Keep an eye out for NASA’s new Mars announcement. The buzz here in Houston at a Space Exploration conference is that years of photo snaps by the recently-lost Mars Global Surveyor has picked up a gullywasher of a finding.

“Stay tuned,” advised NASA’s Colleen Hartman, Science Mission Directorate Deputy Associate Administrator. A new view of Mars is forthcoming, she said.

“One thing for sure…it just keeps refusing to read our textbooks,” Hartman explained.

Meanwhile, take note that a small study group led by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is looking at the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and its booster to mount a robotic Mars return sample mission. The modest study will run into the first quarter of next year.

Such an automated mission could shake out spaceship hardware and landing techniques useful for a future human trek to the red planet.