| News Archive |
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March 01, 2006 - In the News |
From IEEE Spectrum
"The idea is that eventually, scientists back on Earth won't need to send step-by-step instructions to the robot; if it spots a rock of particular interest, it will just mosey on over and investigate, instead of waiting for a human to tell it what to do."
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January 21, 2006 - In the News |
From Science News
"The machine would spray a target area with the four dyes. Then, using a bright xenon flash to make the dyes fluoresce, a camera would take four pictures through each of four filters tuned to the wavelengths emitted by each dye."
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January 01, 2006 - In the News |
From Popular Science
"I ask Warren-Rhodes who is the better Atacama biologist, she or Zoë. "I am," she says without missing a beat. "I’ve spent so much time in extreme deserts." And in a few years? "Oh, it will be like Kasparov playing IBM’s Deep Blue. By game 6, I’m outta here!""
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November 18, 2005 - In the News |
From The Chronicle of Higher Education
"The six-and-a-half-foot-wide rover looks like a jacked-up go-cart, with mountain-bike tires and solar panels on its back. A set of high-resolution cameras is mounted on a five-foot pole in the front, resembling an insect's antenna. Behind its removable fiberglass sides, the rover houses a dizzying array of circuitry, navigation equipment, and scientific instruments. The design is the result of 10 years of prototype testing at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute."
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November 07, 2005 - In the News |
From Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette
"'This is really the next step in terms of exploration,' said Nathalie A. Cabrol, a planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and lead scientist for the Life in the Atacama project. The Carnegie Mellon University robot showed that it not only could be a mobile platform for instruments, but can use its own rudimentary reasoning to make scientific discoveries."
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November 01, 2005 - In the News |
From Popular Mechanics
"Its name is Zoë, Greek for “life”--and it is for microscopic evidence of life that it prowls Chile’s bone-dry Atacama Desert. A largely autonomous, solar-powered aluminum and carbon-fiber robot, Zoë is the creation of David Wettergreen and a team at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute."
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June 14, 2005 - Article |
First Operational Readiness Test of 2005 Complete!
On May 26th and 27th, members of the Life in the Atacama Science Team visited Pittsburgh to participate in the first Operational Readiness Test (ORT) of the 2005 season.
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March 29, 2005 - In the News |
From New York Times
"The landscape looked lifeless. But satellite images from orbit identified geological formations containing minerals that microbes sometimes like to nestle in, and scientists dispatched a small rover to look at the rocks up close. Fluorescent dyes sprayed on the ground lit up, proclaiming the presence of proteins and DNA. The rover also detected chlorophyll, the energy-producing molecule of plants. And so scientists discovered life in Chile's Atacama Desert. [Free registration required]"
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March 25, 2005 - In the News |
From Science Magazine
"[Ed. note: this link points to a PDF. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it. This link may also require registration at www.sciencemag.org.]""
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March 19, 2005 - In the News |
From Slashdot.org
"The Atacama desert is thought to be similar to Mars; instruments similar to those used on the 1970s Viking missions have previously failed to detect life there."
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March 18, 2005 - In the News |
From Robots.net
"During simulated missions, the robot was able to discovered and identify two forms of life: some visible lichens and some bacteria."
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March 18, 2005 - In the News |
From Embassy of the United States - Japan
"An automated exploration vehicle has enabled international scientists to remotely identify habitats and microbial life in tests in Chile's arid Atacama desert, one of Earth’s harshest environments, according to a March 16 NASA press release."
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March 17, 2005 - In the News |
From Innovations Report
"The first phase of the ASTEP project began in 2003 when a solar-powered robot named Hyperion, also developed at Carnegie Mellon, was taken to the Atacama as a research test bed. Scientists conducted experiments with Hyperion to determine the optimum design, software and instrumentation for a robot that would be used in more extensive experiments conducted in 2004 and in 2005. Zoë, a brand new robot, was developed in response to what was learned in 2003. In the final year of the project, plans call for Zoë, equipped with a full array of scientific instruments, to operate autonomously as it travels 50 kilometers over a two-month period."
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March 17, 2005 - In the News |
From USINFO.state.gov - Washington File
"The findings may bode well for future Mars missions, said scientists from the NASA Ames Research Center, who led the investigation. Scientists from Universidad Católica del Norte in Chile, the British Antarctic Survey, and the International Research School of Planetary Sciences in Italy also participated in the field experiment."
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March 17, 2005 - In the News |
From Astronomy Magazine
"During the mission, a remote science team at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh guided the rover. At the Atacama site, another team gathered samples studied by the rover. These samples were returned to a lab for examination, where all samples identified by the rover possessed bacteria."
