NASA has announced two programs to allow students and teachers to participate in the upcoming NASA Mars Explorer Rover missions. The Red Rover Goes to Mars Student Astronaut Team and the Athena Student Interns Program are both extensions of an initiative to increase awareness for NASA projects.

The Planetary Society’s Red Rover Goes to Mars Student Astronaut contest is open to students all over the world who were born between September 1, 1986 and September 1, 1990. Sponsored by the LEGO Corporation, the selected Student Astronaut team will analyze Mars Exploration Rover mission images and data as they are returned to Earth from the spacecraft in January and February of 2004, and communicate to the world about the images and about life inside mission operations. Each Student Astronaut will spend approximately one week in mission operations at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and will be among the first to see these new pictures from Mars. The application forms include an essay which must be completed and submitted by March 14.

The year-long Athena Student Interns Program culminates with a week-long stay at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California where scientists will use the rovers to explore the surface of Mars. Teachers who become part of the Athena Student Interns Program will be asked to choose two students to be mentored by a member of the Athena Science Team. (Athena is the name given to the suite of instruments on the Mars Rovers.) Each teacher and their students will work with a mentor to experience first-hand the preparations for landed operations on Mars. Teachers and interns will be immersed in activities surrounding the actual mission and will actively participate in analyzing data gathered by the rovers. Examples of opportunities available to Athena Student Interns include assisting the Principal Investigator of the Science Team with issues pertaining to rover operations; working with digital models of the martian terrain and atmosphere; using Earth science to understand Mars data; helping to deduce the properties of martian sediments; and working with spectral data to search for clues of past water activity on Mars. Applications are due March 31.