[meteorite-list] Powerful Mineral Mapper Headed to Mars

[Ron Baalke]

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Office of Communications and Public Affairs
Laurel, Maryland

Media contact: Michael Buckley
(240) 228 7536 or (443) 778 7536
michael.buckley at jhuapl.edu

August 12, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

POWERFUL MINERAL MAPPER HEADED TO MARS
APL-Built Spectrometer on NASA's Latest Mission to the Red Planet

With today's launch of NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft from 
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging 
Spectrometer for Mars -- or CRISM -- joins the set of high-tech detectives 
seeking traces of water on the red planet.

Built by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in 
Laurel, Md., CRISM is the first visible-infrared spectrometer to fly on a 
NASA Mars mission. Its primary job: look for the residue of minerals that 
form in the presence of water, the "fingerprints" left by evaporated hot 
springs, thermal vents, lakes or ponds on Mars when water could have 
existed on the surface.

With unprecedented clarity, CRISM will map areas on the Martian surface 
down to house-sized scales -- as small as 60 feet (about 18 meters) across 
-- when the spacecraft is in its average orbit altitude of about 190 miles 
(more than 300 kilometers).

"CRISM plays a very important role in Mars exploration," says APL's Dr. 
Scott Murchie, the instrument's principal investigator. "Our data will 
identify sites most likely to have contained water, and which would make 
the best potential landing sites for future missions seeking fossils or 
even traces of life on Mars."

Though certain landforms provide evidence that water may once have flowed 
on Mars, Murchie says scientists have little evidence of sites containing 
mineral deposits created by long-term interaction between water and rock. 
The NASA Rover Opportunity found evidence for liquid water in Meridian 
Planum -- a large plain near Mars' equator -- but that is only one of many 
hundreds of sites where future spacecraft could land.

Peering through a telescope with a 4-inch (10-centimeter) aperture, and 
with a greater capability to map spectral variations than any similar 
instrument sent to another planet, CRISM will read 544 "colors" in 
reflected sunlight to detect minerals in the surface. Its highest 
resolution is about 20 times sharper than any previous look at Mars in 
infrared wavelengths.

"At infrared wavelengths, rocks that look absolutely the same to human eyes 
become very different," Murchie says. "CRISM has the capability to take 
images in which different rocks will 'light up' in different colors."

CRISM is mounted on a gimbal, allowing it to follow targets on the surface 
as the orbiter passes overhead. CRISM will spend the first half of a 
two-year orbit mission mapping Mars at 650-foot (200-meter) scales, 
searching for potential study areas. Several thousand promising sites will 
then be measured in detail at CRISM's highest spatial and spectral 
resolution. CRISM will also monitor seasonal variations in dust and ice 
particles in the atmosphere, supplementing data gathered by the orbiter's 
other instruments and providing new clues about the Martian climate.

"CRISM will improve significantly on the mapping technology currently 
orbiting Mars," says CRISM Project Manager Peter Bedini of APL. "We'll not 
only look for future landing sites, but we'll be able to provide details on 
information the Mars Exploration Rovers are gathering now. There is a lot 
more to learn, and after CRISM and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter there 
will still be more to learn. But with this mission we're taking a big step 
in exploring and understanding Mars."

As the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter cruises to its destination, the CRISM 
operations team continues to fine-tune the software and systems it will use 
to command the instrument and receive, read, process, and store a wealth of 
data from orbit -- more than 10 terabytes when processed back on Earth, 
enough to fill more than 15,000 compact discs. The spacecraft is set to 
reach Mars next March, use aerobraking to circularize its orbit, and settle 
into its science orbit by November 2006.

APL, which has built more than 150 spacecraft instruments over the past 
four decades, led the effort to develop, integrate and test CRISM. CRISM's 
co-investigators are top planetary scientists from Brown University, the 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Northwestern University, Space Science 
Institute, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Paris, the 
Applied Coherent Technology Corporation, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight 
Center, Ames Research Center and Johnson Space Center.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of 
Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission for 
NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

For more information on CRISM and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, 
including instrument images, visit: http://crism.jhuapl.edu

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The Applied Physics Laboratory, a division of the Johns Hopkins University, 
meets critical national challenges through the innovative application of 
science and technology. For information, visit http://www.jhuapl.edu/.