WASHINGTON — NASA will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, March 12, to discuss the Curiosity rover’s analysis of the first sample of rock powder ever collected on Mars.
The briefing will be held in the James E. Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters at 300 E St. SW in Washington. It will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency’s website.
The participants will be:
— Michael Meyer, lead scientist, Mars Exploration Program, NASA Headquarters, Washington
— John Grotzinger, Curiosity project scientist, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif.
— David Blake, principal investigator for Curiosity’s Chemistry and Mineralogy investigation, NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
— Paul Mahaffy, principal investigator for Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars investigation, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Media representatives may ask questions from participating NASA centers or by telephone. To participate by phone, reporters must contact Dwayne Brown at 202-358-1726 or dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov by noon, March 12.
During a two-year prime mission, researchers are using Curiosity’s 10 science instruments to assess whether the Gale Crater area on Mars ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.
For NASA TV streaming video, scheduling and downlink information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv
The event will also be streamed live on Ustream at: http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl
More information about Curiosity is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/
Follow Curiosity on Facebook and Twitter at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity
