Mars is clearly much smaller than Earth, but it can still come up with impressive superlatives. Several landscape features have unquestionably enormous dimensions – at over 21 kilometres in height, Olympus Mons is the largest volcano in the Solar System; the Hellas impact basin is more than 2000 kilometres across and eight kilometres deep – but particularly spectacular is the Valles Marineris canyon system
On 8 June 2012, the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC), operated by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, acquired images of a region inside the Argyre Impact Basin, which is 1800 kilometres across and five kilometres deep.
Hadley Crater on Mars has been subject to several impacts by large asteroids in the course of its history. The 'craters within a crater' formed in this way give us a view over two kilometres into the Martian crust.
A giant impact crater on its south pole; deep grooves around its equator; dark material on the craters that puzzles planetary researchers; and a mountain more than twice the height of Mount Everest.
After the successful landing of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, NASA has selected one more lander mission to Mars. The InSight mission will reach Mars in September 2016, after a six-month journey; it has been designed to take a 'look' into the deep interior of the Red Planet; it will do this with geophysical experiments including DLR's HP3, which will penetrate several metres into the Martian subsurface to measure the soil's thermo-physical and electrical properties.
The future of aerospace will be showcased by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) at the International Aerospace Exhibition (Internationale Luft- und Raumfahrtausstellung; ILA) in Berlin, from 11 to 16 September 2012.
A mere seven minutes on 6 August 2012 will decide whether the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) will be successful. Then, the 900-kilogram capsule enclosing the Curiosity rover will begin decelerating 125 kilometres above the Martian surface before being lowered on cables by a rocket-powered 'sky crane'.
On 27 April 2012, the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) operated by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft acquired images of part of Ladon Valles. These images show an area north of the Holden and Eberswalde craters in Mars' southern highlands.
SimpleFleet will be a one-stop solution for SMEs for tracking solutions and has as its ultimate goal the commoditization of tracking and fleet management services. In May 2012 the project Simple fleet, supported by the FP7 COOPERATION program of the European Commission, has been started. The project SimpleFleet will make it easy for SMEs, both from a technological and business perspective, to create (mobile) web-based fleet management applications.
On 17 April 2012, the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) operated by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft acquired images of a region in Melas Dorsa.