The Farr View

There is a good discussion in this post and in the comments of that post about what the Trump administration might do with regards to NASA’s mission… a return to the Moon?

This is a great plan by former NASA Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator John Grunsfeld… put a communication satellite in Mars orbit, plus a ground penetrating radar and high resolution imager.  Then send a SpaceX Red Dragon to land on Mars and pick up Mars 2020 cached samples… makes sense to me!

 

The Planetary Society has a detailed discussion of the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity’s current progress on its 10th extended mission. Opportunity is headed south along the rim of Endeavour crater en route to a Noachian-aged gully that appears to have been carved by water.  It will be an interesting feature to investigate!

My Mars Exploration Rover colleagues Steve Ruff and Jack Farmer published their work in Nature Communications comparing the silica-rich nodules found by Spirit to biologically mediated silica sinter nodules observed at the high altitute El Tatio site in Chile.  The link to their paper is here.

This is the site of Bill Farrand and Farr View Consulting.  Bill has a PhD in the Geosciences from the University of Arizona and is an expert in the fields of multi- and hyperspectral remote sensing, acid mine drainage characterization, mineral exploration, and planetary geology. As this site is expanded, content will be added to describe Bill’s experience, past projects that he has been involved with, and topics of interest with regards to Earth and planetary remote sensing.