The
European Space Agency (ESA) on Tuesday announced mission extensions for three
spacecraft currently exploring Mars, Venus and the Earth's magnet field.
The
extensions will allow Europe's
current Mars Express and Venus Express probes to continue their missions at their
respective planets through Dec. 31, while ESA's Cluster spacecraft will
continue to do the same at Earth.
The
announcement marks the third extension for Mars Express, which launched
toward the red planet in 2003 and ended its initial mission in October 2005.
The boxy Mars Express is Europe's first mission to Mars and carries seven
instruments, including a ground-penetrating radar that has probed beneath the
Martian surface to discover pockets of buried water-ice.
Mars
Express was the first spacecraft to detect the presence of methane in the
Martian atmosphere directly from orbit, and has beamed home stunning
three-dimensional views of the planet's surface, as well as mineralogical
evidence for the presence of liquid water in the planet's history. The
spacecraft has also taken close looks at Phobos, one of the two moons of Mars.
Launched in
November 2005, ESA's Venus Express has been
circling the cloud-covered planet Venus since it arrived in orbit around the
planet in April 2006.
The
spacecraft found definitive proof of lightning in the Venusian atmosphere,
which it has been mapping with unprecedented detail, and tracked water molecules escaping
into space from the planet. Venus Express has also used infrared
instruments to study the planet's cloud-covered surface and discovered an odd
double vortex churning above the Venusian south pole.
The Venus
Express mission was extended once before, to May 2009, and will now get an
extra seven months to study the second planet from the sun. ESA officials said
the extra time will allow scientists to continue their hunt for active volcanoes
on Venus and better understand the planet's harsh climate.
Cluster,
the third mission extended by ESA, is actually a constellation of four
spacecraft launched in 2000 to study the Earth's
protective magnetic field. The mission generated the first
three-dimensional views of the magnetic field lines reconnecting in space, a
phenomenon that releases immense amounts of energy.
The Cluster
mission was extended twice before, most recently through June 2009. The new
extension will allow scientists to use the spacecraft constellation to scan the
auroral regions above Earth's poles and take an in-depth look at the inner
region of the planet's magnetic field, ESA officials said.
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