National Air and Space Museum release
Mars Exploration Rover Team and James Van Allen are Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Trophy Winners
The National Air and Space Museum Trophy, the museum’s highest honor, has been awarded this year to the team responsible for the ongoing Mars Exploration Rover missions, and pioneer space scientist Dr. James Van Allen. The MER team is honored in the category of Current Achievement and Van Allen in the category of Lifetime Achievement.
The awards were presented at a private ceremony at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum building in Washington on March 9. Van Allen, who did not attend, was represented by his daughter. Established in 1985, the award recognizes outstanding achievement in scientific or technological endeavors relating to air and space technology and exploration. As in past years, trophy winners received a miniature version of "The Web of Space," a sculpture by artist John Safer.
The success of the MER missions has come from the hard work of many people. Since landing as planned on opposite sides of Mars, the rovers have required almost around-the-clock direction by scientists and engineers back on Earth—primarily at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, but also at many other institutions across the country, including the National Air and Space Museum.
On Jan. 3, 2004, the rover “Spirit” landed on Mars in Gusev crater, followed on Jan. 25 by “Opportunity” landing in the Sinus Meridiani region, halfway around the planet from its twin. In both cases, the unique entry, descent and landing system of heat shields, parachutes, rockets and airbags worked to perfection. Because of the 12-minute time delay in sending radio signals to and from Mars, a safe landing depended on each rover’s autonomous execution of a complex sequence of operations within a 6-minute framework.
Following the landings, scientific discoveries came in quick succession. A sophisticated robot arm called the Instrument Deployment Device enabled each rover to deploy tools precisely as needed. Among those was the Rock Abrasion Tool, the first such device to allow scientists to scour beneath dust-coated rock surfaces on Mars. Such devices, combined with on-board systems, allowed the rovers to duplicate many of the activities of a human geologist and achieve remarkable success. A key mission highlight was the discovery of evidence that both sites once had considerable water present—the primary scientific objective of the entire mission.
Both rovers have operated well beyond their designed minimum lifetimes of 90 days. They also have driven many times the 600-meter distance NASA established as a criterion of success—covering more than 12 kilometers with both rovers.
At the end of 2005, both rovers remained in good working condition, although showing some wear-and-tear after almost two years of operation in the Martian environment. Their continuing exploration is a clear testament to the robust nature of the engineering behind the vehicles and the rigorous mission operations activities required to guide each vehicle.
Van Allen and his team continued to build payloads and propose programs for Pioneer and Mariner series spacecraft and probes. He also contributed to payload development for the Orbiting Geophysical Observatory series, becoming interested in the magnetic field structures of all planets. He remains a central figure in the nation’s planetary and geophysical communities well beyond his retirement from the University of Iowa in 1985 to become Carver Professor of Physics, Emeritus. He had served as the head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy from 1951.
The National Air and Space Museum preserves many artifacts stemming from Van Allen’s efforts, ranging from a proximity fuse and samples of his Geiger counters, to examples of early Explorer satellites and their payloads, culminating in an engineering model of the Pioneer 10 spacecraft. In 1981 Van Allen was a Regent’s Fellow of the Smithsonian, during which time he produced his book Origins of Magnetospheric Physics (Smithsonian 1983).