countdown to 
the first launch. With the instruments safely at Cape Canaveral, 
Squyres is relieved. "We've got a date with a rocket in May and June," 
he says. "The planets are lining up, and it's time to head for Mars."

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