First art lands on Mars with NASA rover

Spirit's arrival on the surface of Mars on January 3rd 2004 see's the first art work land on the surface of the red planet.

(PRWEB) January 13, 2004 --
Launched June 10th 2003 onboard a Delta II rocket with NASAs Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission was a work of art by London based artist Stephen Little. The NASA mission consists of two Mars Rovers named Spirit and Opportunity. Spirit was launched on June 10th with Opportunity launched shortly after on June 25th. On January 3rd 2004 Spirit, with Little's art work attached, made a perfect landing in Gusev Crater.

The Mars Exploration Rovers seek to determine the history of climate and water at two sites on Mars where conditions may have once been favourable to life. Each rover carries five scientific instruments and can navigate around obstacles as it drives across the Martian surface.

Littles work was made specifically for Mars. It is included on two identical DVDs within the Planetary Society's 'Red Rover Goes to Mars' project, a collaboration between NASA and the Planetary Society, and bolted to a ramp petal on each of the two landers. The DVDs design includes magnets to collect dust and colours to study colour appearance under a Martian sky. They are made from industrially fabricated silica glass and have a much longer life span than commercial DVDs, lasting more than 500 years. Weighing 69 grams, they have been subjected to a battery of tests designed to simulate the extreme environmental conditions of the journey to Mars: temperature cycling from 125 to 60 degrees Celsius, exposure to vacuum, high-speed random vibration and shocks of up to 4,000 times the acceleration of Earths gravity.

After an airbag-protected landing, the crafts settle on the surface, the airbags deflate and the landers open. Before descending the lander ramp the rovers will take panoramic images of the landscape and the DVDs before driving off across the surface of Mars. The two landing craft, with discs, were planned for sites at opposite sides of the planet. Spirit for Gusev Crater, 15 degrees south of Mars' equator and Opportunity to Meridiani Planum, an area about two degrees south of the equator and halfway around the planet from Gusev. The art work will remain on the surface of Mars with the two landers for the benefit of future generations.

His colour & text based art work monochrome (for Mars) embodies an interest with simple form, context and meaning. "Sometimes art can ask a lot of us, sometimes it doesnt, and is often only as difficult as we choose to make it. At times we spend so much time trying to read a meaning, that we fail to see."

As for getting it to Mars, he comments "Most art travelling to space must be contextualised as scientific research before being considered a valid and worthy experiment by NASA. They are very strict in determining which projects they agree to send into space, based largely on the scientific merits of research data they expect to gain as a result of these artful, mainly zero gravity, experiments. I think most artists would find these guidelines restrictive. I managed to side step this obstacle and still get my work to Mars."

Although originally anticipated as the first art work to the surface of Mars, Little's project was beaten to launch by fellow artist Damien Hirst who had contributed a work of his own for the British Mars lander Beagle 2. The Beagle 2 project is the British led effort to land on Mars as part of the European Space Agency's Mars Express Mission, launched on 2nd June 2003. After a seven month journey through space contact was lost with the British Beagle during its Mars orbital insertion on Dec. 25th.

'My heart sank when Beagle lost contact" Little said, "The two missions are vastly different, incredibly important and its loss is a great shame. After the orbiting Mars Express failed to make contact on January 7th, slated as the best opportunity to date, I don't think we can expect there to be any good news."

The Beagle team are still hopeful that contact will be made, signalling it has survived against the odds. Little is less optimistic, "There's talk that it may have fallen into a crater and can't communicate. Given Beagle hasn't barked once, and they really don't have any idea where it is, we can also just as easily assume other plausible alternatives. Such as some catastrophic system malfunction during Mars entry that incinerated the craft before it had a chance to reach the ground . Or that its parachute did not deploy properly to slow the crafts speed and descent. At this speed it would have impacted the ground at over 12,000mph, in which case it would have made a crater rather than have fallen into one."

As for Hirst, little sent him and his gallerist a Mars bar each and a picture postcard of his work on Mars which read 'Wish You Were Here'.

CONTACT: odysseyproject@hotmail.com
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