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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
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The Mars Observer project was conceived by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the early 1980's as the first of a series of missions that would utilize commercially available earth orbital spacecraft adapted for deep space use. The spacecraft failed catastrophically on August 22, 1993, three days before reaching Mars.
The origin of the rough-textured aureoles that surround the immense Olympus Mons volcano on Mars is controversial. We present data from the Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey missions to demonstrate that at least two of the aureole lobes are derived from the volcano's flanks in large and probably catastrophic mass movement events, leaving behind headwalls that constitute the basal scarp. This evidence stems from the morphology and internal structure of aureole blocks, which exhibit remnants of volcanic flow units on their surfaces. Our claim is supported by plausible reconstructions of the prefailure flanks. Structural analogs to known flank failure events at Hawaiian volcanoes suggest that repeated cycles of flank growth and collapse at Olympus Mons allow generation of the observed aureoles from a protoedifice similar in size and shape to the present one.