R $18.99 / HIGHER IN CANADA U S THE MIGHTY MARS ROVERS C T H Five, four, three, two, one . . . liftoff! he award-winning freelance writer On June 10, 2003, a little go-cart-size rover named T Elizabeth Rusch has published H Spirit blasted off on a rocket headed for Mars. Less E more than one hundred articles in M than a month later, on July 7, a twin rover named Opportunity soared through the solar system, hot magazines such as Muse, Smithsonian, IG The Incredible Adventures of Spirit and Opportunity on her tail. The two little robots landed halfway H and Mother Jones. She is the author of a T across the planet from each other. But the twins number of award-winning nonfiction Y had a common goal: to find out if Mars ever had M water that could have supported life. titles for children, including Generation A The rovers wouldn’t have long to complete their R Fix, Will It Blow?, The Planet Hunter, and S mission. Mars is a frigid, harsh planet—airless For the Love of Music: The Remarkable R and constantly bombarded with deadly radiation. O Totally dependent on solar power, which is scarce Story of Maria Anna Mozart. V E during Martian winters, Spirit and Opportunity R Elizabeth lives in Portland, Oregon, were expected to survive for three months. S with her family. She has a four-inch- T Instead, in what may well be the most successful h space mission ever, the rovers have explored the high scale model rover, which e red planet for more than six years. Opportunity I n she kept next to her computer for c has driven farther than anyone can believe, and r e Spirit survived so many impossible situations that inspiration while writing this book. d i engineers call her “the Indiana Jones of Mars.” The model rover toppled over and b le In this thrilling installment to the acclaimed broke so many times that she can’t A Scientists in the Field series, The Mighty Mars Rovers d tells the greatest space robot adventure of all time believe Spirit and Opportunity have v e through the eyes—and heart—of Steven Squyres, n survived roaming Mars for more tu professor of astronomy at Cornell University and than six years. You can visit Elizabeth re lead scientist on the mission. Readers follow Steve s D online at WWW.ELIZABETHRUSCH.COM. o L as he sweats through the rovers’ dramatic landings, f puzzle with him and his team as they figure out S E how to make delicate rovers explore deep craters p I i F and travel up the sides of jagged mountains, and r i worry as Spirit and Opportunity find themselves t a E in grave danger. n H d The Mighty Mars Rovers captures not only T O the triumph of the mission but also the p N very human emotions Steve and his p I team felt during their adventures o with Spirit and Opportunity, the r S t “never-give-up, never-say-die” robots. u T n S i I t y T N E FRONT COVER: Photograph A JUNIOR LIBRARY GUILD SELECTION H I © 2011 by NASA/JPL O U C FRONT FLAP: Photograph Houghton Mifflin $1I8S.B9N9 :/ 9H7I8G-H0-E5R4 I7N-4 C7A88N1A-4DA 1439 GHTO S P©BAh C2o0Kt1o C1gO rbVaypE NhR: A ©S A2011 by HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT 105 N M NASA/JPL-Caltech/ www.hmhbooks.com IF By Elizabeth Rusch Cornell F BACK FLAP: LI Photograph © 2011 N NASA/JPL-Caltech R $18.99 / HIGHER IN CANADA U S THE MIGHTY MARS ROVERS C T H Five, four, three, two, one . . . liftoff! he award-winning freelance writer On June 10, 2003, a little go-cart-size rover named T Elizabeth Rusch has published H Spirit blasted off on a rocket headed for Mars. Less E more than one hundred articles in M than a month later, on July 7, a twin rover named Opportunity soared through the solar system, hot magazines such as Muse, Smithsonian, IG The Incredible Adventures of Spirit and Opportunity on her tail. The two little robots landed halfway H and Mother Jones. She is the author of a T across the planet from each other. But the twins number of award-winning nonfiction Y had a common goal: to find out if Mars ever had M water that could have supported life. titles for children, including Generation A The rovers wouldn’t have long to complete their R Fix, Will It Blow?, The Planet Hunter, and S mission. Mars is a frigid, harsh planet—airless For the Love of Music: The Remarkable R and constantly bombarded with deadly radiation. O Totally dependent on solar power, which is scarce Story of Maria Anna Mozart. V E during Martian winters, Spirit and Opportunity R Elizabeth lives in Portland, Oregon, were expected to survive for three months. S with her family. She has a four-inch- T Instead, in what may well be the most successful h space mission ever, the rovers have explored the high scale model rover, which e red planet for more than six years. Opportunity I n she kept next to her computer for c has driven farther than anyone can believe, and r e Spirit survived so many impossible situations that inspiration while writing this book. d i engineers call her “the Indiana Jones of Mars.” The model rover toppled over and b le In this thrilling installment to the acclaimed broke so many times that she can’t A Scientists in the Field series, The Mighty Mars Rovers d tells the greatest space robot adventure of all time believe Spirit and Opportunity have v e through the eyes—and heart—of Steven Squyres, n survived roaming Mars for more tu professor of astronomy at Cornell University and than six years. You can visit Elizabeth re lead scientist on the mission. Readers follow Steve s D online at WWW.ELIZABETHRUSCH.COM. o L as