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MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109.  TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov>

Guy Webster (818) 354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

George Diller (321) 867-2468
John F. Kennedy Space Center, Fla.

For Release: May 2, 2003

NASA BRINGS 'MARS AT THE MALL' TO FLORIDA MAY 9 AND 10

Part of Merritt Square Mall in Merritt Island, Fla., will take on
an unearthly tone during two days of "Mars at the Mall" days
presented by NASA on May 9 and 10 to celebrate Florida's role as
America's gateway to Mars. 

The event, complete with a 3-D martian mural, models of NASA Mars
rovers and a gallery of Mars pictures, will share excitement about
two new rover missions to Mars scheduled to launch from Cape
Canaveral in June. Preparations for launch are under way at NASA's
Kennedy Space Center. 

The new Mars Exploration Rovers will be able to explore farther and
examine rocks better than the Sojourner rover that studied one site
on Mars in 1997. Mars at the Mall will feature models both of
Sojourner and a new Mars Exploration Rover.  To give an unforgettable
impression of how the Mars rovers can cope with bumps in their path,
a very lightweight rover model will roll over children who lie on the
ground. 

Visitors will wear three-dimensional viewing glasses to examine a
mural of the Pathfinder landing site and get a sense of the Mars
landscape receding in front of them to the horizon.  Pictures taken
by two orbiting NASA spacecraft, Mars Global Surveyor and Mars
Odyssey, will show visitors a sampling of the diversity of martian
surface features. Those two orbiters, both still active, have
provided evidence of erosion by liquid water on Mars and of large
amounts of ice close to the surface. 

A meteorite that came from Mars will be on display.  NASA personnel
will be available throughout the event to answer questions about Mars
exploration. Part of NASA's mission is to inspire the next generation
of explorers. 

The launch-opportunity period for the first Mars Exploration Rover
begins June 5. The second rover could launch as soon as June 25.
Both will arrive at Mars in January 2004, but at two different sites
about halfway around the planet from each other.  One site is a
crater that may have once been a lake. The other has a deposit of a
mineral that usually forms only under wet conditions.  Additional
information about the Mars Exploration Rovers is available online at
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer> .  The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a
division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif.,
manages the missions for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington,
D.C.

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