THE TWIN ROBOTS

NASAs Mars Exploration Rover Mission is an ongoing robotic mission of exploring Mars, that began in 2003 with the sending of two rovers that is Spirit and Opportunity to explore the Martian surface and geology. The two rovers was launched toward Mars on June 10 and July 7, 2003, in search of answers about the history of water on Mars. Spirit landed successfully on Mars on 04:35 Ground UTC on January 3, 2004, three weeks before its twin Opportunity landed on the other side of the planet on January 4,2004. The Spirit and Opportunity rovers were named through a NASA-sponsored student essay competition. The winning entry was by Sofi Collis, a third-grade Russian-American student from Arizona.Hers was selected from nearly 10,000 entries in the contest. There was several goals of this mission .One of the goal is to search and characterize a wide range of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity on the red planet. The spacecraft are targeted to land on opposite sides of Mars. The landing sites are at Gusev Crater, a possible former lake in a giant impact crater and Meridiani Planum, where mineral deposits (hematite) suggest Mars had a wet past. Spirit and its twin, Opportunity are six-wheeled, solar-powered robots standing 1.5 m high, 2.3 m wide and 1.6 m long and weighing 180 kg. Six wheels on a rockerbogie system enable mobility over rough terrain. Each wheel has its own motor, the vehicle is steered at front and rear and is designed to operate safely at tilts of up to 30 degrees. Both Spirit and Opportunity have pieces of the fallen World Trade Center's metal on them which will turned into shields to protect cables on the drilling mechanisms. The two rovers has various instrument.There are 7 primary science instrument carried by the rovers.That instruments includes Panoramic Camera (Pancam),

Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES), Mssbauer Spectrometer (MB), Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS), Magnets, Microscopic Imager (MI) and Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT). Each of this instruments has their own function. Panoramic Camera (Pancam) is for determining the mineralogy, texture, and structure of the local terrain.The function of Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES) is for identifying promising rocks and soils for closer examination and for determining the processes that formed Martian rocks. The instrument is designed to look skyward to provide temperature profiles of the Martian atmosphere. Mossbauer Spectrometer (MB) functioning for close-up investigations of the mineralogy of iron-bearing rocks and soils while Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) is for close-up analysis of the abundances of elements that make up rocks and soils. Magnets function is for collecting magnetic dust particles. The Mossbauer Spectrometer and the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer are designed to analyze the particles collected and help determine the ratio of magnetic particles to non-magnetic particles. They can also analyze the composition of magnetic minerals in airborne dust and rocks that have been ground by the Rock Abrasion Tool. Microscopic Imager (MI) functioning for obtaining close-up, high-resolution images of rocks and soils and the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) is for removing dusty and weathered rock surfaces and exposing fresh material for examination by instruments onboard. Since landing on opposite sides of Mars in January 2004, the two robotic explorers,Spirit and Opportunity have plowed over five kilometers (three miles) of the planet's surface and sent back more than 130,000 pictures, many of them stunning depictions of a desolate, arid but highly varied landscape. The two also continue to reveal Mars' geological secrets, digging into soil and overturning rocks to provide evidence that water once featured on the planet's surface, creating possibly habitable conditions.

Their discoveries were confirmed by the data from European Space Agency in November.They detected water ice under the soil of the Mars northern pole for the first time.On December 5,ESA reported that data from Mars Express indicates the planet turn from humid,with significant amounts of surface water to dry and cold as it is today because it underwent a cataclysmic change some 3.2 billion years ago.