Mars Exploration Rover Team and James Van Allen are Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Trophy Winners

http://www.nasm.si.edu/events/pressr...?releaseID=148

Press Release
March 8, 2006
Media Only: Peter Golkin 202-633-2374
Mike Marcus 202-633-2376
Public information: 202-633-1000
Images: http://www.nasm.si.edu/events/pressroom/pressimages.cfm

Mars Exploration Rover Team and James Van Allen are Smithsonian's
National Air and Space Museum Trophy Winners

Trophy 2006, Lifetime Achievement Winner
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Trophy 2006, Current Achievement Winners
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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.

For more information on the National Air and Space Museum Trophy and
other awards in the museum's collections, visit
www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero/trophy/ .

The National Air and Space Museum building on the National Mall in
Washington, D.C., is located at Sixth Street and Independence Avenue
S.W. The museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is located in Chantilly,
Va. near Washington Dulles International Airport.

Both facilities are open daily from 10 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. (Closed
Dec.
25) Admission is free but there is a $12 fee for daily parking at the
Udvar-Hazy Center. Shuttle bus service runs between the facilities with
a roundtrip ticket costing $12. (Group discounts are available)

The 2005 National Air and Space Museum Trophy event was made possible
through the generous support of Lockheed Martin Corp.

# # #



The Mars Exploration Rover Team

The Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Team is honored for its design,
construction, deployment and management of two robotic rovers that
began
exploring the Red Planet in January 2004.

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.

James A. Van Allen

James A. Van Allen is honored for a lifetime devoted to the space
sciences. Trained in nuclear physics, Van Allen applied both his
theoretical and practical knowledge to the design and production of the
radio proximity fuse in World War II. After the war, leading a group
of
scientists and engineers at the Applied Physics Laboratory, he adapted
his wartime expertise to prepare delicate cosmic-ray detectors as
packages for test flights on captured German V-2 missiles fired at
White
Sands. He continued using payloads of this sort into the 1950s, first
to
study particle radiation itself, and then to explore the structure of
the Earth's magnetic fields in the uppermost portions of the
atmosphere.
Van Allen was one of the first to combine balloons and rockets to
achieve highly efficient means of exploring the upper atmosphere.

In the early 1950s, arising from conversations with colleagues at his
home in Silver Spring, Md., Van Allen became one of the designers of
the
International Geophysical Year, a program of many nations to improve
understanding of the Earth. The IGY was punctuated by the launch of the
world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik in October 1957. Van Allen
became a leader of the U.S. response, adapting his payloads for
Explorer
1 - the first successful American satellite- and the subsequent
Explorer
program. He and his University of Iowa students acquired data that
found
the Earth was surrounded by a vast series of nested shells of trapped
particle radiation later named the Van Allen Radiation Belts.

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).