The First Kind

            In 1992, a new mission was born to set out and experience the Red planet known as Mars. It was called the Mars Pathfinder. It was created to be a technology demonstrator mission for a landing method that would be low-cost. It consisted of parachutes and airbags. The landing methods that were previously used were the convention rocket-powered landing(Marsnews.com). 

The cost of the entire program would be around $260 million. This included testing the lander and rover as well as building and operating it. A bigger plus to the missions is that it even was covered for the launch vehicle called the Delta 2. All of this would be less than 1/10 of the cost from missions in the 70s called the Viking program(Marsnews.com).

There were two things that the Mars pathfinder would have aboard. The Mars Pathfinder would carry a lander, and something that has never been done before. A rover called Sojourner.

Equipped on the lander was a stereoscopic digital camera called the IMP, which stood for Imager for Mars Pathfinder. This camera had a better resolution than the Viking’s TV cameras. The lander would as have a complete meteorology package. This could measure the temperature, pressure, and wind speeds of different elevations above Mars’ surface(Marsnews.com).

Sojourner, being named after the Civil War-era abolitionist known as Sojourner Truth, was the size of a microwave oven. Carried aboard it was an Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer. Yes a long name indeed. It could analyze elemental compositions of various rocks & soil around the landing site. Controlled by an Earth-based operator remotely, it would have a 10-minute delay even with the signals being sent at the speed of light. That’s a lot of distance in such a short amount of time. However, Sojourner would also have some autonomous control, which means it could operate on its own when not being controlled. It would be able to measure obstacles with a set of laser pointers and have artificial intelligence like an insect(Marsnews.com).

What the Pathfinder did was extraordinary while on Mars. It was able to send 2.6 billion bits of data, including 16,000 lander images and 550 rover images back to Earth. It was busy and always doing something, like performing chemical analyses of rocks and soil, 20 to be exact(Marsnews.com). It found “dust devils” which was basically what the name explains in of itself. They were like super mini-tornados that moved along the surface and kicked up dust into the atmosphere. It set a new standard for space travel.

Unfortunately, the life of the Pathfinder would come to an end. The end of its mission was on August 3^rd of 1997. Then they lost communication with it on September 27, 1997(Marsnews.com).

It is incredible to think about something from Earth moving around on another planet millions of miles away. It’s like a piece of humankind making its mark of territory. We are expanding more and more. Perhaps thousands or even millions of years from now we could possibly live on many different planets evolving differently. The possibilities are unlimited.

And here's a video about the new landing method if you're curious and like visuals.

With that I’ll be finding my way out.

This is BE#6

Signing out…

Works Cited

 "MarsNews.com :: Mars Pathfinder." MarsNews.com :: Mars Pathfinder. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2012. <http://www.marsnews.com/missions/pathfinder/>.

Protective Fabric Used in Mars Landing. YouTube. Albidder, 15 July 2008. Web. 20 Sept. 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G75kQm7pSE>.