NASA to Land in Mars, Pennsylvania to Celebrate Red Planet with STEAM

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May 23, 2019, 11:09 ET

WASHINGTON, May 23, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA returns to Mars, Pennsylvania Friday, May 31 to celebrate Mars exploration and share the agency's excitement about landing astronauts on the Moon in five years. Returning to the Moon with NASA's Artemis program will play an important role in preparing for future crewed missions to the Red Planet.

At the invitation of the borough of Mars, NASA will provide exhibits, activities and speakers Friday through Sunday, June 2.

To kick off the Martian extravaganza, media are invited to join NASA and local officials for opening remarks and a question-and-answer session at 5 p.m. EDT Friday in front of the town's flying saucer sculpture, located at 100 Pittsburgh Street.

Participants include:

Honorable Gregg Hartung, mayor of Mars
Douglas Terrier, NASA chief technologist
Missy Gralish, spokesperson for Mars Exploration Celebration event

Terrier will be available for interviews from 11:30 a.m. to noon Saturday to talk about NASA's Moon to Mars plans, as well as how technology developed for space exploration often finds other purposes here on Earth – including in Mars, Pennsylvania.

Media should contact Clare Skelly at 202-358-4273 or [email protected] to attend the media availability on Friday and reserve a one-on-one interview with Terrier on Saturday.

This is NASA's third time participating in the Mars celebration with science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) activities. Through events like this, the agency aims to inspire the next generation of explorers to pursue careers in these fields and join NASA's mission to the Moon and Mars.

Highlights this year include:

A half-scale model of NASA's InSight lander, the most recent mission to land on Mars
A mini robotic rover named ROV-E, used to engage students in STEAM
An augmented reality experience of Gale Crater, created with real data from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover
A model of NASA's Mars Helicopter, a vehicle that will accompany the next rover when it lands on the Red Planet in 2020
A "make your own quake" jump station