The collaborative information portal and NASA´s Mars Rover mission

NASA Ames Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory jointly developed the collaborative information portal for NASA´s Mars exploration rover mission. Mission managers, engineers, scientists, and researchers used this Internet-based enterprise software application to view current staffing and event schedules, download data and image files generated by the rovers, send and receive broadcast messages, and get accurate times in various Mars and Earth time zones. This article describes the application´s features, architecture, and implementation, and conveys the lessons learned from its deployment.