5 years on Mars!

Well here we are, January 2009. 5 years ago, the first of the two MER, Spirit, was landing on Mars. I still recall, although it's getting a little fuzzy in my memory, watching the event LIVE on NASA TV. It was great in a nerdy sort of way :-) 5 years after, what was suppose to last only 90 Martian days, have lasted +1773 days, quite the endurance.

Mass Digital which was behind a video of the EDL (Entry, Descent and Landing) have released some time ago a video on YouTube showing the whole mission (well not the ALL mission) :

It sure looks a little dated now, especially if you compare with the HD video of MSL's EDL, but it is still pretty fun to watch. Speaking of fun, Emily, of the Planetary Society, have written up a little article on the excellent adventure of Spirit, worth reading. I'm sure there will be lot of articles to come out this week on the subject.

Mars Pathfinder

11 years ago, like many other space geeks, I was captivated by the Mars Pathfinder mission. It was the very first mission to have an Internet coverage (If I'm not mistaken), and it was also (of course) the first mission to feature a rover (only 10kg, compare this to MSL's 900kg!). Looking back at the mission pictures, it's amazing how we have grown accustomed to high-res imagery from the twin MER, to the point that pictures from their older cousin seems amateurish (likely your cell phone, an iPhone hopefully, as now a better resolution than Pathfinder's cameras had).

Anyhow, I'm talking about this today, 'cause I stumbled on a couple of YouTube videos, which are part of a 35 minutes documentary on the mission, which I though was good enough to share. So here are, in order, the 4 segments: