[Thursday, February 1, 2007] The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE camera is the most powerful telescope to have left Earth orbit. As such, it is capable of some interesting astronomical observations.

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[Wednesday, February 7, 2007] MRO is set to surpass the record for the most science data returned by any Mars spacecraft. While the mission continues to produce data at record levels, engineers are examining why two instruments are intermittently not performing entirely as planned. 

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[Friday, February 9, 2007] Spirit is healthy and continues to scan the Martian terrain for the dust devils of spring. The rover has completed its scientific studies of a layered rock exposure known as "Montalva" on an outcrop called "Troll."

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[Friday, February 9, 2007] Right now, Opportunity is driving about 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) to the final position to finish collecting long-baseline stereo images in the direction of "Cabo Corrientes" (to the east) and "Cabo Anonimo" (to the west).

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[Friday, February 9, 2007] It's Officially Spring on Mars: Spring is in the thin, Martian atmosphere once again as NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit scans the local terrain for dust devils expected this time of year.

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[Friday, February 9, 2007] Opportunity has completed a remote sensing campaign at "Cape Desire" and is on the move to the next promontory, called "Cabo Corrientes." Opportunity's odometer rolled past 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) during the 50.51-meter (166 feet) drive on sol 1080.

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[Monday, February 12, 2007] Using data from Mars Express spacecraft the first 'hiker's maps' of Mars have been produced. Giving detailed height contours and names of geological features in the Iani Chaos region, the maps could become a standard reference for future Martian research.

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[Tuesday, February 13, 2007] Space suits for astronauts may get a new and better design following a University of Houston doctoral student's locomotion stability research. Melissa Scott-Pandorf is a Fellow of the Texas Space Grant Consortium.

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[Tuesday, February 13, 2007] "When I read the recent NASA press release on selections for future Mars missions and studies, I was struck by the contribution the Astrobiology Program had made to the development of the proposed investigations."

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[Thursday, February 15, 2007] ESA mission controllers have confirmed Rosetta is on track for a critical 250-km Mars swingby. Rosetta is scheduled to make its closest approach to Mars at 02:57 CET on Sunday, 25 February.

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[Thursday, February 15, 2007] Liquid or gas flowed through cracks penetrating underground rock on ancient Mars, according to a report based on observations by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. These fluids may have produced conditions to support possible habitats for microbial life.

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[Friday, February 16, 2007] Hunting for traces of life on Mars calls for two radically different strategies. Of the two, with today's exploration technology, we can most easily look for evidence for past life, preserved as fossil "biosignatures" in old rocks.

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[Friday, February 16, 2007] Reaching its first 100 days of operations, the powerful mineral-detector aboard the newest satellite to circle Mars is changing the way scientists view the history of water on the red planet.

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[Monday, February 19, 2007] Rover drivers have now refined their techniques for maneuvering on only five wheels. All of Spirit's drives during the past week ended within centimeters (inches) of the targeted endpoint.

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[Monday, February 19, 2007] NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft has used its onboard High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera (HiRISE) to take a colour image of a region of Mars in the vicinity of the intended landing site of Beagle 2.

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[Monday, February 19, 2007] "On behalf of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) Executive Committee I hereby summarize key results from the MEPAG meeting held in the Washington, D.C. area from January 9-10, 2006."

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[Tuesday, February 20, 2007] Astronauts on lunar and Mars missions will need to continually assess their radiation risk and exposure. The faculty and midshipmen at the USNA are developing a small device to do exactly that, as well as alert crews during high-radiation events.

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[Tuesday, February 20, 2007] Autonomous navigation software developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) drove the NASA Mars Rover "Opportunity" last week in the software's first live test on the Red Planet.

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[Tuesday, February 20, 2007] Opportunity is healthy and is currently driving on the promontory "Cabo Corrientes" where its cameras imaged the north face of "Bahia Blanca" cliff walls. The rover is currently driving to another spot in order to image "Cape Desire."

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[Friday, February 23, 2007] Spirit is healthy and making progress on the return trek to "Home Plate." Rover handlers have put use of the robotic arm on hold in order to run diagnostic tests of apparent positioning errors in the placement of instruments on the arm.

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[Sunday, February 25, 2007] This stunning view, showing portions of the Rosetta spacecraft with Mars in the background, was taken by the CIVA on board Rosetta's Philae lander just four minutes before the spacecraft reached closest approach to the Red Planet earlier this morning.

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[Sunday, February 25, 2007] At 03:57 CET today, mission controllers at ESOC, ESA's Space Operations Centre in Germany, confirmed Rosetta's successful swingby of Mars, a key milestone in the 7.1-thousand-million km journey of this unique spacecraft to its target comet in 2014.

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[Monday, February 26, 2007] ESA will soon invite the scientific community to propose the first missions for Cosmic Vision 2015-2025. The first medium-class mission should be launched during the 2016-2017 at the latest. The first large mission is targeted to launch in autumn 2018.

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[Tuesday, February 27, 2007] During Rosetta's recent Mars swingby, the OSIRIS cameras captured a series of images of Mars and of Phobos transiting Mars' disk. The OSIRIS team have produced a cool animated sequence and a 3D view of the Red Planet.

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[Tuesday, February 27, 2007] ESA's Mars Express and Venus Express missions, to explore our nearest neighbour planets Mars and Venus respectively, will continue to operate until early-May 2009. The decision was unanimously taken by ESA's Science Programme Committee last Friday.

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[Wednesday, February 28, 2007] NASA-funded researchers are refining a tool that could not only check for the faintest traces of life's molecular building blocks on Mars, but could also determine whether they have been produced by anything alive.

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