Controlling robots and snapping photos of the final frontier is just a day's work for the ASU staff and alumni who continue to play a role in Mars research.
Since 2001, ASU has been a part of Mars Odyssey and Rover missions by inventing the instruments and training some of the scientists who search for water on the red planet.
"It's an amazing sustained effort," said Amy Knudson, an ASU research specialist who graduated in 2006 with a geological sciences doctorate.
Knudson works on the Mars Rover team with the miniature thermal emissions spectrometer, a device invented by ASU professor Phil Christensen that uses infrared technology to look at the temperature and composition of Mars' surface.
Not only is the project remarkable for its data collection, but also for the role that women play on the research team, Knudson said.
"From the beginning of the mission, we had a number of extremely qualified women on the team," she added.
Knudson participated in an all-woman command team that controlled the Spirit Rover all day Feb. 23.
"It was kind of fun to have an all-woman day just to recognize the fact," Knudson said. "There was a lot of good banter and a nice energy that day."
Though the project's women were recognized on that day, Knudson said operations ran as normal because everyone involved was a "veteran" of the mission.
Over the years, the operations of the Rover mission have been streamlined; Knudson is now able to work remotely from Seattle. Though she has been working on the Rover since her graduate studies, she said every day brings new and exciting discoveries.
"It's addictive almost to be able to work with something on the surface of another planet," Knudson said. "It's a very rare opportunity in the career of a scientist."
Christensen's instruments — in addition to having a place on the Rover — collect data in the Mars Odyssey.
Alice Baldridge, who will graduate with a doctorate in geological sciences from ASU in May, co-authored a paper about these instruments' recognition of large salt deposits in Mars' southern highlands. The paper will appear in Friday's edition of Science magazine.
Baldridge and her partners became interested initially in an area that appeared bright blue in their color-enhanced images. The material that created the "glowing train" proved to be a material similar to table salt, said Baldridge, who is currently a postdoctoral fellow at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The group then used high-resolution images of the area to support their findings. The pictures showed the area as brighter and more fractured-looking than surrounding territory.
"These regions look like salt crusts," Baldridge said.
The paper shows that the salt deposits are evidence of large surface reservoirs in the early years of the planet.
"If you have a large quantity of salt, that means you had water there once that evaporated," Baldridge said.
The idea of water on ancient Mars intrigues Yael Lanciano, a communications freshman.
"It's cool to think that it can resemble Earth's surface and there could be life there," Lanciano said.
Statistics graduate student Trent Lalond said that he was torn about the importance of Mars exploration.
"It costs a lot of money to send those out there, but it seems like it could be revealing about our own planet or about the future," he said.
Reach the reporter at: claudia.koerner@asu.edu.
