The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been doing great science since it entered its mapping phase, from its incredible hi-res imagery, radar mapping of the subsurface, to mineralogic mapping the spacecraft has been quite a success. Over this past year, however, it has been having some trouble with its computers. There appears to be some stray voltage measurements that are causing it to go into safe-mode and stop working. Engineers are currently working to solve the problem so that it can perhaps return to doing science, although in its extended phase its primary mission will be to act as a relay satellite for future rovers so I guess that's the current priority for repairs.

In the mean time, check out some cool of images taken by the MRO HiRISE instrument of the now defunct Phoenix Lander. The lander went dead when the Sun got too low to keep powering it—this was a planned death since the lander was at far northern latitudes and never expected to survive the fall and winter. With the return of spring and the recession of the north polar cap, MRO was able to catch sight of the lander again!

I took some time off this summer and that took me away from the site for longer than I had hoped. On the plus side, I think I'm learning some more about radiative transfer modeling and that's always helpful. But the new semester is starting and I'm back in the office.

We've already had some new observations uploaded and its great to start seeing the Red Planet again! The images are now posted and viewable by all. With some of the issues we've had, there have been some things changed and we've got most of the bugs worked out. What that means is that the Images link in the Main Menu is now the place to go to see and upload images. There is a link on the new Images page that will allow you to still view images from 2007–2008; eventually both databases will be combined into one. Thanks for your patience on this.

This July is going to be a busy month, so instead of my analysis of what's been going on with Mars missions, I'll point you to blog post over at the Planetary Society; and if you aren't already a member, I encourage you to join!

Since the observing season has begun, I have to point out that we are going though some software updates here at MarsWatch—I had hoped they would have been in place before observers were ready to upload, but that didn't happen. I will spare the details, but for now the "Upload an image" link on the Images page is no longer working. Until we get that fixed, if you have an image to upload just go to this page which works pretty much like the old one.

Additionally, the current Images page only shows all the older submissions. To view new submission, use the new Images page (there are currently no images to view here). Eventually all of this will be merged together—I think you for your patience.

It seems I let the entire month of May and half of June go by without posting. The rovers have been roving, there were some glitches and reboots with a rover and with MRO, and Mars Express is into its third mission extension. Things seem to be going so well I guess we all get into a complacent mode with keeping track of what's happening.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter had another reboot episode earlier this month and that's being looked into by the engineers. The HiRISE team has posted some new images including one of the so-called "cryptic region"—an area around the south pole that says very cold despite getting darker (indicating loss of ice/frost).

One interesting bit of work-in-progress comes from the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument. It was designed to look for liquid water and as such has been studying gully features seen in parts of the Martian highlands. These features look like certain gullies on Earth that are formed due to the movement of underground liquid water. So far, no signs.

Opportunity, having done some amazing work leading to a better understanding of the water history of Mars, is now trucking its way along a 10 mile (16 km) path to the crater Endeavor—bigger than any crater it has looked at yet. In eight months of traveling, it is now about 1/5 of the way there.

Back in early May, Spirit got stuck in some particularly soft soil and the team is working on a solution. As part of this effort, they even used the microscopic imager to look underneath the rover itself. It's an interesting picture made more so since this is not how this camera was ever intended to be used. Engineers are a very resourceful lot!

If you haven't already downloaded and spent hours flying around the globe using Google Earth, well, I highly recommend it. It's an advanced version of their web-based mapping software.

Quite some time ago, Google Maps added in some astronomical maps. You can use the web-based server to look at the Moon or Mars. A short time ago, Google took these 2-d Mars maps and married them to their 3-d Google Earth program along with all the 3-d (topography) data. The results is a desktop application that runs under all three of the major operating systems (Linux, MacOS X, and MS Windows).

Now most of this falls into the category of Old News but what got me thinking of it again was this blog post that points out some of the finer points and little-known-features of Mars in Google Earth. The one I found the most fun is the Rover Tracks—you can follow both Spirit and Opportunity on their entire journeys from start to (almost) where they are right now.

Download, install, and have fun!