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March 17, 2005 - In the News |
From News@Nature.com
"Scientists back in Pittsburgh sent commands to guide Zoë's exploration each day, but she relied on her own cameras and internal sensors to navigate the tough terrain. As she looked for signs of life, fellow researchers in the desert followed to check her results. "There is not a single example of the rover giving a false positive," says Edwin Minkley, a biologist on the Carnegie Mellon team."
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March 16, 2005 - In the News |
From SpaceMart
"The "Life in the Atacama" 2004 field season – from August to mid-October – was the second phase of a three-year program whose goal is to understand how life can be detected by a rover that is being controlled by a remote science team."
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March 16, 2005 - In the News |
From Discovery Channel Canada - Daily Planet
"[Ed. note: this link points to a page on which you can view a video from the Discovery Channel's Daily Planet program. Find the piece titled "New rover finds life…on Earth" near the top of the page and click on the video button nearby.]"
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March 16, 2005 - In the News |
From NewScientist.com
"In order to simulate operating a rover on Mars, the vehicle was controlled remotely by scientists in Pittsburgh. The controllers were not told exactly where it had "landed" - only that it was somewhere within a large "landing ellipse"."
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March 16, 2005 - In the News |
From NASA News Release
"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."
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March 15, 2005 - In the News |
From EurekAlert
"Waggoner and his colleagues have designed a life detection system equipped to detect fluorescence signals from sparse life forms, including those that are mere millimeters in size. Their fluorescence imager, which is located underneath the rover, detects signals from chlorophyll-based life, such as cyanobacteria in lichens, and fluorescent signals from a set of dyes designed to light up only when they bind to one of the following – nucleic acid, protein, lipid or carbohydrate – all molecules of life."
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March 15, 2005 - In the News |
From PhysOrg.com
"This marks the first time a rover-based automated technology has been used to identify life in this harsh region, which serves as a test bed for technology that could be deployed in future Mars missions."
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March 15, 2005 - In the News |
From Space.com
"Nobody was surprise to find life there, but with the harsh conditions and sparse biological activity, the feat is likened to finding microbial creatures on Mars if any exists there."
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March 15, 2005 - In the News |
From UniverseToday.com
"In the final year of the project, plans call for Zoë, equipped with a full array of instruments, to operate autonomously as it travels 50 kilometers over a two-month period."
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March 15, 2005 - In the News |
From SpaceRef.com
"Life is barely discernible over most areas of the Atacama, but the rover's instruments were able to detect lichens and bacterial colonies in two areas: a coastal region with a more humid climate and an interior, very arid region less hospitable to life."
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March 15, 2005 - In the News |
From MSNBC News
"Zoë, a four-wheeled automaton built to scan for living organisms, found evidence of bacterial colonies and lichens living among the rocks of Chile’s Atacama Desert."
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March 15, 2005 - In the News |
From Carnegie Mellon Today
"Current Mars expeditions raise the tantalizing possibility that there may be life somewhere on the red planet. But just how will future missions find it? A system being developed by Carnegie Mellon scientists could provide the answer."
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March 15, 2005 - In the News |
From Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"The solar-powered Zoe rover explored two areas of the Atacama -- a coastal area where fog or other precipitation is common and a drier area farther inland. The lichens that Zoe discovered in the coastal area were pretty obvious, Waggoner said. But in the drier, interior portion of the Atacama, Zoe found only microscopic bacteria."
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March 13, 2005 - In the News |
From Astrobiology Magazine
"A unique rover-based life detection system developed by Carnegie Mellon University scientists has found signs of life in Chile's Atacama Desert, according to results being presented at the 36th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference March 14-18 in Houston."
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October 17, 2004 - Field Report |
Navigation Experiments
Continue Autonomous Navigation Experiments. Today Zoë passed the 50
kilometer mark navigating autonomous.
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October 16, 2004 - Field Report |
Visitors
Hosted visitors in the field. We had an event for the invited guests of
our Chilean co-investigators and were surprised and impressed that
almost 100 people made the 200km trip from Antofagasta to see Zoe.
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October 15, 2004 - Field Report |
More Autonomy Testing
Today we conducted as series of autonomous traverses across a plano cut through by arroyo(dry streambeds).
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October 14, 2004 - Lesson [PSE] |
| "Daily Update - "Sol 8-14"" Released Today |
 | This final Daily Update includes data from the rover's second week of science operations. |
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October 14, 2004 - Lesson [PSE] |
| "Daily Update - "Sol 8-14"" Released Today |
| This final Daily Update includes data from the rover's second week of science operations. |
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October 14, 2004 - Field Report |
Autonomy Tests
Conducted autonomous navigation experiments. This field season we have
conducted over 200 autonomous traverse experiments.
