Maestro (software) was a free program released by NASA to allow users to view photos and daily progress of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. It served as an activity planner for Mars that utilized a combination of 2D and 3D visuals to track the movement and missions of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers in 2004. History The program was designed and built by the Maestro Robot Interface Laboratory at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2004. Maestro stands for Mission Adaptable Environment for Spacecraft, Test, and Real-time Operations. With the landings of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers in 2004, the program was developed to view their mission progress in a simulated environment. When the rovers landed, updates were available to download from the Maestro homepage. These updates included new pictures and terrain that could be simulated within the program. The program won NASA's Software of the Year award for 2004. The Maestro Robot Interface Laboratory is no longer considered an active facility at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Design The program renders the rover in a 3D environment. The program features the Jet Propulsion Laboratory testing facility, Spirit's landing site, or the Opportunity's landing site to explore. Data from the Spirit and Opportunity's landing site must be downloaded externally from the Maestro website and imported into the program. The program is written using the Java Eclipse Platform. Java Eclipse provides scientists with a way to obtain results without being bound to the console when coding and the ability to share information easily. This platform allows Maestro to be available for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. The program is simple enough to be navigated based on intuition and allow users to follow the rovers as they progress through their missions. The user interface is similar to a web browser and reduces all tasks to basic mouse movements and clicks. Functions The program interprets data to display and manipulate images collected by the different sets of cameras placed on the rover. It also gives data collected by the tools attached to the rovers arm. Hazard Avoidance and Navigation Cameras The front hazard camera displays the frontal view of the rover and prevents the rover from running into any unexpected objects on missions. The navigation cameras work in conjunction with the hazard avoidance cameras to scan the terrain and environment around the rover. Panoramic Camera An azimuthal equidistant projection is created by the navigation and