"The exploration of Mars is an international adventure," said Dr. Cathy Weitz at NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. "Our rover missions have key participants in Europe, and there are U.S. scientists on the teams for every instrument on Mars Express." Weitz serves dual coordinating roles as project scientist for NASA's participation in Mars Express and as program scientist for the Mars Exploration Rovers.

"This year's European and NASA missions to Mars truly complement each other in the added understanding they may give us about the present and past environments on that planet," said Dr. Jim Garvin, NASA's lead scientist for Mars exploration.

U.S. roles in Mars Express include navigational support from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and communication support from the JPL-managed Deep Space Network, which operates antenna stations in California, Spain and Australia.

NASA supplied major components for the orbiter's radar experiment. "We have very little information about the crust of Mars more than about a meter below the surface, but with this instrument we hope to probe as deep as 5 kilometers" (3 miles), said JPL's Dr. Jeffrey Plaut, who, as co-principal investigator for the instrument, collaborates closely with Prof. Giovanni Picardi, principal investigator at the Universita di Roma in Rome, Italy.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2003/79.cfm

Marcia
-should have worn Red yesterday too.