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October 07, 2004 - Lesson [PSE] |
| "Daily Update - "Sol 8-10"" Released Today |
 | This Daily Update contains data from the first three sols of the second week of remote science operations. |
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October 07, 2004 - Lesson [PSE] |
| "Daily Update - "Sol 8-10"" Released Today |
| This Daily Update contains data from the first three sols of the second week of remote science operations. |
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October 02, 2004 - Field Report |
Pre-Ops Testing
Executed combined navigation and science. Today we ran tests of Zoe’s
autonomy software to confirm its performance planning and executing
both navigation and science tasks.
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October 01, 2004 - Field Report |
Setting up for 2nd Ops
Assembled environmental monitoring station. New components have been
installed and configured. The sun tracking spectrometer was tested and
calibrated. Everything is ready of installation tomorrow.
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September 30, 2004 - Field Report |
Preparing for 2nd Round of Ops
Repaired environmental station. Replacement processor board and hard
disk for our environmental monitoring station have been installed and
rebuilt.
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September 28, 2004 - Field Report |
Arrival at 2nd Site
Arrived at field site. Our second field site this season is in the
region southeast of Antofagasta, in the interior of the Atacama
desert.
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September 26, 2004 - Field Report |
Transport
Prepared to relocate. Work is now complete at our first investigation
site near Salar Grande in the north coastal range of the Atacama.
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September 25, 2004 - In the News |
From Space News Blog
"The NASA funded researchers are studying the Atacama Desert, described as the most arid region on Earth, to understand the desert as a habitat that represents one of the limits of life on Earth."
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September 25, 2004 - In the News |
From Spaceflight Now
"'These robots and science payloads will be a wonderful precursor to human exploration and excellent "astronaut/astrobiology assistants" when the time comes for human missions,' she [Nathalie Cabrol] added."
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September 24, 2004 - In the News |
From SpaceNewsFeed
"The NASA funded researchers are studying the Atacama Desert, described as the most arid region on Earth, to understand the desert as a habitat that represents one of the limits of life on Earth. The project, part of NASA's Astrobiology Science and Technology Program for Exploring Planets, involves technology experiments to test robotic capabilities for mobility, autonomy and science."
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September 24, 2004 - In the News |
From MarsToday.com
"The NASA funded researchers are studying the Atacama Desert, described as the most arid region on Earth, to understand the desert as a habitat that represents one of the limits of life on Earth. The project, part of NASA's Astrobiology Science and Technology Program for Exploring Planets, involves technology experiments to test robotic capabilities for mobility, autonomy and science."
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September 24, 2004 - In the News |
From NASA
"Scientists using EventScope, a remote experience browser developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon's Studio for Creative Inquiry, will guide Zoe. EventScope enables scientists to experience the Atacama environment through the eyes and various sensors of the rover. The public can access the same kind of data experienced by scientists by downloading the EventScope interface from the Internet..."
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September 23, 2004 - Lesson [PSE] |
| "Daily Update - "Sol 1"" Released Today |
 | Discover the rover's landing spot and see the very first pan returned to the science team from the desert. |
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September 14, 2004 - In the News |
From El Mercurio.com
"With the calibration of the equipment, the harvesting of the first land samples and the taking of photographs in the Salar Grande (89 kilometers to the south of Iquique), the second stage of the Life in Atacamap roject began. [article in Spanish, translation by Babelfish]"
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September 10, 2004 - Field Report |
Final Days of Preparation
We continue to have excellent results
from Zoë’s onboard fluorescence imager (FI). After initial confirmation
that the instrument is able to excite and detect fluorescence in
daylight (under the shade of the rover), we have further refined the
specifi
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September 08, 2004 - Field Report |
Refining & Testing
Continuing position estimator development. Rover motion controller verified. Environmental station logging. Testing panoramic imaging.
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September 07, 2004 - Lesson [PSE] |
| "Introductory Lesson - "The Atacama vs. Mars"" Released Today |
 | A comparison of the Atacama Desert and the extreme environment of Mars. |
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September 07, 2004 - Lesson [PSE] |
| "Introductory Lesson - "The Mission"" Released Today |
 | An introduction to the mission objectives, instruments and remote science operations. |
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September 07, 2004 - Lesson [PSE] |
| "Introductory Lesson - "The Desert"" Released Today |
 | An introduction to the Atacama Desert in Chile, as well as its signifcance to the mission. |
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September 06, 2004 - Field Report |
Instrument Testing
The onboard Fluorescence Imager
(FI), which passed its initial mechanical and electronic checkout a few
days ago, imaged samples placed in its field of view.
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September 05, 2004 - Field Report |
Power & Navigation Testing
Zoë’s power monitoring computer is online and sensors throughout the rover are connected. We continue to work on sun-based orientation determination and are tracking down issues in the input parameters to the ephemeris calculation.
