Internet users around the world may begin following the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft as it approaches Mars and prepares for a July 4 landing by way of a variety of local mirror sites that are now online.
The Internet sites feature updates on mission activities, and will provide Pathfinder photographs of the Martian surface once they become available. The sites also feature a bird's eye view of the Mars Pathfinder mission operations area at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, via a live video camera feed that is updated every 15 minutes.
"We're expecting a siege of hits on July 4," said David Dubov, Mars Pathfinder webmaster at JPL. "Our best estimate, based on past events such as Galileo, the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collision in 1994, Comet Hale-Bopp's return and other celestial events has led us to plan for at least 25 million hits on July 4, and a similar level of hits per day during the week following landing."
To accommodate the overwhelming interest among the public, JPL will have about 20 mirror sites around the world by the end of June so that people can use the sites closest to their homes rather than trying to access the JPL site. "Most of the domestic sites were picked because of their connection to the National Science Foundation backbone, a very robust network that can handle high traffic," said Kirk Goodall, Mars Pathfinder web engineer. "Combined, these mirror sites will be able to service up to 30 million hits per day."
During landing day activities and the Pathfinder rover's primary, seven-day mission, members of the public should access the following Pathfinder mirror sites closest to their homes:
CORPORATE MIRROR SITES
Silicon Graphics Computer Systems, Inc.
Load capacity per day: 15 million hits/day
CompuServe, Inc.
Load capacity per day: 10 million hits/day
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Load capacity per day: 6 million hits/day
PUBLIC SECTOR MIRROR SITES
NASA Ames Research Center
Moffet Field, CA
Load capacity per day: 5 million hits/day
National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, IL
Load capacity per day: 4 million hits/day
Cornell Theory Center
Cornell University, NY
Load capacity per day: 4 million hits/day
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR #1)
Boulder, CO
Load capacity per day: 4 million hits/day
San Diego Supercomputer Center
San Diego State University, CA
Load capacity per day: 4 million hits/day
NASA Kennedy Space Center
Cape Canaveral, FL
Load capacity per day: 2 million hits/day
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Pasadena, CA
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mpfmir
Load capacity per day: 1 million hits/day
National Center for Atmospheric Research
(NCAR #2) Boulder, CO
Load capacity per day: 1 million hits/day
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
University of Pittsburgh, PA
Load capacity per day: 750,000 hits/day
NASA Lewis Research Center
Dayton, OH
http://pathfinder.lerc.nasa.gov
Load capacity per day: 500,000 hits/day
The Catlin Gabel School
Portland, OR
Load capacity per day: 500,000 hits/day
INTERNATIONAL MIRROR SITES
National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA)
Tokyo, Japan
http://mars.tksc.nasda.go.jp/JPL
Load capacity per day: 2 million hits/day
Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES)
France http://www-mars.cnes.fr
Load capacity per day: 1 million hits/day
The Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research
Organization (CSIRO)
Sydney, Australia
http://sparkli.tip.csiro.au/mars/default.html
Load capacity per day: 1 million hits/day
Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex CDSCC - NASA/JPL)
Canberra, Australia
http://tid.cdscc.nasa.gov/mars
Load capacity per day: 500,000 hits/day
IKI (Institute for Space Science)
Moscow, Russia
http://www.iki.rssi.ru/jplmirror/mars
Load capacity per day: 250,000 hits/day
Mars Pathfinder is the second in NASA's Discovery program of low-cost spacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, manages the Mars Pathfinder mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
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