2004 Sixth Annual Beckman Scholars Symposium

"The Mars Exploration Rover Mission"

Raymond E. Arvidson
James S. MaDonnell Distinguished Professor
Earth and Planetary Sciences
McDonnell Center for the Sapce Sciences
Washington University, St. Louis

The two Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, landed on opposite sides of the planet in January 2004 and have been operating since then. Spirit has traversed over 3 km on the floor of Gusev Crater and has found evidence of continuing interaction of water vapor and perhaps ice and thin films of water with surface rocks and soils. Opportunity, on the plains of Meridiani, has discovered layered rocks dominated by evaporate minerals. These rocks are also cross-bedded and formed in an ancient, open body of water. The two rovers will continue to explore the terrains and materials at the two landing sites, perhaps for as long as an Earth Year, in addition to tracking the dynamics of the atmosphere of Mars as seasons change.

Raymond Arvidson (Ph.D., Brown University, 1974) is The James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and Chair of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis. He is also the Director of the Earth and Planetary Remote Sensing Laboratory. His research interests focus on process geomorphology and remote sensing of Earth, Venus, and Mars. He was the Team Leader for the Viking Lander Imaging System for the extended missions and a Member of the Venus Orbiter Magellan Science Team. He currently is the Director, Geosciences Node of NASA's Planetary Data System (PDS), an Interdisciplinary Scientist on Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey Missions, the Deputy Principal Investigator for the Mars Surveyor Rover Mission, and a Co-Investigator for the hyperspectral imaging systems on the European Mars Express and the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiters.