Robotic Astrobiolgy Expedition Yields Significant Science Findings...

(posted by Andrew Yee on sci.astro)
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Michael Mewhinney
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. March 16, 2005
Phone: 650/604-3937 or 650/604-9000
E-mail:

RELEASE: 05-16AR

ROBOTIC ASTROBIOLOGY EXPEDITION YIELDS SIGNIFICANT SCIENCE FINDINGS

A group of scientists announced today that they
identified habitats and microbial life using a
rover in Chile's arid Atacama desert, one of the
harshest environments on Earth, and that their
findings may bode well for future missions to
Mars.

Results were announced today at the 36th Lunar
and Planetary Science Conference being held in
Houston, March 14 to 18. Results were based both
on the remote science team's interpretation of
rover data and on laboratory analysis of returned
samples collected during the 'Life in the
Atacama' expedition from September to October
2004.

Samples first identified and documented by the
remote science team using the rover showed
positive identification of natural fluorescence
of organic molecules including Chorlophyll and,
after application of fluorescence dye probes,
identification of DNA and protein. Those samples
were brought back to the lab and "preliminary
results showed biological activity," said
Nathalie Cabrol, a planetary scientist with the
SETI Institute at NASA Ames Research Center,
located in California's Silicon Valley, who leads
the science investigation.

Also participating in the rover field experiment
were scientists from Carnegie Mellon University,
Pittsburgh; the University of Tennessee,
Knoxville; the University of Arizona, Tucson; the
University of California at Los Angeles;
Universidad Cat=F3lica del Norte in Chile, the
British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, and the
International Research School of Planetary
Sciences in Pescara, Italy.

Using a long-range, solar-powered, automated
rover named Zo=EB developed by Carnegie Mellon
University, scientists explored the Atacama and
tested a scientific payload to search for
microbial life. Investigations at two sites,
each lasting a week, encompassed both the most
humid coastal region of the desert and its arid
core and required the rover to make
multi-kilometer traverses to sample the
distribution of organisms.

While the rover was in the Atacama, the remote
science team was located in Pittsburgh, receiving
a science and engineering telemetry once per day.
The remote rover operations simulated the current
Mars mission in many respects: team organization,
pre-mission datasets, bandwidth, command cycles
and orbital support imaging.

"Life is barely detectable over most of the
desert," Cabrol explained. "Its geological,
climatic and biological evolution provides a
unique training ground for designing and testing
exploration strategies and especially
life-detection methods for the robotic search for
life on Mars."

In addition to searching for life, scientists
have sought to understand the physical and
environmental conditions associated with habitats
and learn how various organisms have contributed
to the modification of their environments. Cabrol
especially focuses on the development of
'life-seeking' exploration strategies using the
highly mobile rover.

"We created Zo=EB to reliably and efficiently roam
the desert and make scientific measurements,"
said David Wettergreen, an associate research
professor at Carnegie Mellon University's
Robotics Institute. "To encounter more potential
habitats, our research effort has been on
long-duration autonomy and long-distance surface
navigation," he added. Exploration strategies are
aimed at facilitating the detection of likely
isolated and sheltered colonies of microbial life
and could be used on Mars in future
astrobiological missions.

"The Life in the Atacama Project opens the path
to a new generation of rover missions that will
transition from the current study of habitability
by the Mars Exploration Rovers, to the upcoming
search for, and study of, POTENTIAL habitats and
life on Mars," Cabrol said.

"Nobody can tell yet that life appeared on Mars,
but what we have demonstrated is that we now have
a rover that is capable of taking a science team
to the right spot with a lot more confidence,"
Cabrol said. "We're making good progress."

Funded by a $3 million, three-year grant from
NASA to Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics
Institute, the Life in the Atacama Project is
part of NASA's Astrobiology Science and
Technology Program for Exploring Planets (ASTEP).
Cabrol is the Life in the Atacama project science
lead. Wettergreen leads the rover development
and field investigation for the project. Dr.
Alan Waggoner, professor of biology at Carnegie
Mellon, led the development of fluorescence
imaging and dye probes and the integration of
these technologies with the rover.