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Wednesday, February 26, 2003 First Mars Rover Arrives in Cape Canaveral Drawing of a Mars Exploration Rover. Credit: NASA/Reuters The first Mars Exploration Rover arrived in Cape Canaveral today in preparation for its launch May 30th by a Delta II rocket. The two Mars Exploration Rovers are the most ambitious landing project yet by NASA. The recent discoveries of potential liquid water on Mars as well as the recent mapping of subsurface ice have also sparked a high level of interest and anticipation for this mission. Unfortunately, the rovers' solar cells will only give the rovers enough energy to operate in the summertime...and they are expected to be degraded too much by next summer to be of use. This is one of the many drawbacks of using solar energy instead of nuclear, as many experts continually point out. The RC team will be travelling to Cape Canaveral to witness one of the launches, barring weather delays. (More info: ABCNEWS.com, SpaceDaily) @ 16:19 EST