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September 04, 2004 - Field Report |
More Testing
Imaged sun. Zoë carries a sun tracking camera, a 180° field of view
camera that looks up through a very dark filter, that sees only the
white spot of the sun in the sky.
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September 03, 2004 - Field Report |
Preliminary Rover Testing
We made a preliminary visit to the area in which we plan to conduct the remote science investigation. The area, bordered by mountains, is approximately 7 kilometers by 3 kilometers in extent. Zoë will be able to traverse much of it, but there are small
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August 31, 2004 - Field Report |
Rover Assembly
Today we began assembling Zoë and completed the chassis and electronics. Tomorrow the instruments and solar array.
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August 30, 2004 - Field Report |
First Field Report
Explored southern Salar Grande. This field season, with a more capable rover, we are planning to investigate regions to the south of Salar Grande higher up into the coastal range.
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August 19, 2004 - In the News |
From The Albuquerque Tribune
"Unlike Hyperion, Zoe will also carry the experimental fluorescent imager on board. The device has been redesigned to include an ultraviolet flash unit, which may allow it to detect faint fluorescent signals during the day..."
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August 18, 2004 - In the News |
From MSNBC News
"Zoë will be programmed to do spot checks of target sites, as well as inch-by-inch surveys of a stretch of desert. For this year's test, Waggoner will be standing behind Zoë, spritzing the fluorescent dyes onto rocks and soil for Zoë to check with its camera. Eventually, the spritzers will be built into the rover."
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August 16, 2004 - In the News |
From Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Though the science team will direct Zoe to places of interest, the robot itself will make most of the detailed decisions, such as how to get from place to place, and will be able to travel a kilometer or more without human intervention."
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August 12, 2004 - In the News |
From SpaceDaily.com
"The Atacama team also will conduct a series of robotic science investigations in which Zoe will be sent to visit promising locations and deploy instruments able to identify life forms. During these investigations, the rover's activities will be guided remotely from an operations center in Pittsburgh."
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August 10, 2004 - In the News |
From Mellon College of Science
"For this year’s mission, the scientists are creating an extensive database of their findings. On a typical day, the rover will wake up and follow a path designated the previous day by the remote operations science team located in Pittsburgh."
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August 10, 2004 - In the News |
From SpaceRef.com
"'Our goal is to make genuine discoveries about the limits of life on Earth and to create technology that can be applied to future NASA missions,' said Wettergreen. 'This will be the second of three field experiments in the Atacama. Each time our robot is better able to use sensing and intelligence to find land forms or environmental conditions that could harbor life.'"
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August 05, 2004 - In the News |
From CMU.edu - Media Advisory
"Zoë will be guided by a science team using EventScope, a remote experience browser developed by researchers at the Studio for Creative Inquiry in Carnegie Mellon's College of Fine Arts. It enables scientists and the public to experience the Atacama environment through the eyes and various sensors of the rover. A science operations control room at the Remote Experience and Learning Lab in Pittsburgh will be active in September and October while Zoë is in the field."
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August 05, 2004 - In the News |
From CNN.com
"By understanding the absolute limits of life on Earth, scientists hope their search for life on other planets such as Mars will be more likely to succeed."
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August 02, 2004 - Article |
Gearing Up for the Second Field Season
Having learned much from their April 2003 field experiments, the LITA team gears up for a second expedition in September and October of 2004.
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July 11, 2004 - In the News |
From Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
"Equipped with fluorescent dyes and microscopes, Zoe will look for life in the desert as a possible prequel to exploring Mars."
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August 04, 2003 - In the News |
From Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Hyperion, originally designed for a different experiment, exceeded its performance goals during the outing, traveling more than 12 miles autonomously."
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April 25, 2003 - Wallpaper |
Fluorescence Imager Deployment
by FRC LITA Team
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April 19, 2003 - Photo |
Hyperion in Action
by FRC LITA Team
Here’s Hyperion in her element, traversing the Chilean desert.
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April 15, 2003 - Photo |
Hyperion Deploying the Fluorescence Imager
by FRC LITA Team
In the 2003 field season, the use of fluorescence imaging was tested as a possible future instrumentation for Zoë. This year, the imager is integrated into Zoë's chassis.
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April 09, 2003 - Photo |
The Atacama Illuminated by the Moon
by FRC LITA Team
At night, the stern terrain of the Atacama is softened by the cool light of the desert moon.
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April 07, 2003 - Photo |
Rocky Atacama Terrain
by FRC LITA Team
The terrain of the Atacama is one of the driest on Earth.
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April 04, 2003 - In the News |
From BBC News
"Based on this year's experience, next year's robot should be able to travel about 50 km. The target for the 2005 expedition is 200 km, traversing contrasting areas where life is abundant and areas where life has not been detected."
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