he sweats through the rovers’ dramatic landings, f puzzle with him and his team as they figure out S E how to make delicate rovers explore deep craters p I i F and travel up the sides of jagged mountains, and r i worry as Spirit and Opportunity find themselves t a E in grave danger. n H d The Mighty Mars Rovers captures not only T O the triumph of the mission but also the p N very human emotions Steve and his p I team felt during their adventures o with Spirit and Opportunity, the r S t “never-give-up, never-say-die” robots. u T n S i I t y T N E FRONT COVER: Photograph A JUNIOR LIBRARY GUILD SELECTION H I © 2011 by NASA/JPL O U C FRONT FLAP: Photograph Houghton Mifflin $1I8S.B9N9 :/ 9H7I8G-H0-E5R4 I7N-4 C7A88N1A-4DA 1439 GHTO S P©BAh C2o0Kt1o C1gO rbVaypE NhR: A ©S A2011 by HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT 105 N M NASA/JPL-Caltech/ www.hmhbooks.com IF By Elizabeth Rusch Cornell F BACK FLAP: LI Photograph © 2011 N NASA/JPL-Caltech THE MIGHTY MARS ROVERS 2 THE MIGHTY MARS ROVERS Spirit Opportunity The Incredible Adventures of and By Elizabeth Rusch Houghton Mifflin Books for Children Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Boston New York 2012 Copyright © 2012 by Elizabeth Rusch CONTENTS All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003. Houghton Mifflin Books for Children is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. www.hmhbooks.com Design by Ellen Nygaard The text of this book is set in Proforma. Photo and illustration credits on pages 78–79. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rusch, Elizabeth. The mighty Mars rovers : the incredible adventures of Spirit and Opportunity / by Elizabeth Rusch. p. cm. — (Scientists in the Field) (Houghton Mifflin Books for Children) ISBN 978-0-547-47881-4 1. Mars (Planet)—Exploration—Juvenile literature. 2. Roving vehicles (Astronau- tics)—Juvenile literature. 3. Mars probes—Juvenile literature. I. Title. QB641.R87 2012 523.43—dc23 2011012159 Author’s Note: ON THE USE OF PRONOUNS FOR THE ROVERS As an inanimate object, a Mars rover would generally be referred to as “it.” The scientists and engineers who work on the rovers commonly refer to them as “she.” For a more gender-balanced usage and to help readers distinguish between the two rovers, the author has decided to refer to Spirit as “she” and Opportunity as “he.” Manufactured in China LEO 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 4500343728 For Craig CONTENTS MARS EXPLORATION ROVER MISSION 7 7. THE PROBLEM WITH COURAGE 52 1. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 8 8. A BROKEN SPIRIT 56 2. THE MAKING OF THE MARS ROVERS 14 9. OPPORTUNITY’S LAST STAND? 62 What’s in a Name? 20 Wet Mars 66 3. ARE WE REALLY ON MARS? 24 10. FREE SPIRIT 68 Naming Names 28 11. MISSION MORE THAN ACCOMPLISHED! 72 How to Drive a Rover 28 Curiosity Continues 74 Chatting with the Rovers 30 Mission Update 76 4. HITTING THE DUSTY TRAIL 34 Sources 76 Living on Martian Time 38 Chapter Notes 76 Driving Without a Driver 39 For Further Exploration 78 Acknowledgments 78 5. CAN OPPORTUNITY CLIMB DOWN? 40 Glossary 79 Pink Pools 45 Index 80 6. CAN SPIRIT CLIMB UP? 46 Sucked into Science 47 This view of Mars was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Mars Exploration Rover Mission Earth year: 2004 Explorers: Twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity Leader: Steven Squyres, principal science investigator Goal: To seek evidence that Mars once had water that could have supported life Duration of the mission: Three months, maybe more . . . The Search for Life on Mars Are Martians real? As silly as it may seem, this question has driven Mars exploration for decades. People all over the world yearn to know: Is there life on Mars? If not, has there ever been life on Mars? No one is seriously searching for green people with wobbly arms and bug eyes. If such creatures existed, we’d likely have found evidence of them by now. Instead, scientists are looking for much smaller, nearly invisible life forms—tiny creatures like bacteria and amoebae. Why do so many people care about whether microscopic blobs have ever made a home on Mars, especially if they’re not even alive anymore? Martians like these aren’t going to invade our planet or steal our brains. We care because we wonder: Did the miracle of life happen only once, here on Earth? Or is life something that can happen anytime the conditions are right? If some kind of living things, even very tiny creatures, once lived on Mars, then imagine what else may be living out there on the millions of billions of planets in our vast universe. No life form known to us today can exist without water. So our search for life begins with the search for water . . . 7 MMMMiiiissssssssiiiioooonnnn IIIImmmmppppoooossssssssiiiibbbblllleeee OOnnn JJJuuulllyyy 222000,,, 111999666999,,, aaa ttthhhiiirrrttteeeeeennn---yyyeeeaaarrr---ooolllddd bbboooyyy nnnaaammmeeeddd SSSttteeevvveeennn SSSqqquuuyyyrrreeesss watched in wonder as tthhee AAppoolllloo mmiissssiioonn ppuutt ppeeooppllee oonn tthhee mmoooonn.. BBuutt tthhee tteeeennaaggeerr ddiiddnn’’tt tthhiinnkk tthhee mmoooonn landing had much to do with him. “I loved watching it,” he said. “But it was something people on television did. I didn’t see it as something I could do.” Young Steve stands on top of a mountain near a pile of rocks. Steve Squyres, age eight, gets his first telescope for Christmas. At age nine, Steve tries to build his first robot. 8