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Public will Have Internet View of Mars Pathfinder Activities

PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION 
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011 
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Contact: Diane Ainsworth

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                           June 24, 1997

PUBLIC WILL HAVE INTERNET VIEW OF PATHFINDER ACTIVITIES

     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 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.
http://mars.sgi.com
Load capacity per day: 15 million hits/day 

CompuServe, Inc.
http://mars.compuserve.com
Load capacity per day: 10 million hits/day 

Sun Microsystems, Inc.
http://www.sun.com/mars
Load capacity per day: 6 million hits/day

PUBLIC SECTOR MIRROR SITES
NASA Ames Research Center
Moffet Field, CA
http://mpfwww.arc.nasa.gov
Load capacity per day: 5 million hits/day 

National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA) 
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, IL 
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/mars
Load capacity per day: 4 million hits/day
 
Cornell Theory Center
Cornell University, NY
http://mars.tc.cornell.edu
Load capacity per day: 4 million hits/day

National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR #1) 
Boulder, CO 
http://www.mars.ucar.edu
Load capacity per day: 4 million hits/day 

San Diego Supercomputer Center
San Diego State University, CA
http://mars.sdsc.edu
Load capacity per day: 4 million hits/day 

NASA Kennedy Space Center
Cape Canaveral, FL
http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/mars
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 
http://mars.nlanr.net
Load capacity per day: 1 million hits/day 

Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
University of Pittsburgh, PA
http://www.psc.edu/Mars
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
http://mars.catlin.edu
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
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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