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Welcome to Mars
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Program Overview
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NOVA follows the day-to-day operations of the Mars Exploration Rover
team as it experiences hurdles, decisions, triumphs, and
disappointments during its explorations of the Red Planet.
The program:
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recounts the scientists' first obstacle: maneuvering around an
airbag that blocks Spirit's direct descent off its
lander.
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reports on Spirit's sudden silence just before it is
about to make its first measurement.
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follows team efforts to diagnose and repair the
Spirit rover, and the resulting discovery that the
robot's flash memory is filled with too many old files.
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chronicles Opportunity's landing, a period of six minutes
during which automated parachutes and airbags must all work
perfectly to safely land the rover.
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describes scientists' primary reasons for the missions: to find
out whether Mars ever had the liquid water required for life (as
it is currently understood) to exist.
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notes Opportunity's fortune in landing in a shallow
crater just a few feet from a bedrock outcropping with exposed
layers of rock.
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documents how scientists used Opportunity's spectrometers
to identify minerals such as hematite and elements such as
sulfur, and used its microscopic imager to obtain close-up views
of the rocks and soil that revealed round objects the size of
ball bearings that they nicknamed "blueberries."
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reports on how scientists decided which rock to drill into with
Opportunity's Rock Abrasion Tool.
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outlines the challenges of working on martian time—because
a Mars day is 40 minutes longer than an Earth day, rover team
members must shift their schedules by 40 minutes each day.
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follows Spirit's explorations of Gusev Crater, noting
that much of the crater contained basalt, the most common type
of lava.
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states how the evidence found by Opportunity—the
round concretions, the discovery of hematite and sulfate salts,
and the surface ripples—points to the first proof of
liquid water on another planet.
Taping Rights: Can be used up to one year after the program
is taped off the air.
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