spacetoday.net: NASA selects landing sites for Mars rovers

Posted: Fri, Apr 11, 2003, 7:01 PM ET (2301 GMT)
Mars Exploration Rover (NASA/JPL)

NASA has chosen a crater that may have once hosted a lake and an outcropping of hematite as the landing sites for the agency's two Mars rovers scheduled for launch this year. Officials said they had selected Gusev Crater as the landing site for the first Mars Exploration Rover (MER), scheduled for launch on May 30, and Meridiani Planum as the site for the second MER, scheduled for launch on June 25. Gusev Crater, about 15 degrees south of the Martian equator, is thought to be the site of an ancient lakebed, while Meridiani Planum, two degrees south of the equator, has deposits of hematite, a mineral that usually forms in the presence of liquid water. Scientists and engineers chose the sites after a long site selection process which attempted to identify locations on the Martian surface that were both of scientific interest as well as safe for the rovers. The first rover is scheduled to land at Gusev on January 4, 2004, and the second will land at Meridiani three weeks later.