“An unprecedented assault on one planet”

The first of two NASA rovers, Spirit, began its 311 million mile journey to Mars yesterday as reported here for Comcast News at Comcast.net. Opportunity, another NASA rover, should follow it into space later this month, but no earlier than June 25th. Spirit should arrive on Mars in January of next year. The article reports that Spirit and Opportunity will join two other NASA spacecraft, both orbiters, already at Mars, and that additional spacecraft from Britain, Europe and Japan are on their way to the planet as well. Firouz Naderi, manager of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab’s Mars exploration program, calls this “an unprecedented assault on one planet.”